“What’s the Plan in Venezuela?”, The National Review
January 6, 2026
It seems like there isn’t one.
Having now listened to the latest episode of The Editors on President Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and extraction of Nicolás Maduro this weekend, I realize that I agree much more than I disagree with Noah Rothman on the attendant issues. Where I part company is on the question of whether “Operation Absolute Resolve” is a smashing strategic success. I see a lot of strategic downside and fear the operation, and especially the fallout, illustrates a lack of resolve: You can’t do regime change in Venezuela without military occupation, and the president has no intention of doing that (the fact that he’s got no authority to do it is also true, but apparently a trifling detail). Moreover, the invasion of a country with which we were at peace and the apprehension of its de facto leader for trial in our judicial system are likely to embolden the aggression of China, Russia, and other would-be imperialists.
President Donald Trump attends a press conference at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., December 22, 2025.(Jessica Koscielniak/Reuters)
Throughout the president’s lawless aggression in the Caribbean, beginning with the killings of suspected drug traffickers on the fiction that they are enemy combatants in an armed conflict, I’ve argued that the administration needs to seek congressional authorization. As a matter of constitutional law (and regardless of how the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has rationalized what I continue to believe were unlawful military strikes by Obama in Libya and Trump I in Syria), I believe the president is authorized to use force unilaterally only if our nation or its truly vital interests have been militarily attacked or truly threatened with military attack.
The Marxist Bolivarian regime inherited by Maduro after the death of Hugo Chávez has harmed vital American interests (as do sundry geopolitical rivals of the U.S.). Still, it has not threatened us or our interests with forcible attack. In that posture, it is certainly conceivable that there is a legitimate basis for authorizing the use of force; the further away we are from being militarily threatened, the more such authorization has to come from Congress in order to be constitutionally legitimate.
Otherwise, to take an example that is more obvious after this weekend, what authority does a president have to order a military attack on a foreign country that has not threatened us — and kill at least 80 people in the process — when the United States has made solemn treaty commitments (via the United Nations Charter) not to attack foreign countries except in self-defense? As I pointed out yesterday, the Constitution makes ratified treaties the supreme law of the land — part of the law every president is constitutionally required to execute faithfully.
But let’s assume I’m wrong about legality. Let’s pretend it’s unimportant that a nation such as ours, which undertakes to hold geopolitical rivals to their binding nonaggression obligations, honors our own. It was still imperative for Trump to go to Congress for prudential reasons: specifically, to ensure that any use of force against Venezuela had been thought through — i.e., that we had clear objectives, a rational plan for achieving them, and, critically, a well-considered strategy regarding what would happen next.
Well, the administration didn’t go to Congress, and, Trump being “go with my gut” Trump, it is emerging that the objectives were not clear. That means — despite the flawless execution of our military and intelligence services in extracting Señor and Señora Maduro — there necessarily is confusion about what we’re trying to accomplish (to say nothing of the little matter of constitutional authority for what comes next).
Was this regime change . . . except Trump doesn’t want to say “regime change” because, having campaigned against wars of choice to achieve regime change, his endorsement of the concept would cause mutiny in the MAGA base? Did the president invade because of his untenable insistencethat “our” land and oil were stolen by the Venezuelan regime (which sounds eerily like the way Vladimir Putin talks about Ukraine and Xi Jinping about Taiwan). Are we “running” Venezuela, as Trump says, or — as Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggests — just trying to squeeze reform and concessions out of Delcy Rodríguez (the next official up in the same Marxist regime) . . . the same way we tried (and failed) to squeeze Maduro?
One thing the invasion manifestly was not was a mere “law enforcement action,” despite the administration’s claims. We invaded a country that hadn’t threatened us, bombed its defense capabilities, captured its de facto leader, and whisked him away to face adversarial trial in our judicial system. These are acts of war. That’s how we would regard them if another nation even attempted to do it to us.
It is all well and good to say that Maduro is illegitimate because he stole elections, and the U.S. government does not recognize him. But let’s not overlook the fact that most of the actions in the indictment against Maduro took place prior to 2018 — i.e., during a time when our government (including the first Trump administration) recognized Maduro as Venezuela’s leader, had formal diplomatic relations with his regime, and was well aware of his facilitation of international narcotics trafficking. Has the current Trump administration really acted as if Maduro is illegitimate? To the contrary, it has negotiated with Maduro, as the head of state, on the acceptance of deportation flights, the release of detainees, and the reinstatement of Chevron’s license to produce oil in Venezuela, with limited financial benefits for Maduro’s regime.
