President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela has beefed up his personal security, including frequently changing beds, and has enlisted the support of Cuba, a key ally, in the face of the growing threat of U.S. military intervention in the country, according to several people close to the Venezuelan government.
They described a climate of tension and concern that grips the president’s inner circle, but added that Maduro believes he still maintains control and can resist the latest and most serious threat to his 12-year rule.
Maduro has tried to protect himself from a possible precision strike or special forces incursion by frequently changing his sleeping location and cellphones, the sources said. Those precautions have intensified since September, when the United States began rounding up warships and attack boats that the Trump administration says are involved in drug trafficking from Venezuela.
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To reduce the risk of betrayal, Maduro also expanded the role of Cuban bodyguards in his personal security and added more Cuban counterintelligence officers to the Venezuelan army, one of the sources said.
However, publicly, Maduro has tried to downplay Washington’s threats by adopting a laid-back stance, appearing at public events unannounced, dancing and posting propaganda videos on TikTok.
The seven people close to the Venezuelan government interviewed for this article spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation or because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Venezuela’s Ministry of Communication, responsible for government press relations, did not respond to a request for comment on the article.
The Trump administration has accused Maduro of leading a “narco-terrorist cartel” that floods the United States with drugs, a narrative that many current and former officials in Washington say has regime change as its ultimate goal. Trump, however, combined threats against Venezuela with suggestions of a diplomatic solution. He and Maduro spoke by phone last month to discuss a possible meeting.
O New York Times reported that Maduro and Trump’s envoys discussed earlier this year the conditions under which the Venezuelan leader, who lost a presidential election last year but ignored the results, could leave office. Those talks did not result in an agreement, prompting the Trump administration to increase military pressure.
As the crisis has deepened, Maduro has addressed the Venezuelan public almost daily, maintaining a public relations blitz that has characterized his government in recent years. However, he reduced his participation in scheduled events and live broadcasts, replacing them with spontaneous public appearances and pre-recorded messages.
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For Maduro, 63, the standoff against the US naval armada in the Caribbean represents just the latest challenge to his government. A former communist activist, bus driver, union organizer and foreign minister, he has lurched from crisis to crisis — many of them of his own creation — since taking office in 2013, following the death of his mentor and immediate predecessor, Hugo Chávez.
At the time, opposition leaders and commentators said the rude and slow-moving Maduro would leave the presidential palace within weeks. His rigid communication style and civilian background, they said, made him a weak successor to Chávez, a charismatic populist and former tank commander who inspired devotion among supporters, including soldiers and officers who have long been the final arbiters of power in Venezuela.
Maduro’s critics called him “Maburro,” a play on the Spanish word for donkey. His viral public blunders included sneaking an empanada from his desk and biting into it on live television during a national food crisis, being hit in the head with a mango thrown by a woman at a public event (immortalized in Venezuelan folklore as “Mangocide”), and reading aloud a comment from a viewer that said “Nicolás Maduro, suck that one.”
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These early public relations mistakes concealed a ruthless political instinct. Since taking office, Maduro has survived a 70% drop in Venezuela’s GDP per capita, several waves of mass national protests and various plots, coup attempts and electoral defeats.
He also resisted Trump’s previous attempt to oust him. The first Trump administration, in 2019, implemented a “maximum pressure” campaign against the Venezuelan president to win over Latino voters in Florida, a swing state at the time.
Trump recognized an opposition politician as president of Venezuela and imposed sweeping sanctions on the country’s economy.
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To stay in power, Maduro has relied on lethal repression, crony politics, disregard for the law, and an innate understanding of the raw essence of power, a quality that even his adversaries grudgingly recognize.
Maduro’s political survival cost Venezuelan democracy.
As his popularity fell, he accelerated the Chávez-initiated dismantling of democratic norms, eliminating independent media, criminalizing civil society, and banning competitors from public office. Its security forces have intensified repression, terrorizing poor neighborhoods with death squads and systematically arresting protesters.
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Last year, he crossed the country’s last democratic red line, ignoring the results of a presidential election that he lost by nearly 40 percentage points.
Maduro’s days as an organizer for Caracas’ public transport union helped him develop an instinct for trading favors and forming coalitions based on shared interests and threats, people who know him said.
“He is a compulsive political operator,” said Andrés Izarra, a former senior official under Chávez and minister under Maduro, who broke with the government and went into exile. “He plays by the hard rules of street politics, corrupt union politics, mafia-like rules.”
Maduro overcame his weak military connections over the years by handing over much of the country’s economy to his generals, who ran gold mines, oil services companies and import-export firms.
Maduro’s decision to trade enrichment for loyalty has led him to tolerate drug trafficking among some military officers, experts on Venezuela’s drug trade say, although there is no evidence that it is a unified criminal organization controlled by the Venezuelan president, as the Trump administration claims.
In recent weeks, Trump has combined belligerent rhetoric against Venezuela with suggestions of negotiating a deal with Maduro.
During talks last spring, Maduro and Trump officials discussed the possibility of Maduro handing over power to one of his lieutenants before the end of Trump’s term in 2029, according to four people familiar with the negotiations who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
One of the options included holding a referendum in Venezuela to remove the president in or after 2027, a process permitted by the country’s constitution, they said. In the likely event of defeat, Maduro would hand over power to the vice president, who would call new elections.
Those talks, which included reorienting the Venezuelan economy toward American investment and trade, did not result in a deal, the sources said. Any such agreement could easily fall apart. Maduro used his control of the courts and electoral council to block the opposition’s attempt to remove him through a recall referendum in 2016.
A deal with Trump would reduce immediate pressure on Maduro, some people close to the administration and former officials said. But it would not resolve their underlying political weakness stemming from the theft of last year’s election, they added.
The scale of this defeat destroyed Maduro’s last claims of popular support, the sources said.
“Their biggest crisis is their legitimacy crisis,” said Izarra, referring to the Maduro government. “They are in complete denial that the country hates them.”
This crisis will remain even if US warships leave, he added.
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