By now we all have a basic knowledge of what has happened in Venezuela. Circumstances are quickly changing, though, and what might have been said yesterday would be different today. Much about the future of that country is now unknowable. I don’t plan to concentrate on all those possibilities, but instead, to give background about what is known so there will be some context as events in Venezuela unfold.

We do know that Maduro and his wife were dragged out of their country and brought to NYC where Maduro had been under indictment since 2020. New indictments of Maduro, his wife, his son, and several Venezuelan government officials have now been filed. Maduro pleaded not guilty today at his arraignment.

This is similar to the 1989 invasion of Panama to capture the de facto ruler who was under drug indictment in Miami. Manuel Noriega fled to the Vatican mission in Panama City seeking sanctuary. The U.S. used various tactics to get him out including weaponizing the heavy metal music of Van Halen by blasting it at the mission. After ten days of Van Halen, Noriega surrendered and was brought to Florida where he was put on trial, convicted, and sentenced to forty years.

The first question might be, If Maduro was brought here illegally, can he be tried? A basic principle of our criminal law, affirmed by the Supreme Court several times, is if a defendant is within the court’s jurisdiction, it does not matter how the person got before the court. Maduro can be tried.

A second question arises since international law gives immunity from criminal indictments for heads of state. Noriega raised this defense, but it was easily denied because he was not the legal head of Panama. Maduro may also raise this defense, but it should lose. The president has the sole authority to recognize foreign governments, and we have not recognized Maduro as the valid head of the Venezuelan state. Maria Corina Machado won primaries to be the opposition candidate to Maduro in 2024 elections, but she was barred from running. She was replaced by Edmundo Gonzalez, who, neutral observers said, won in a landslide. Without presenting evidence, the National Electoral Council declared victory for Maduro. However, the U.S., European countries, and others refused to accept Maduro as legitimate.

With Maduro gone Trump has stated we are going to run the country until there is an acceptable transition. That transition, however, does not seem to include the leaders chosen by the Venezuelan people—Gonzalez and Machado—but the non-legitimate vice-president Delcy Rodriguz.

Although the Trump administration is trying to avoid that term, we are now in the world of regime change, a place we have been many times before. We can hope that this one goes better than many of our other attempts.

Our most recent effort at regime change was Iraq in 2003. Our failure there shows the difficult tactical and moral issues that such change can bring. We wanted to eliminate the brutal ruling party, a sensible seeming goal, and undertook what was called de-Baathification. As a result, there was no one else who had experience running the country, and something like anarchy broke out. This helped bring about the creation and rise of Isis as well as increased power to Iran, for which we continue to suffer. There can be, there will be, collateral consequences for regime change.

When I wrote about Venezuela in October, I suggested that the administration’s actions might be more about oil than drugs. Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world, and Trump is concerned about American oil he claims was stolen. The right-wing strongman Juan Vicente Gómez, the military dictator who ruled Venezuela from 1908 until his death in 1935, granted concessions that left three foreign oil companies, two of them American, in control of 98 percent of the Venezuelan market. Venezuela became the world’s second-largest oil producer. Oil accounted for over 90 percent of the country’s total exports. Gómez’s successors tried to seize greater control over the country’s economy, and in 1943 approved a law that required foreign oil companies to relinquish half their profits

Venezuela nationalized the oil industry in 1975. In January 1976, the Venezuelan state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. (PDSVA) took over the exploration, production, refining and export of oil. American oil companies Exxon, Mobil, and Gulf were hard hit as was the Dutch giant Shell. The companies, which by then were accounting for more than 70 percent of crude oil production in Venezuela, lost roughly $5 billion in assets but were compensated just $1 billion.

While Venezuela formally nationalized its oil industry in the 1970s, beginning in the early 2000s under Hugo Chavez, Maduro’s predecessor, Venezuela moved beyond its earlier state ownership model and launched another wave of expropriation. Foreign operators were forced into minority positions alongside Venezuela’s national oil company, PDSVA, or saw assets seized outright. Major U.S. firms, including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, ultimately left the country and pursued international arbitration over uncompensated takings. They are still waiting for their money.

The consequences for Venezuela’s oil industry were severe. The state oil company lost access to foreign capital and technical support. Skilled engineers left the country. This was especially damaging to Venezuela because its crude is ultra-heavy, which is harder to refine than light, sweet crude found elsewhere. When foreign partners exited Venezuela, PDVSA lost the ability to sustain the complex system required to deal with the heavy crude. Production declined steadily, falling from more than 3 million barrels per day before the expropriation to under 1 million bpd in recent years.

By the time Maduro assumed office in 2013, the industry was already in structural decline. Corruption, mismanagement, and U.S. sanctions under his tenure further constrained output and exports.

Venezuela’s oil industry cannot be simply, magically brought back. Not only must the oil infrastructure be brought back, refining heavy crude takes a lot of energy, and the power grid has also been deteriorating. The necessary improvements require both time and plenty of money.

Where will that money come from? Oil companies are unlikely to invest until Venezuela is a stable country and perceived as one. And first there has to be a successful regime change. Until then, perhaps the only source of investment would be our tax dollars, which would move us further away from free enterprise and a market economy, and towards a form of state capitalism, a road Trump has been traveling. But that is for another day.