Did Trump really rescue Venezuela?

Four months after U.S. Special Forces abducted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a covert operation, Tom Phillips of The Guardian returns to Caracas to find a country in limbo—celebrating the end of a brutal dictatorship while grappling with a new, deeply ambiguous reality. Though political prisoners have been released and streets are alive with protest, the power vacuum has been filled not by democracy, but by Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who now governs with Donald Trump’s tacit approval. The U.S. has swiftly reestablished direct flights, oil exports to America are surging, and American officials now occupy the Marriott Hotel in Caracas as de facto envoys. Yet ordinary Venezuelans still face crushing poverty: schools without electricity, teachers earning 25 cents every two weeks, and over 500 political prisoners remaining behind bars. The so-called 'new dawn' is a carefully curated illusion—festivals staged for TV with empty crowds, propaganda slogans painted on walls, and a government that claims stability while avoiding elections. As Trump pushes to turn Venezuela into a strategic asset, the real beneficiaries aren’t the people—but oil tycoons, foreign billionaires, and the U.S. administration seeking a foreign policy win. The promise of democracy remains unfulfilled, and the future hangs on a fragile, surreal alliance between a former dictator’s deputy and a U.S. president whose motives are as much about resource control as liberation.