Venezuela: 100 Days as a Vassal State
On January 3rd of this year, the United States bombed the Venezuelan capital Caracas and abducted State President Nicolás Maduro as well as his wife and former President of the Venezuelan National Assembly, Cilia Flores. We have written about the raid and a comprehensive analysis of Chavism and Venezuelan history in detail here.
Some days and weeks after the raid, international law theologians of various stripes fought over the claim that this raid was illegal and therefore wrong. That this mattered little to the United States, where international jurisprudence is simply not relevant to something standing above the law, surprised us only slightly. One hundred days have now passed since the raid, and Venezuela has become quite quiet; Maduro and Flores still sit in the “Metropolitan Detention Center” prison in Brooklyn, New York, and the far-right Venezuelan exile opposition around María Corina Machado appears to have been sidelined by their American patron.
For the United States, it now revolves around Delcy Rodríguez, the former Maduro confidante, Vice President and current interim president, with whom the US administration would according to Trump cooperate “quite wonderfully”[1]. Rodríguez’s role during the coup itself remains opaque; the Guardian reports from multiple sources “at high levels” who testified to them that Rodríguez and her equally powerful brother Jorge Rodríguez (Chairman of the National Assembly) had advance knowledge of the US invasion and had promised the United States cooperation.[2] Trump’s claims of the same kind were previously denied by the Venezuelan interim government.[3]
With the speed and absolute lack of resistance with which Rodríguez implements US dictates, a longer co-optation of her (and her circle) into the United States’ plans for Venezuela does not seem unlikely. On April 2nd, the United States lifted sanctions against Rodríguez. However, Venezuela’s de facto capitulation to the United States represents factually no break in the development that was already underway for the Maduro state.
Leftists who only follow Venezuela superficially believe they can draw a clear line of separation between Maduro and Rodríguez, just as one could draw a line between Chávez and Maduro – this is wrong. Maduro’s neoliberal policies, the criminalization of workers and the poor, and the massive dismantling of worker participation, grassroots democracy, and the social missions (which were not ‘wrong’ in themselves, but rather emerged from the contradictions of Chavismo) already led to those concessions to US capital that Rodríguez is now pushing through much faster and with a knife to the throat.
As we made clear in our article “Venezuela, Scorched Dragon,” the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela was never a socialist state and never claimed to be one. Chavism as an ideology was, in its good times and bad, always an internationalist social democracy in its own understanding, founded on Venezuela’s oil rents. That Chavism has failed is closely tied to US sabotage, but is ultimately also a consequence of a deeply contradictory system. In our article we conclude:
Here lies the unresolved fundamental contradiction of Chavism: the attempt to establish a progressive political superstructure (grassroots democracy, Missions, anti-imperialism) on a rentier-capitalist economic base, without ever transforming that base. The economy remained a rentier state, focused on the distribution of oil rents, not on the revolutionization of production. Given the abundance of petrodollars, it made sense from the perspective of the Bolivarian state to import the majority of food and consumer goods. This worked well during the oil boom; however, after the global overproduction crisis of 2008 and the subsequent fall in oil prices, Venezuela found itself without significant petrodollar reserves, foreign currency, or dollar holdings. The PDVSA infrastructure itself increasingly deteriorated, facilitated by mismanagement, corruption, and underinvestment in favor of social spending that kept Chavism in power. Other economic sectors remained underdeveloped: petrodollars flowed either back into the oil industry, into the hands of the Boliburguesía, or into massive social programs that lifted millions out of poverty but were themselves often inefficiently structured.
Colonial Project
Rodríguez’s concessions to the US patron manifest themselves in the radically rapid opening of the oil and gas sector, aimed at attracting massive foreign capital through far-reaching privatizations. The legal basis for this is the reformed Hydrocarbons Law Amendment, which enables private companies to take operational control in state-private joint ventures (“Mixed Companies”), to market crude oil independently, and to maintain bank accounts in foreign currency abroad.
