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Comment by anigbrowl | Hacker News Reader

And in turn are being threatened by the US: https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/01/trump-...

I find it notable that the administration has dismissed the idea of supporting Maria Machado on hte grounds taht she 'has no support' when the extent of her support is why led the Maduro government to ban her from running for election in 2024.

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She has no support amongst the military government which currently runs Venezuela, and having pulled off the "we are very strong" manoeuvre the US is unlikely to have any further interest in Venezuela beyond getting paid off by them.

I suspect key actors in the Venezuelan administration and military also don't have much support for Maduro (the US must have had some reason to believe they could pull this operation off with extremely low risk of downed helicopters and surrounded special forces), but acting like they do avoids all sorts of awkward schisms whilst keeping oil flowing to the right people.

If Maduro's election shenanigans (like banning her from running) are part of the justification for his kidnapping, then we're taking on some responsibility to remove the whole regime, not just the guy. If we're just jockeying for regional power, then the justification lacks foundation and is straight up crime on the part of the US.

It is straight up crime no matter the justification

There is not much doubt that this was a crime. The question is what will be done about it and the answer is 'probably nothing'. Every time there is a holiday, a long weekend or some other period when congress and/or the senate are not in session Trump pulls some stunt. That's a well established pattern by now, be it the demolition of the Whitehouse, bombing some foreign country or now kidnapping a head of state.

This post arrest/kidnap period could be messy. It might be beneficial for Machado that the outgoing government bears the brunt of that so she can come in later looking like more of a savior instead of a foreign puppet.

My bet is that it's like the Bin Laden hit: internal support for the coup in exchange for control. Last time they did it for a government it didn't work that well for the country.

> I find it notable that the administration has dismissed the idea of supporting Maria Machado on hte grounds taht she 'has no support' when the extent of her support is why led the Maduro government to ban her from running for election in 2024.

Article is paywalled so couldn't read it.

The Trump admin likely wants someone more loyal and willing to cooperate with what the oil companies want to do to develop the oil reserves including ignoring environmental issues (rubber stamp).

Maria may have her own ties to China/Russia and half of the justification for this action was to push them out of the country.

Not just oil but minerals too, like rare earths

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...

The administration wants to enrich its friends by stealing this nation’s resources

> Article is paywalled so couldn't read it.

You can pay for it.

Her support came from her opposition to Maduro, she doesn’t have much direct support.

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