And upon ousting Maduro, what did Trump do? He declined to try to install Edmundo González, the opposition figure who won the 2024 election — the election we’ve condemned Maduro as illegitimate for stealing. Instead, the Trump administration has paved the way for the elevation of Maduro’s vice president, the aforementioned Delcy Rodríguez, a high-ranking figure and Maduro ally in the same Marxist regime — and an especially committed and ruthless apparatchik, as Jim Geraghty’s thorough analysis of her record illustrates.
As I argued yesterday, none of this will be of any use to Maduro in the Justice Department’s prosecution against him. It seems ironic that Trump, who convinced the Supreme Court to adopt a doctrine of broad immunity for presidential acts, even those that arguably violate American criminal laws, has apprehended a foreign head of state and plans to try him for acts in that capacity (such as allegedly directing cocaine trafficking) that violated American criminal laws. It is simply a fact, however, that presidential immunity (whatever one thinks its breadth should be) is of a constitutional pedigree, rooted in separation-of-powers concerns; foreign sovereign immunity, by contrast, is statutory — and, as the Manuel Noriega precedent shows, quite limited when raised by an individual (not a country) in a criminal (not a civil) case. (As we’ve discussed, in 1989, President George H. W. Bush invaded Panama, apprehended its de facto leader, Noriega, and returned him for trial in the U.S. on narcotics charges, on which he was convicted and served a lengthy prison sentence.)
My point for present purposes is that there is no conceivable way of doing regime change without military occupation. If Trump had gone to Congress, the question of what happens the day after Maduro would have been taken head-on. Trump doesn’t like the idea of going to Congress because (a) he likes the counter-constitutional notion that he has sweeping unilateral power, and (b) he thinks going to Congress deprives him of operational secrecy and strategic surprise when dealing with foreign adversaries. Nevertheless, in our system, Congress has the primary war power, as well as significant authority over the purse and the rules for and sustenance of the armed forces. Our system does not give one official — even the president — authority to nullify Congress’s power because he subjectively prefers strategic surprise.
Had the president come to Congress to seek authorization to use military force against Venezuela’s ruling regime, the exercise would have clarified that he (like the public) has no appetite to occupy Venezuela, or for a full-scale war with Venezuelan forces loyal to the Marxist regime, which would be the necessary prelude to a long American occupation. A congressional debate would have elucidated that an occupation would be costly in blood and treasure, given that Venezuela is a big country, and that Marxist insurgent forces would be robustly backed by China and other anti-American regimes.
Consequently, the administration would have had to answer the tough question: Since the problem for us in Venezuela has not been Maduro but the regime that has ruled that country for over a quarter of a century, would it be worth using force to extract him — just for the spectacle of a criminal trial that may over a year away — when (1) we would be leaving the regime in place (indeed, in the hands of a rabidly anti-American official who may be at least as bad as Maduro); (2) we would be appearing to undercut the Venezuelan opposition by not supporting its claim as the legitimate winner of the last democratic election; and (3) we would be undermining our moral authority to combat Russian and Chinese aggression in Europe and East Asia, respectively?
And by the way, how is the inchoate, seat-of-the-pants plan to be implemented? Congress hasn’t authorized the immense military deployment in the Caribbean, which has diverted American assets from other global hotspots at a time when things are heating up again in the Middle East and the Asia Pacific. Congress has not authorized the U.S. attacks on suspected drug boats, the invasion of Venezuela, the ongoing partial blockade, and whatever else the administration anticipates in what Trump describes as “running” Venezuela. Nothing in the Constitution empowers a president to run a foreign country with which we are not at war. By what authority is this happening, and who is paying for it?
What’s the president’s plan? It’s not obvious that he has one. I don’t see how you restore deterrence by taking apparent ownership of (by leaving in place) the anti-American Marxist regime that was the supposed rationale for removing Maduro, while simultaneously encouraging China and Russia to believe they may be able to invade their neighbors with impunity.
ANDREW C. MCCARTHY is a senior fellow at National Review Institute, an NR contributing editor, and author of BALL OF COLLUSION: THE PLOT TO RIG AN ELECTION AND DESTROY A PRESIDENCY. @andrewcmccarthy