The Current - Is regime change in Venezuela imminent?

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

Deadly boat strikes, U.S. warships in the Caribbean, and now President Donald Trump is threatening to stop Venezuelan narco-traffickers on land. As the pressure to oust President Nicolas Maduro mounts, we speak with Phil Gunson, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, in Caracas about the possible outcome of a forced regime change and what Venezuelans want.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Last month, a defiant president, Nicolas Maduro, spoke with Venezuelans at a rally in Caracas. We don't want a slave of the slaves' peace, nor do we want a piece of colonia. colonies, a colony never, slaves, never, freedom, republic, peace with dignity. His speech was delivered in response to a phone call he'd had with U.S. President Donald Trump. Since August, the Trump administration has sent fleets of warships to the region. It's launched deadly

missile attacks on boats off the coast of Venezuela, alleging those targeted are narco-traffickers transporting drugs to the United States. And last week, President Trump said military strikes on land targets could happen, in his words, very soon. Phil Gunson is a a senior analyst for the Andes region with the international crisis group. He is in Caracas. Phil, good morning. Good morning. How are you? I'm well, thanks. Life in Venezuela, as you well know, is hard. Something like, what, 70% of the population lives in extreme poverty. You wrote in the New York Times that as these strikes continue and as the tension builds up, life goes on. Describe that life. Yeah, well, as you say, I mean, this is a country which is unfortunately scarred by poverty. It's

in what the experts call a complex humanitarian emergency now for about a decade. And that's the reason why so many Venezuelans have had to leave, a roughly 8 million out of a population of somewhere in the region of 30 million. So, of course, most people devote most of their days to trying to put food on the table and look after their kids and so on. It's a very difficult situation for the vast majority. What is your sense as to how Venezuelans would react to U.S. intervention on the ground. These strikes off off the coast are one thing, but when Trump says that land attacks could happen very soon, how is that how is that being interpreted? We have to bear in mind that Trump has been saying for about the past six weeks

that, you know, that strikes on land would come soon. And every weekend, we, we have a flurry of rumors that now, yet it's going to happen, now it's imminent. And I think people have basically incorporated that into their daily routine, they realized that it's an attempt, at least so far, it's been an attempt to intimidate Maduro to try and persuade him to leave, to try and persuade the Venezuela military to overthrow him. And of course, it hasn't worked. And so the U.S. has been trying to find more and more creative ways of increasing the pressure to see if they can reach the point at which it would work. What do you make of Maduro's reaction? We heard a little bit of that speech. He last year lost the election, but stayed on as president,

what do you make of his response to what's been going on? Well, I think that Maduro, I mean, because it's difficult to know exactly because we can't talk directly to him or the immediate ruling circle, but from people who do, from indirect sources and from what we see in the public record, I think Maduro and the people around him came to the same conclusion that I did, which is that this is basically a bluff that Trump wants the Venezuelan military to do the job for him, and he's not prepared. to put, as the saying, goes, boots on the ground.

And so I think that they feel the people at the top, the people who are most at risk, that risky though it might be, and although you can't rule out some form of attack, that they're still safer here than they would be outside of Venezuela. And so it's not just bravado. There's some bravado and some posing for the cameras, of course, but it's also what they genuinely feel. The framing here matters because the Trump administration has framed Maduro as the leader of a national drug cartel.

No, not in those terms. I mean, there's a lot of cocaine goes through Venezuela. A lot of money from that flows into the pockets of some people, particularly in the military and some civilians as well. But I think the idea that there is this kind of all-encompassing cartel headed by Maduro, which is identical to the Venezuelan government and that is sending cocaine to the United States to kind of undermine Western civilization. All of this is a vast exaggeration, which is really intended to provide a pretext for intervention. And that intervention, many people believe,

could be regime change by force. You have said that that would be a mistake. I mean, there are any number of reasons why one might say that, but what would alarm you the most about that? Well, you know, Venezuelans want change, and they showed that last year in the presidential election, which, of course, Maduro ended up stealing. the opposition candidate

