US President Donald Trump at an official event in the White House, February 23, 2026. Photo: Aaron Schwartz/CNP.
By William Serafino – Feb 25, 2026
Far from the image of total control, coherent, linear, and practically seamless action that an intense, visibly coordinated propaganda effort is trying to portray for Donald Trump’s management of the relationship with the Venezuelan government led by Delcy RodrĂguez, the post-military intervention bilateral scenario is proving to be much more complex and intricate for the US president than is often stated.
In this context, the ocean of difference with which the pronouncements of Trump and RodrĂguez are usually evaluated serves as empirical evidence of an attempt to delineate the approach to a critical and unprecedented juncture in favor of US interests, with the aim of imposing narratives instead of analyzing realities.
Thus, while whatever the US president says is taken as an undeniable fact, the explanations offered by the acting president of Venezuela regarding this atypical moment are relativized and minimized. The aim is to extend the White House’s narrative control over the situation as much as possible two months after the fateful military aggression.
The instrumental logic of praise
Although Trump’s continuous praise of RodrĂguez has prompted various interpretations, almost no one doubts its use as an openly instrumental resource with multiple objectives. Among these, to portray the Venezuelan government as a docile and subordinate entity, introducing tension and fabricated suspicions within the country’s political high command.
However, this declarative calculation does not end there, as Trump is also strongly conditioned by significant perturbance in the US political scenario after January 3. A few days after the bombs of Operation Absolute Resolve fell on Caracas and other cities, 70 Democratic Congressmembers questioned the US president for dismissing “the pro-democratic leadership of the legitimate elected president, Edmundo González, and the opposition leader, Nobel Peace Prize winner MarĂa Corina Machado.”
The Democratic Party’s selective alignment with Machado has forced Trump to trench himself in. In a context where he is on the defensive, losing consecutive battles in the tariff and immigration fields, with the Supreme Court ruling against his global trade war agenda and ICE withdrawing from Minnesota, all while Republican voting intentions continue to fall worryingly ahead of this year’s midterms, Trump cannot afford to give in and show weakness to the Democratic Party.
In this situation, Trump’s praise for RodrĂguez is his way of domestically defending his risky military adventure and the projected economic-energy benefits that are yet to materialize.
In Trump’s own party, the situation is not optimal. Although many legislators are careful not to challenge him publicly, Republican representatives and senators are concerned that this praise will strengthen Venezuela’s acting president politically and economically. Due to this, they are questioning the lack of clarity regarding how oil sales are conducted.
Particularly, the “Crazy Cubans” of Florida sense the electoral cost of Trump’s praise of RodrĂguez. If this behavioral trend continues, the Latino vote could continue to drift away from the Republican Party in a context where the relationship between that sector and the party suffers extreme tension due to ICE’s punitive approach and the worsening economic situation.
This fear is grounded in reality. In November 2025, in Miami-Dade, a microcosm of Florida’s complex demographic diversity, Democratic candidate Eileen Higgins won the mayoralty after nearly three decades of exclusive Republican dominance. She achieved it with a 20-point margin in the same county where Trump won the 2024 presidential elections with 55% of the votes.
These internal dynamics not only shed light on the underlying, internal reasons for Trump’s instrumentally friendly tone but also underscore the strategic dilemma he faces: not yielding to the Democrats fosters nervousness and distrust within his own camp, with potential electoral dangers in a place like Florida. Due to its district configuration and objective weight within the Republican universe, Florida will be crucial for absorbing and stabilizing losses in blue states during the midterms. The peninsula is the last frontier that could protect Trumpism from a predicted historic defeat.
Oil and gasoline
According to a recent article by the Venezuelan outlet Banca y Negocios, which reported current data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA), “Venezuelan oil exports to the United States experienced a sharp decline during the second week of February, totaling 49,000 barrels per day, a 68% drop compared to the previous period.”
The report highlights that, “with this level of exports by Venezuela, it falls to ninth place among the crude oil suppliers to the United States in the second week of February.” In the first six weeks of 2026, it had exported “107,300 bpd, a figure that is 60% below what was recorded in the same period of 2025, when a license granted to Chevron was in effect. The characteristics of the license were changed in July of last year.”
Amid the growing threats of a new US attack on Iran, international oil prices have settled at $66 for WTI and above $70 for Brent, rates that are well above the $50 threshold that Trump projected as a strategic interest following the aggression against Venezuela.
According to Bloomberg energy analyst Javier Blas, Washington is irresponsibly underestimating a probable Iranian response to a broad-scale US military campaign in the crucial Strait of Hormuz. Cutting this key trade artery for the global crude market would precipitously raise prices, with destructive consequences for the overheated US economy.
In the US, the price of gasoline has begun to rise by several cents. This rise undermines what, until a few weeks ago, was a highly publicized achievement by Trump: keeping the price below $3.
A comprehensive reading of this data expands the passages of Trump’s labyrinth into the energy sphere. Not only is the promise of a colossal investment boom by US companies not materializing, but the coercive architecture of commercial arbitration established through specific OFAC licenses has not increased Venezuelan crude oil imports to the US, thus not providing a tailwind to keep US domestic fuel prices in check.
It is becoming evident that the oligopolistic and bureaucratic strategy of US commercial control over Venezuelan oil sales has made it impossible for Venezuelan oil to be properly integrated into global supply chains. This is hindering contractual dynamics, generating regulatory costs, and increasing volatility in terms of prices and profitability.
The big problem for Trump is that he seems to be moving further away from the triple objective that justified his violent military aggression (low global prices, greater supply, cheap gasoline), translating into growing pressure to begin lifting the punitive sanctions against Venezuela. This action, while helping to resolve current operational hurdles, would have detractors on both the Democratic and Republican sides, leaving him between a rock and a hard place. The defeat would not only be institutional (dismantling of sanctions) but also political (recognition of the Venezuelan government).
AndrĂ©s Oppenheimer, a perennial aspirant guru of the global right, added a new layer of complexity to the Trump scenario in a recent article. He explained: “The concern that the post-Maduro dictatorship will cling to power has grown in recent days when it was revealed that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest in the United States Navy, left the shores of Venezuela for Iran. The aircraft carrier was the trump card of the naval blockade on Venezuelan oil, which forced the regime to concede to some of Washington’s demands. Without such a massive military presence off the coast of Venezuela, will Trump’s threats of military action remain credible? They will probably be much less so.”
What Oppenheimer detected is not an individual’s concern but a cry where confusion, skepticism, and fear converge in sectors fully committed to regime change. They are beginning to see that Caracas might be managing the moment more intelligently than the White House, which is now facing the labyrinth of a country that has made adapting to complex situations a style of political exercise.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
William Serafino
William Serafino in a Venezuelan political scientist, graduate of the Central University of Venezuela (UCV). Researcher, writer, and analyst specializing in geopolitics. Winner of Venezuela's SimĂłn BolĂvar National Journalism Prize, Research category (2019).
