What Are Implications of Capture of Maduro?

Early on Saturday morning, U.S. law enforcement officers accompanied by military personnel captured Nicolas Maduro, the fake leader of Venezuela, and his wife. The operation involved 150 airplanes and who knows how many personnel, and it lasted less than three hours. The two captives are now in U.S. custody and appeared in federal court in New York on Monday.

The operation took place because Maduro thought he was safe. Trump and his team proved Maduro wrong. In an article published at The Daily Signal, Virginia Allen described the implications of the capture. 

The leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, is now in U.S. custody and appeared in federal court in New York on Monday, two days after the U.S. military captured him. The operation that ousted him will have deep and lasting implications not only for Venezuela, but also nations that aligned themselves with Maduro’s regime, according to policy experts.

Maduro’s arrest is a “disaster” for the “Axis of Evil, these kinds of hostile, anti-American countries,” according to Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, and the vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.

Cuba, China, Iran, and Russia stand to lose the most form Maduro’s capture, Coates and other foreign policy experts said.

China

The capture of Maduro has shattered “China’s dream” of dominating the “purchase of Venezuelan oil over the next 10 to 20 years,” explains Michael Pillsbury, author of “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.”

China had offered to further develop and update Venezuela’s oil infrastructure to “then pump most of it … for themselves,” Pillsbury said.

Now, U.S. companies are expected to enter Venezuela to further develop the nation’s oil infrastructure, leaving China dependent on the U.S. to continue the flow of oil out of Venezuela to the Chinese Communist Party….

“Venezuela was essentially China’s proxy in Latin America, and now that relationship is gone,” [Gordon G.] Chang told The Daily Signal….

Cuba

Cuba and Venezuelan leaders built a relationship between the two nations over decades, starting with Hugo Chavez, who came to power in Venezuela in 1999. Fidel Castro, the former dictatorial leader of Cuba, once referred to Chavez as Cuba’s “best friend.”

Venezuela and Cuba have remained close both politically and economically under the Maduro regime, according to Andres Martinez-Fernandez, senior policy analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation.

“Venezuela has been the main artery for the inflow of financing to Cuba in the form of oil, primarily, and that has enabled Cuba to weather a dramatic economic crisis, long-standing economic crisis, and social unrest,” Martinez-Fernandez told The Daily Signal.

With Venezuelan oil expected to stop flowing to Cuba now that Maduro is no longer running the South American country, Cuba’s future is in “limbo,” the Heritage analyst says….

 

 

Russia

While Cuba is expected to experience an economic blow form Maduro’s arrest, Russia stands to lose a strategic partner that is geographically close to the U.S.

Russia’s interest in Venezuela is linked to its relationship with Cuba, according to Heritage’s Coates.

“From a Russian standpoint, if you lose the communist regime in Cuba … you’re losing your major strategic foothold … so close to the United States, and that’s a huge problem for them,” Coates says of Russia.

Iran

Maduro’s arrest serves as a severe warning to the Iranian regime, according to Coates.

Major protests are currently taking place in Iran, driven largely by a water crisis. The protests are also occurring six months after the U.S. bombed three of Iran’s key nuclear sites, weakening the regime’s power position on the world stage.

Trump has spoken out in support of the Iranian protesters, who “may well be emboldened both by what they’re hearing out of President Trump … and what he just did to Maduro in Venezuela,” Coates said….

Democrats and other left-leaning politicians and citizens are claiming that Trump acted without authorization. However, it is the same Article II power that former President Barack Obama used to kill Osama Bin Laden. Nevertheless, the White House scheduled a briefing for Monday evening with congressional leaders.

According to George Caldwell at The Daily Signal, those expected to report at the briefing are Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Dan Caine, Central Intelligence Agency Director John Ratcliffe, and Attorney General Pam Bondi. 

The briefing would “include top lawmakers on the House and Senate Armed Services, Senate Foreign Relations and House Foreign Affairs panels, as well as the “Gang of Eight,’ the bipartisan party leaders from both chambers and top members of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.”