Mwanda Gonzalez won by a mile but he's now in exile. So there's no doubt that Venezuelans want change, but at the same time most of the people here in Venezuela don't want that change to be violent because they fear the same thing I fear, which is that an attempt to

split the military, an attempt to decapitate the government by whatever means, whether by snatching Maduro and taking him elsewhere or whatever, might lead to a very dangerous power vacuum. And it's not just the danger that the military might split and they might start fighting each other. But there are lots of non-state armed groups, including thousands of Colombian guerrillas here. And the danger is that

we would end up with protracted low-intensity warfare in this country. There was this recent call between Trump and Maduro. What do we know about that? Well, we've heard two very different versions. You know, a lot of people on the U.S. side, in the form of anonymous sources in the administration, have been telling us that Trump issued an ultimatum, that Maduro was told in no uncertain terms that he had to leave. Maduro, on the other hand, said it was a respectful and quite cordial conversation, and he looks forward to more. The truth may lie somewhere in the middle, but I think there wasn't an ultimatum as such, and in fact, the ultimatum that was supposedly given has already passed. So I think the idea there was an ultimatum is, again, part of the psychological

warfare that's going on. Is your sense that the Trump administration is looking for an off-ramp here? That you have the boats that are being bombed off the coast, you have talk that perhaps there could be something that happens on land, but that the administration is looking for a way to kind of step aside from this and say face? I think there are different voices within the administration, I think it's clear that Secretary of State Rubio, a long-time proponent of regime change, is still hoping that he can get Maduro out. The chances of that happening seem more and more remote. And I think, as far as one can tell, President Trump has been presented with the options and doesn't like any of them. I think that he realizes that there

is a danger of the United States getting dragged into yet another war of the kind that he has sworn to avoid. So, yes, I think Trump needs an off-ramp. I think Maduro needs an off-ramp, and if it was just the two of them, if they were the only ones in the conversation, then they may well be able to come to an agreement. But of course, that would be over the heads of the Venezuelan people. The Venezuelan opposition is not represented so far, at least, in this process. The opposition leader, Maria Carina Matrato, you wrote in the New York Times that she and her allies for years have tried to persuade outside powers, including the United States to intervene militarily. How much support does something like that have in Venezuela

among the people? Well, it's complicated because Maria Corrina Machiava herself has a good deal of support. I mean, she won primary before the presidential election of last year with over 90% of the vote. And she is a widely admired figure. She's very brave. She's very decisive. But the problem is, of course, that now that we're into this cycle of what appears to be an attempt to overthrow by violence, the government of Maduro, I think, you know, people are pulling back from that. It's very difficult because we don't really have public opinion polls here, at least not public opinion polls that we can see, you know, that are actually public. So it's hard to say. But I think that, again, you know, the support for a violent outcome is not.

as high as Marie Curina Machau would perhaps like to believe. She was interviewed recently on the Bloomberg podcast, the Michelle Hussens Show. Have a listen to this. We have in Venezuela the largest oil reserves, proven oil reserves in the world, the eighth reservoir of natural gas, huge potential in electricity, gold, critical minerals, and so on.

This can only be unleashed with a society, with a government that brings order to this chaos, that open markets, that brings rule of law that is friendly to international investment. Is she right? Is it Venezuela's oil reserves shaping the people who are jockeying for power inside and outside Venezuela? I don't think this current phase is particularly about oil, to be honest. And I think there are arguments on both, I mean, those who do want access, of course, the US oil majors are very keen to regain access, full access,

and productive access, if you like, to the largest all reserves in the world. But at the same time, there are those in the industry and other people, for example, looking at the future of Venezuela economically, who are nervous that what's going on right now might, at least in the short, to medium term be, you know, not be a positive outcome for the oil industry. It's certainly true that, you know, the Maduro and the governments, the governments of Chalismo since the beginning of the century have wrecked the oil industry. It's in a very bad shape. So getting rid of that regime would not be a bad idea in that sense. The problem is whether you can do it

peacefully and in such a way that the oil comes back on stream, you know, in a relatively short time. We just have a minute or so left. Go back to where we started, which is those people in Venezuela who are suffering, not the people who fled, but the people who remain. Where does all of this uncertainty leave them? In a very uncertain situation to be, to be redundant, the problem now is that, of course, this is, the longer it goes on, the worse it gets, we are in a very bad economic situation, which is worsened by sanctions. and by outside pressure, we're now cut off from the world by air. Foreign airlines are not flying in here. So I think the longer it goes on, the worse people will feel about it

and the less likely they are to support this strategy. Phil, thank you very much. Thank you. Phil Gunson is a senior analyst for the Andes region with the international crisis group. He was in Caracas. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1

at 838. am at all time zones. You can also listen online at cbc.ca.ca slash the current or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca.ca slash podcasts.