While the Trump administration promotes investment in a post-Maduro Venezuela, major oil companies like ExxonMobil are publicly skeptical. Their stance that the country is "uninvestable" due to the absence of rule of law shows that political guarantees are insufficient without fundamental institutional reforms.

The Trump administration is depicted as ignoring Venezuela's legitimately elected opposition leader and instead choosing to work with the former vice president. This suggests a strategy prioritizing controllable stability with a regime figure over supporting a democratically elected but potentially less predictable leader.

The U.S. action in Venezuela should be viewed as 'regime alteration.' Unlike the failed Iraq strategy of dismantling a state, this was a targeted move to swap a leader aligned with China and Russia for one answerable to the U.S. It’s a pragmatic assertion of influence, not an idealistic attempt at democratization.

The U.S. strategy appears to be maintaining a weakened Chavista regime to ensure stability and access to oil, effectively turning Venezuela into a resource colony without genuine political change for its people.

The recent regime change in Venezuela is not a clean break; the acting president was Maduro's VP, and the existing Chavista structure remains. The US administration is prioritizing stability and oil development with this existing framework, creating uncertainty for bondholders. The path to a debt restructuring is now unclear, as it's unknown how quickly or fairly creditors will be prioritized in this new bilateral arrangement.

U.S. foreign policy actions against Venezuela and Iran are not primarily about democracy but are strategic moves to disrupt the flow of cheap, sanctioned oil to China. By controlling these sources, the U.S. can directly attack a key adversary's economic and military engine.

The US action to remove Maduro was not a traditional regime change. The goal was to eliminate the leader personally while leaving his party and government apparatus largely intact, suggesting a strategic choice to avoid the instability of a full power vacuum.

Unlike the 20th-century Monroe Doctrine focused on ideology (anti-fascism/communism), Trump's version is a throwback to a more aggressive, 19th-century style of foreign policy. It unapologetically prioritizes the direct control of economic resources, like Venezuelan oil, over promoting democracy or good governance.

Despite rhetoric supporting protesters in Iran and Venezuela, the Trump administration's actions suggest a preference for replacing existing leaders with more compliant strongmen. In Venezuela, this meant dealing with Maduro's VP, indicating a pragmatic focus on control and stability over messy, long-term nation-building.