The Showdown of the Desperate: When a Cartel State Meets a Narcissist

The USS Gravely, the USS Jason Dunham and the USS Sampson - three Aegis destroyers of the US Navy - plow through the Caribbean, accompanied by submarines and fighter jets. In Caracas, meanwhile, hundreds crowd in front of the Miraflores presidential palace to fill out forms for the Bolivarian militia. Women with shopping bags, old men with trembling hands, clerks in gray business suits - they all follow Maduro’s call to arm themselves against the “imperialist threat.” It is a spectacle of madness on both sides of the Caribbean Sea.

Donald Trump doubles the bounty on Nicolás Maduro to 50 million dollars - a sum that sounds more like Wild West romance than 21st century diplomacy. Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the White House, repeats like a mantra that the US will “do everything in its power” to crush drug trafficking from Venezuela. But what Trump is staging here is not only morally questionable, but simply illegal. According to Article 2 of the UN Charter, the sovereignty of a state is inviolable. Military interventions are only permitted with a mandate from the UN Security Council or in the case of immediate self-defense. Venezuela does not threaten the US. Trump has no right to invade - no matter how often he calls Maduro a “cartel leader.” The irony is this: Trump, the man who himself was convicted 34 times for falsifying business records, who denied his election defeat and incited a mob to storm the Capitol, poses as a moral authority. A convicted criminal threatening a suspected drug lord with warships - it is the grotesque of a world order that has lost every compass.

The Maduro system: a state as a family business

Maduro’s regime is not an invention of Washington but brutal reality. His wife Cilia Flores, who calls herself “Primera Combatiente,” controls key positions of power as former president of parliament. Her nephews are in American prisons - sentenced to 18 years in prison for cocaine smuggling. Son Nicolás Maduro Guerra, affectionately called “Nicolasito,” has his hands in the state oil sector and in the gold mines of the Amazon. It is a family business disguised as a revolution.

The “Cartel de los Soles” - named after the sun insignia of the generals - is the real backbone of power. International investigators have documented how Venezuelan gold is laundered through shell companies in Dubai, Istanbul and Tehran. Cocaine is shipped by the ton via routes controlled by the military to Europe and North America. According to UN reports, the intelligence service SEBIN systematically tortures, and the FAES special forces executed at least 6,856 people extrajudicially between 2018 and 2019. This is no longer a failed state, it is a criminal syndicate with a UN seat.

But the population plays along. When Maduro calls for mobilization, they actually come. Not out of conviction, but out of calculation. Those who register may secure a CLAP food package, a job in the bloated state apparatus, or simply the guarantee of not being marked as a “traitor.” At the Military History Museum, new recruits are shown an exhibition about the blockade of Venezuelan ports in the early 20th century, followed by parades of machine guns, grenade launchers, rocket-propelled grenades. The message is clear: We are at war, and those who do not join are the enemy. Maduro speaks of 4.5 million militiamen he wants to mobilize. The International Institute for Strategic Studies counted just 343,000 in 2020. But numbers do not matter. It is about the images: lines of volunteers, waving flags, a president invoking the “sacred oath to Chávez.” It is theater, but theater with real weapons and real dead.

Trump’s violation of international law as a stage set

What Trump is staging is no less grotesque. The “Responsibility to Protect,” to which some proponents of intervention refer, requires a UN mandate. The United States does not have that. Even the accusation of drug trafficking - however justified - gives no right under international law to military intervention. Prosecution of heads of state is the task of international courts, not unilateral gunboat policy.

Trump knows this. His advisers know this. Nevertheless, they send destroyers, raise bounties, classify Venezuelan groups like Tren de Aragua as terrorist organizations. It is the same arrogance that led to the Iraq war in 2003 - a “preventive” aggression that left hundreds of thousands dead and a destroyed country. Libya, Syria, Afghanistan - the list of American interventions that ended in chaos is long. And now Venezuela? The double standards are breathtaking. While Washington extends Chevron’s license to extract oil in Venezuela - business must go on, after all - it threatens invasion at the same time. They exchange prisoners, negotiate behind closed doors, and in parallel send the Navy. It is the schizophrenia of a foreign policy that oscillates between business interests and great power fantasies.

The people caught between all fronts

For the Venezuelan opposition, Trump’s saber-rattling is a double-edged sword. María Corina Machado, for years the symbol of resistance, thanks Trump “deeply” for the bounty. From safe exile it is easy to cheer escalation. But in the country itself the feelings are mixed. Too often they have seen foreign promises evaporate. The failed “humanitarian aid” at the Colombian border in 2019, the coup attempt with Juan Guaidó, Operation Gideon in 2020 - all ended in fiasco. “We no longer have the strength for expectations,” says a woman at the market in Petare, Caracas’s largest slum. She has been standing in line since four in the morning for subsidized cornmeal. Trump’s warships are as distant for her as the moon. What matters is the daily struggle for survival: Where do I get medicine? When will the power come back? How do I feed my children? This silent majority is the real tragedy of Venezuela. They do not march for Maduro, but not against him either. They have learned to simulate normality in a state of emergency. While the generals above profit from the cocaine trade and the militias parade below, they simply try to survive. Hyperinflation has destroyed their savings, emigration has torn their families apart - more than seven million Venezuelans have left the country. Those who remain do not stay out of conviction, but out of lack of alternatives.