To ensure profitability for international investors, state royalties and taxes were capped at 30 percent and 15 percent respectively, with the government providing for further reductions depending on the project. Rodríguez underscored this willingness to cooperate at an “investment forum” in Miami, where she indicated a negotiating margin of 64 percent of the barrel price.[4] Concretely: Venezuelan oil is being pawned off at knockdown prices to somehow get capital into the country.
As a result, corporations like Chevron face the prospect of receiving extraction rights for the Ayacucho-8 field, while Shell has already signed preliminary contracts for the Carito and Pirital fields. Chevron expects a 50% increase in Venezuelan oil output within two years.[5] This resource fire sale is complemented by a deal brokered by the Trump administration, in which 1,000 kilograms of gold were sold to US markets via trader Trafigura. In March, Venezuelan oil exports exceeded one million barrels per day for the first time in six months.[6]
The extent of American tutelage is completely unmasked and in its brazenness almost absurd (a development observable more broadly in US imperialism): the funds from the first US oil purchase of 500 million US dollars flowed directly into a US bank account in Qatar, whose release for government services is decided solely by Washington at its own discretion.[7] The United States thus buys oil from Venezuela, transfers the purchase price to an account controlled by them, and decides from there what Venezuela may use its money for. Well, perhaps the United States will use Venezuelan oil money to restore the comunas from Chávez’s time in their full flourishing to empower workers and the poor in self-governance over their communities—who knows?
This colonial relationship is flanked by massive intelligence infiltration, with the CIA building a permanent presence in the country (presumably via a disguised annex) to monitor the new government and deliberately curtail the geopolitical influence of US rivals such as China, Russia, and Iran. To enforce those CIA dictates, Rodríguez promises a complete turnaround by promising an “de-ideologization” of the economy. This emerges from reports by CIA-affiliated sources to CNN:
“State plants the flag but CIA is really the influence,” one source familiar with the planning process told CNN […] The CIA will likely be responsible for briefing Venezuelan officials on relevant US intelligence related to those adversaries, including China, Russia and Iran, according to another source familiar with ongoing planning discussions.[8]
On the legal level, the loss of sovereignty manifests itself in the official diplomatic recognition of the Rodríguez government by the US State Department. The recognition of Rodríguez as president provides the US prosecution with the formally necessary contact to enforce million-dollar compensation judgments from US creditors through the seizure of Venezuelan state assets Citgo in the United States.[9]
Social Climate
Unlike in 2002, when the United States last attempted to overthrow the Chavista government in similarly drastic fashion, this time there was no popular uprising for the president’s return. While there have been and continue to be regular demonstrations of varying sizes protesting for the return of Maduro and Flores[10], daily life for most has remained largely unchanged since the abduction.
The imperialist raid dampens its internal resistance through the relative discontent that already prevailed in Venezuela beforehand, or the general resignation before the Chavista project. The 2002 coup failed because the absolute masses of workers and poor in Venezuela actually experienced material benefits from Chávez’s government and thus identified with the Chavista project—in the Maduro era and the crushing external sabotage, this identification is lacking.
The Venezuelan “Boliburguesía,” as the bourgeoisie bound closely to the Bolivarian cause through state subsidies and corruption is called, saw no reason to oppose American intervention, since their returns will look even better with an opening of the oil market. And to emphasize this once more: the fire sale of the oil market, the suspension of state sovereignty over Venezuelan resources, and ultimately the elimination of the last remaining progressive parts of the 1999 Constitution were all already underway under Maduro. The failure of “negotiations” between the United States and Venezuela in December, which among other things concerned that opening of the oil market, was precisely the reason for the invasion.
