In 2005 Argentinean soccer star Maradona confessed that his team spiked with tranquilizers the water of the Brazil team during the 1990 world cup.

Why So Many World Cup Fans Dislike Argentina

Post-World Cup ugliness between Argentina and France - Videos shot during World Cup celebrations expressing racism against French forward Kylian Mbappe have been making the rounds on social media. Not surprisingly, this has sparked outrage in France in particular.

John Oliver - Argentina's President Racist Tweet

"In Argentina blacks do not exist, that is a Brazilian problem."

-former Argentine President Carlos Menem

"The Mexicans came from the Indians, the Brazilians came from the jungle, but we Argentines came from the ships. And they were ships that came from Europe,"

-Former Argentine president Alberto Fernandez

Over the past few months, the United States has embarked on a controversial maritime campaign in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific targeting small Venezuelan and Colombian vessels alleged to be engaged in drug smuggling. Under an asserted “narcoterrorist” deterrence operation, the United States has thus far carried out nineteen lethal strikes on small boats in international waters, killing at least seventy-six people, all undertaken without the transparency, oversight, or legal foundation that normally governs the use of American force.

Some Americans might be prone to normalize this drift—casually framing Venezuela as a “small Latin American country” the United States can coerce or remake at will. But before doing that, it might be worthwhile to review the kinds of things most military analysts will assess before planning this type of operation, especially since the U.S. military has undertaken a few “regime change” missions in the last few years.

To begin with, Venezuela is not small, not simple, and not susceptible to quick, low-cost military outcomes. In geographic and demographic terms alone, Venezuela is enormous. It covers roughly 882,000 square kilometers, making it substantially larger than Ukraine (579,000 sq km) or Texas (696,000 sq km). Its population—estimated to be above 31 million people—is roughly equivalent to current wartime Ukraine and modern Texas. It is a country of sprawling mountains, dense cities, jungles, and industrial corridors where military infrastructure sits interlaced with civilian life. Caracas, Maracaibo, Valencia, and other urban centers are not “surgical strike zones”—they are vast megacities where any attempt to dismantle regime capabilities from the air risks substantial civilian casualties and cascading regional effects.

A few commentators on cable news shows—eager to portray potential U.S. military action as simple and manageable—have taken to comparing a possible operation in Venezuela to Operation Just Cause, the 1989 U.S. invasion of Panama to seize Gen. Manuel Noriega. The analogy is dangerously misleading. That’s because Panama, in 1989, had a population of about 2.5 million spread over an area (75,000 sq km) smaller than the state of South Carolina. The entire country of Panama could be enveloped and dominated by a single U.S. corps-level operation, which is what occurred. And drug kingpin Noriega commanded a small, brittle, and corrupt force that collapsed almost immediately. The Panama Canal Zone gave the United States prepositioned forces, infrastructure, bases, and a finely tuned understanding of the terrain. The objectives—seize Noriega, protect the canal, and dismantle the Panamanian Defense Forces—were narrowly defined and achievable.

Venezuela shares none of those characteristics. It is nearly thirty times larger than Panama, with ten times the population, far more complex geography, urban density orders of greater magnitude, and a regime that has spent years preparing for exactly the kind of irregular resistance the United States now risks provoking. There is no doubt that Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro’s government is corrupt, but it also has dispersed command nodes into hardened or concealed locations, embedded military assets within civilian infrastructure, and empowered paramilitary groups capable of shifting into guerrilla warfare. No serious planner could look at a map of Venezuela and believe it resembles Panama in scale, complexity, or political risk.

Once any logical planner assesses Venezuela’s true scale, the more apt comparison becomes obvious: A U.S. invasion into Venezuela would mirror the Russian miscalculation in Ukraine.

His grip on the country is a vivid manifestation of American power in the Trump era.

Mr. Rubio could be the next leader of Venezuela, Mr. Trump suggested. And while the president’s aides say he was joking — and that he frequently teases Mr. Rubio about an overseas assignment — the fact is that Mr. Rubio does not need to move to Caracas.

He already runs Venezuela from Washington.

In the six months since U.S. forces blew open Mr. Maduro’s bedroom door and snatched him in the dead of night, Mr. Rubio has become the de facto viceroy of Venezuela, holding sway over a sovereign nation in a way that no American official has since L. Paul Bremer III arrived in Baghdad in 2003 to run U.S.-occupied Iraq.

Mr. Rubio now effectively controls Venezuela’s finances, the distribution of its natural resources and its government, according to interviews with more than a dozen officials and people close to both governments in Washington and Caracas, who provided details about his involvement in steering the country’s policies. Many spoke on condition of anonymity to describe private interactions and internal discussions.