International entanglement

Venezuela is no longer a sovereign nation, but a pawn of global interests. Russia supplies weapons and Wagner mercenaries, Turkey buys illegally mined gold, Iran exchanges oil for technology, Cuba sends intelligence officers who perfected the surveillance system. Everyone takes their share while the country bleeds out. The European Union imposes sanctions and at the same time, as our latest research has shown, buys Venezuelan oil through intermediaries. China has granted billions in loans and is being repaid in oil - at rock-bottom prices. It is a global theater of corruption where everyone talks about human rights while doing business with criminals.

In the Miraflores presidential palace, paranoia has become the system. “There are many cowards who do not dare to tell me what they think to my face,” Maduro rages in front of assembled generals. He sees traitors everywhere, doubts the loyalty of his own cadres. The constant rotation of ministers and military officers is not a sign of strength, but of weakness. Those who become too powerful are removed. Those who become too rich are dangerous. It is the logic of every mafia: Trust no one, control everything.

The militarization of hopelessness

The images from Caracas are disturbing: old men barely able to hold their forms sign up for the militia. Mothers with infants in their arms swear the oath to Chávez. It is not enthusiasm, it is resignation. People take part because the alternative seems even worse. In a country where the minimum wage is the equivalent of 3 dollars a month, every state handout is vital for survival.

Propaganda is running at full throttle. On state television, the American warships are shown in endless loop, accompanied by dramatic music. Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López speaks of an “invented narrative to justify aggression.” Foreign Minister Yván Gil warns of a threat to the entire region. These are the same phrases, repeated so often that they sound hollow even to regime supporters.

But the mobilization has a system. Everyone who registers is recorded, categorized, controlled. The militia is not only a military reserve, but a social control instrument. Those who join receive privileges. Those who are missing are marked. It is the perfidious logic of totalitarian systems: Make everyone an accomplice, then there are no innocents left.

The price of escalation

What both sides conceal is the price the Venezuelan people pay. Every threat from Trump strengthens Maduro’s position. Every mobilization by Maduro justifies Trump’s aggression. It is a vicious circle in which both sides win - only Venezuela loses. The economy, already on the ground, collapses further. International investors flee, oil production falls, infrastructure crumbles. Hospitals without medicine, schools without teachers, factories without electricity - this is the reality beyond the grand gestures. While Maduro fantasizes about four million combat-ready militiamen, children die of curable diseases. While Trump announces million-dollar rewards, people starve in one of the once richest countries in Latin America. The figures are shocking: 82% of the population live in poverty, 7.2 million people depend on humanitarian aid, the murder rate is among the highest in the world. But these statistics are not mentioned in Washington or Caracas. They do not fit into the narrative of heroic resistance or democratic liberation.

Global hypocrisy

The international community looks on and pretends concern. The UN passes resolutions that no one implements. The Organization of American States debates endlessly without acting. The International Criminal Court investigates at a snail’s pace. Everyone knows what is happening in Venezuela, no one does anything about it. Germany no longer sells weapons to Venezuela, but German companies continue to do business through third countries. Spain freezes accounts, but Spanish companies profit from the sell-off of Venezuelan assets. Switzerland blocks assets, but Swiss commodity traders profit from gold from the Amazon. It is the double standard of a world order that preaches morality and makes deals. Even Latin American neighbors are divided. Colombia and Brazil take in millions of refugees, criticize Maduro, but shy away from confrontation. Mexico and Argentina vacillate between principles and pragmatism. Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia support the regime, benefit from cheap oil. It is a continent torn between solidarity and self-interest.

The end of illusions

What is happening in Venezuela is more than a bilateral crisis between Washington and Caracas. It is the collapse of a society, orchestrated from within and accelerated from outside. Maduro has taken the country hostage, Trump treats it like a shooting range. Both men need each other: Maduro needs the external enemy to distract from internal failure. Trump needs the rogue state to demonstrate foreign policy strength. The Venezuelan people have long since stopped believing in salvation. Not in Maduro, who has lied to them for years. Not in Trump, who sees them as collateral damage in his power games. Not in the opposition, which makes grand speeches from Miami but offers no solutions. They have understood that they are alone in this game of the powerful.

On the streets of Caracas, there is an eerie normality. The markets are full, people go to work, as far as there is still work. They have learned to live with the madness. The warships off the coast are no more threatening than the daily violence, the militias no more frightening than the colectivos that have been terrorizing neighborhoods for years. It is this numbness that may be the most tragic. A people that is no longer outraged, no longer hopes, no longer fights. A people watching as two men play with their fate, knowing they will lose anyway. The lines in front of the recruitment offices grow longer, but the faces remain empty. People sign, march, survive. That is all that is possible in Venezuela in 2025.

The outlook: nothing

In the end, little will change. The American destroyers will eventually withdraw or be replaced by others. Maduro will continue to govern or be replaced by a similar autocrat. The generals will continue to profit from drug trafficking, the politicians will continue to plunder the country, the people will continue to suffer. Perhaps there will be a deal. The US gets its oil, Maduro gets guarantees, everyone washes their hands in innocence. Or there will be an escalation, a “limited” military strike that makes everything worse. Or it will just go on like this, for years, decades, until Venezuela is only a footnote in history books. What is certain: Both men, Trump and Maduro, will not lose this game. They have nothing to lose that they have not already lost - Trump his credibility, Maduro his legitimacy. They will carry on because power is their only currency. And Venezuela? Venezuela is already lost. Not to Trump, not to Maduro, but to the indifference of a world that watches and remains silent.

The real tragedy is not that two narcissists fight for power. The real tragedy is that an entire people perishes in the process, and no one really cares. The lines in front of the militia offices grow longer, the warships come closer, and Venezuela quietly dies away. It is the showdown of the desperate, where there are only losers - except those who have always profited from chaos.

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