When US forces advanced against Nicolás Maduro in January 2026, it looked like a dramatic end to a long-standing crisis. Venezuela’s strongman was gone, his regime was weakened, and Donald Trump had his biggest foreign policy victory since returning to the White House. But the real story didn’t begin in Caracas. It began decades earlier in South Florida, in a community that had never stopped believing that history owed it a reckoning. To understand why Venezuela became the target of a major American extraction operation, one must understand Cuba. And to understand why Cuba still plays such a large role in US strategy, you have to understand Marco Rubio.
The exile lens
Cuban exile policy in Florida is not just about one country. It’s about a revolution that never ended. Families who had fled Fidel Castro’s rise to power felt that their business was not yet done. In Miami, the fall of Havana remained a lively, emotional project.This way of thinking shaped an entire political culture. Anti-communism was not a political preference. It was a moral identity. Every left-wing government in Latin America experienced the same story: this is how it begins, this is how it ends.Marco Rubio grew up in this world. His political education was shaped not by textbooks or diplomatic theories, but by stories of a lost homeland, a stolen future, and the United States failing to finish its work in exile in 1961. Cuba was not history. It was a wound.This wound shaped his world view.
When Venezuela ceased to be Venezuela
FILE – Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez (left) speaks with then-Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro on Dec. 18, 2007, in Montevideo, Uruguay. (AP Photo/Matilde Campodonico, File)
When Hugo Chávez came to power in 1998, Cuban exiles saw something they immediately recognized. A populist leader rewriting institutions. A political movement based on class struggle. A quick adjustment to Havana.The details were different, but the pattern was familiar.As Venezuela slipped into authoritarianism and economic collapse under Chávez and later Maduro, millions fled. Hundreds of thousands ended up in Florida, adding their own trauma to Miami’s existing exile culture. The Cuban and Venezuelan stories merged into one.For this community, Venezuela was not a tragedy in its own right. It was Cuba that was repeated on the mainland.Rubio embraced this change as he rose through Florida politics to the U.S. Senate. Over time, Venezuela became the focus of its political identity. Maduro was not just another dictator. It was a strategic extension of Havana.This design made Venezuela something bigger than itself. It became a front in a long-running ideological war.
From sanctions to strategy
During Trump’s first term, Rubio pushed tirelessly for a hard line against Maduro. The sanctions have been tightened. The opposition numbers were increased. But the regime held out. International efforts to overthrow Maduro failed. What changed in Trump’s second term was not Rubio’s goal. It was his argument.The language of democracy and human rights no longer had any weight in the Trump White House. That’s why Rubio redesignated Venezuela as a security threat. Drug trafficking. Russian influence. Chinese penetration. Criminal networks. The message was simple: This was not about nation building. The aim was to protect US power in its own hemisphere.This logic was well received. Maduro’s removal in 2026 was the result of this shift. It was not presented as a democratic rescue mission. It was presented as a strategic extraction.
The Cuba Shadow
In Havana the message was immediately understood.Venezuela has long been Cuba’s economic lifeline, particularly through subsidized oil and security cooperation. Maduro’s fall was not just a blow to Caracas. It was a warning shot on Havana.Trump made the threat clear and called on Cuba to make a deal or face consequences. Rubio didn’t need to say much at all. His entire political life was focused on this moment.For Cuban exiles, Venezuela’s collapse has revived an old belief: If Caracas can fall, Havana must be next.
Policy or personal history
Supporters argue that Rubio’s hard line has finally brought clarity to a region that had been left to decay under authoritarian rule. They say Venezuela has been a victim not of U.S. ambitions but of its own corruption and mismanagement, and that decisive action is long overdue. Critics see something different: a foreign policy that is characterized less by cold strategy than by traditional memories. In her view, Rubio’s lens of exile transforms complex societies into symbols and living nations into proxies for a trauma that began in 1959. What is undeniable is that Trump’s Venezuela policy is not just about oil, migration or geopolitics. It is also about history, identity and a political culture born of loss.Maduro was not removed simply because Venezuela failed. He was removed because Venezuela had become Cuba in Marco Rubio’s worldview. And that’s the one story in half a century that he never gave up on finishing.
