(Daily Signal)—The leader of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, is now in U.S. custody and appeared in federal court in New York on Monday, two days after the U.S. military captured him. The operation that ousted him will have deep and lasting implications not only for Venezuela, but also nations that aligned themselves with Maduro’s regime, according to policy experts.
Maduro’s arrest is a “disaster” for the “Axis of Evil, these kinds of hostile, anti-American countries,” according to Victoria Coates, a former deputy national security advisor to President Donald Trump, and the vice president of the Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy at The Heritage Foundation.
Cuba, China, Iran, and Russia stand to lose the most from Maduro’s capture, Coates and other foreign policy experts said.
China
The capture of Maduro has shattered “China’s dream” of dominating the “purchase of Venezuelan oil over the next 10 to 20 years,” explains Michael Pillsbury, author of “The Hundred-Year Marathon: China’s Secret Strategy to Replace America as the Global Superpower.”
China had offered to further develop and update Venezuela’s oil infrastructure to “then pump most of it … for themselves,” Pillsbury said.
Now, U.S. companies are expected to enter Venezuela to further develop the nation’s oil infrastructure, leaving China dependent on the U.S. to continue the flow of oil out of Venezuela to the Chinese Communist Party.
China “will get oil, but not at the cheap rates anymore,” explains Gordon G. Chang, a China expert and author of “Plan Red: China’s Project to Destroy America.”
“Venezuela was essentially China’s proxy in Latin America, and now that relationship is gone,” Chang told The Daily Signal.
Multiple Chinese leaders, including President Xi Jinping, denounced the U.S. arrest of Maduro on Saturday.
While China is the nation with the “second most to lose from the end of the regime,” Chang says that Cuba has the most to lose.
Cuba
Cuban and Venezuelan leaders built a relationship between the two nations over decades, starting with Hugo Chávez, who came to power in Venezuela in 1999. Fidel Castro, the former dictatorial leader of Cuba, once referred to Chávez as Cuba’s “best friend.”
Venezuela and Cuba have remained close both politically and economically under the Maduro regime, according to Andrés Martínez-Fernández, senior policy analyst for Latin America at The Heritage Foundation.
“Venezuela has been the main artery for the inflow of financing to Cuba in the form of oil, primarily, and that has enabled Cuba to weather a dramatic economic crisis, long-standing economic crisis, and social unrest,” Martínez-Fernández told The Daily Signal.
With Venezuelan oil expected to stop flowing to Cuba now that Maduro is no longer running the South American country, Cuba’s future is in “limbo,” the Heritage analyst says.
Miguel Díaz-Canel, the current leader of Cuba, was “visibly shaken” following Maduro’s capture, Martínez-Fernández said, adding that Cuba sent some of its nationals to Venezuela to protect Maduro. Cuba announced that 32 of its citizens were killed during the U.S. operation to capture Maduro.
“I think what we’re likely to see is a new wave of instability with the Cuban dictatorship and I expect, and hope in the near term, a full collapse and a restoration of freedom to Cuba,” Martínez-Fernández predicts.
Russia
While Cuba is expected to experience an economic blow from Maduro’s arrest, Russia stands to lose a strategic partner that is geographically close to the U.S.
Russia’s interest in Venezuela is linked to its relationship with Cuba, according to Heritage’s Coates.
“From a Russian standpoint, if you lose the communist regime in Cuba … you’re losing your major strategic foothold … so close to the United States, and that’s a huge problem for them,” Coates says of Russia.
Iran
Maduro’s arrest serves as a severe warning to the Iranian regime, according to Coates.
Major protests are currently taking place in Iran, driven largely by a water crisis. The protests are also occuring six months after the U.S. bombed three of Iran’s key nuclear sites, weakening the regime’s power position on the world stage.
Trump has spoken out in support of the Iranian protesters, who “may well be emboldened both by what they’re hearing out of President Trump … and what he just did to Maduro in Venezuela,” Coates said.
Trump says his administration is “watching” the protests in Iran closely, telling reporters on Sunday, “if they start killing people like they have in the past, I think they’re going to get hit very hard by the United States.”
Trump’s action against Maduro may cause the leaders of Iran to “think twice” before taking action against protesters, according to Asher Fredman, a visiting fellow at the Allison Center for National Security at The Heritage Foundation.
Venezuela has also “long enabled Hezbollah-linked illicit finance and terror networks,” Fredman explains.
“I think the regime would be very foolish if it did not take Trump’s threat seriously,” Fredman said, adding that Iran has lost a partner in the Western Hemisphere with Maduro’s capture.
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