The crushing hyperinflation was reduced to 14.6 percent (from 32.6% the previous month) in February through the return of oil dollars and the associated stabilization of the Bolívar.[11] Rodríguez attempts to appease the social base through the convening of a National Economic Council, wage increases on May 1st, and the release of around 500,000 housing units specifically for youth (whom she explicitly called to return from abroad).[12] Rodríguez attempts to dress up the fire sale of Venezuela’s resources for the still numerically remaining Chavistas (in 2025 about 30% still identified as such[13]) in familiar rhetoric. Thus she speaks of Venezuelans never being “slaves” again and a “colony of any imperialism”[14]; reality shows an absolute subordination to a vassalage that seems brazen even by American standards.
And of course, it is quite likely that problems of inflation and return scarcity will actually improve through an opening of the oil market, since with it the American stranglehold on Venezuela will also be loosened. Franck Gaudichaud, professor of Latin American studies at the University of Toulouse in France, says in an interview with Viento Sur (here translated by Amerika21):
“Are there still areas of the civil-military apparatus that remain anchored in this national-popular perspective and are ready to offer resistance? Chavism from below, the critical left, trade unions, and social movements are considerably weakened, some demoralized, others co-opted. Nevertheless, the memory of original Chavism persists, and in many rural areas some collective community projects still exist. However, it seems that a not insignificant part of the population resignedly assumes that this new crisis could loosen the stranglehold on the country and enable the inflow of US capital, which could result in economic upswing or even the return of millions of exiles.”[15]
How well Rodriguez’s plan works to sell vassal rule as something good to both Chavistas and anti-Chavistas is demonstrated by the early April demonstrations, in which several thousand protesters marched for increases in the minimum wage, pensions, and social benefits.[16]
This must also be named: Rodríguez represents nothing for anyone. From a Chavista perspective, her fire sale of state resources, which is ultimately tied to a neoliberal state restructuring through US tutelage, clears away the last achievements of the Chavista project that had survived the Maduro era, and finally gives the future US-networked Bolibourgeoisie the last word. The anti-imperialist state understanding that had still maintained itself through the Maduro era is finished with the intelligence-prescribed tone toward the United States’ rivals. From the perspective of liberal opponents, Rodríguez represents the continuity of the Maduro state, which conducts its business differently now but ultimately remains unchanged internally. The irony for the latter shows, as so often, that the “regime change” calls of the exile opposition will not empower those opponents this time either. The Shah sends his regards.
[1] https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/article69b3c86d28b7770e637eb462/kaempferischer-auftritt-jetzt-will-nobelpreistraegerin-machado-sich-nicht-mehr-von-trump-kaltstellen-lassen.html
[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/22/delcy-rodriguez-capture-maduro-venezuela
[3] https://x.com/AlMomento_M/status/2014392997291454718?s=20
[4] https://apnews.com/article/venezuela-oil-delcy-rodriguez-investors-trump-maduro-4f3b38841ca46910e35cf3208b312977
[5] https://foreignpolicy.com/2026/04/10/venezuela-us-intervention-maduro-trump-oil-rodriguez-machado/
[6] https://finance.yahoo.com/sectors/energy/articles/venezuela-oil-exports-top-1-063000568.html
[7] https://bisi.org.uk/reports/domestic-implications-for-venezuela-whats-next-post-maduro
[8] https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/27/politics/cia-venezuela-foothold
[9] https://amerika21.de/analyse/284402/warum-regierung-venezuela-anerkannt-usa
[10] https://amerika21.de/2026/01/281980/venezuela-demo-maduro-militaer-ernennung
[11] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuelan-inflation-146-february-central-bank-says-2026-03-06/#:~:text=March%206%20(Reuters)%20%2D%20Venezuelan,based%20on%20central%20bank%20figures.
[12] https://www.telesurenglish.net/venezuela-social-policy-salary-increase/
[13] https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article312255968.html
[14] https://countercurrents.org/2026/01/we-will-never-again-be-slaves-speech-by-venezuelas-vice-president-delcy-rodriguez/
[15] https://amerika21.de/analyse/283239/usa-bolibourgeoisie-venezuela
[16] https://de.euronews.com/2026/04/10/venezuela-polizei-mindestlohn-proteste-hohere-lohne