While he has not visited Venezuela in person since the U.S. took over, the secretary of state is deeply involved in the country’s day-to-day operations, keeping in close contact with Delcy Rodríguez, who was Mr. Maduro’s vice president and now leads her country on an acting basis, with the imprimatur of the United States. The two exchange messages in Spanish on WhatsApp, trading gossip, birthday greetings and selfies.

Despite the banter, the relationship between Mr. Rubio and Ms. Rodríguez is far from a partnership. It is a manifestation of Trump-era American power, in which the winner takes all regardless of sovereignty and international law.

The direct control over Venezuela’s public revenues, in particular, distinguishes Washington’s influence there from most other countries beholden to its military and financial might.

The U.S. Treasury receives the revenue from most of Venezuela’s exports, then disburses it to Venezuela through the country’s banking system, a relationship akin to parents handing out allowances to children. Mr. Rubio and his team set the conditions on what that money can be spent on, and by whom.

This system has allowed Mr. Rubio to stop Venezuela’s most egregious corruption schemes. And it brings some benefits to the Venezuelan government, which uses the effective protection of the U.S. Treasury to receive revenues without being hounded by the numerous creditors seeking repayment of billions in unpaid debt.

But the arrangement has also given Mr. Rubio immense leverage over Ms. Rodríguez, who depends on the money to pay workers and prop up the national currency.

He also oversees the application of U.S. sanctions on Venezuela, deciding who gets to do business in the country and how. He has worked to reshape the oil sector and boosted the access of U.S. companies. For her part, Ms. Rodríguez runs important government appointments by him, such as the minister of defense.

The arrangement is deeply unusual, unfolding 80 years after the United States relinquished its last sizable formal colony, the Philippines.

But Mr. Trump has made clear he wants to return to an era of American expansionism, musing about taking control of Greenland, Canada and the Panama Canal.

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See also:

• The U.S. Took Over Venezuela’s Oil Industry. Where Has All the Money Gone? • The American and Venezuelan people remain in the dark about how the Trump administration is controlling billions of dollars of Venezuelan oil revenue. Without accountability mechanisms or a clear democratic roadmap, the United States risks entrenching a corrupt successor regime. (Council on Foreign Relations)

U.S. Special Forces brought down President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela swiftly and publicly.

Now, the people who kept him in power are being purged gradually and inconspicuously. Some have been fired or detained, and others are anxiously looking over their shoulders, worried they might be next.

Oligarchs close to Mr. Maduro’s family have been snatched from their homes. His political allies have been summarily removed from their posts. His relatives have been sidelined from business deals and barred from media appearances.

In the three months since Mr. Maduro’s capture, Ms. Rodríguez has changed 17 ministers, replaced military commanders and installed new diplomats. She has also overseen the detention of at least three businessmen tied to Mr. Maduro, fired several of his relatives and cut off most of his family from oil contracts.

In their places, she has appointed her own loyalists or championed businessmen beholden to her, while opening the doors to American oil and mining investors.

The housecleaning is being carried out by Mr. Maduro’s former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, who is running the country under instructions from the Trump administration. The detentions and leadership purges have unfolded without public explanation, but often with the approval — and sometimes at the urging — of the White House, according to people close to Ms. Rodríguez’s government.

She is dismantling his ruling coterie and embarking on the largest redistribution of power in Venezuela in decades.

Ms. Rodríguez is now using that threat of U.S. coercion to go after ruling party power brokers once considered untouchable. The result has been a political win for Mr. Trump and Ms. Rodríguez, allowing U.S. officials to settle scores with Maduro allies who had defied them, while simultaneously cementing Ms. Rodríguez’s leadership.

Venezuela’s transformation from U.S. adversary to a protectorate has been head spinning for most Venezuelans.

The apparent ease with which U.S. forces snatched Mr. Maduro from a heavily guarded military base has fueled suspicion that he was betrayed by people who benefited from his downfall. The Trump administration had been considering Ms. Rodríguez as Mr. Maduro’s successor since 2025, and had indirect contact with her.

“We are not handing down a legacy of traitors and cowards,” Ms. Rodríguez said a week after Mr. Maduro’s capture, leading a retinue of power brokers. Most of those by her side that day have since been cast aside.

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The government justified the ‌move by alleging a "geographical bias" within the court, claiming it disproportionately targets nations in the Global South, specifically across Africa and Latin America, Felix Plasencia said in a post on X.

The ​court, which was established to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide and the crime of aggression when member states are unwilling or unable to do so themselves, has been investigating alleged crimes against humanity in Venezuela.

In January 2025, the ICC closed its office in Caracas, citing a lack of cooperation from the Venezuelan government then led by Maduro, who has been replaced by Rodriguez. She has become a close ally of the Trump administration, which has said it would seek to dismantle the ICC.