The Reason Venezuela’s Maduro Won’t Resign Peacefully

Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is veneer unprecedented American military and diplomatic pressure to resign and leave his country peacefully. He is unlikely to take the offer.

The days when dictators could live in gilded exile with fortunes in secret Swiss bank accounts are mostly over, primarily because of global mechanisms for adjudicating human-rights abuses and tracking ill-gotten gains. The 63-year-old strongman doesn’t believe he will get lasting amnesty, analysts said, feeling only safe among the cadre of loyal military men with whom he has spent a decade surrounding himself.

And Maduro and most of his cohorts view the U.S. Military threats as a bluff, said a person who speaks often with senior Venezuelan government officials. Maduro believes that the only way the U.S. Can oust him is by sending troops to Caracas, the person said.

President Trump has said he doesn’t think the U.S. Will go to war with Venezuela, focusing instead on pushing Maduro to leave office. In recent days, Trump has said he is open to talks with the Venezuelan leader.

A U.S. Ground invasion is improbable, according to many analysts. From Maduro’s perspective, staying in Venezuela might be the safest way of protecting himself, his money and his family, said Moisés Naím, an analyst at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

In the past, deposed dictators “went to Europe and bought villas on the French Riviera,” he said. “Now they still go to Europe, but end up at the International Criminal Court in The Hague,” he added.

On Monday, Maduro said he wasn’t going anywhere. “Whatever they do, however they do, wherever they do, they won’t be able to defeat Venezuela,” he said.

The Trump administration on Monday designated a group known as the Cartel of the Suns, which the U.S. Said Maduro leads, as a terrorist organization. A U.S. Indictment during Trump’s first term said Maduro took part in a narco-terrorist conspiracy to “flood the United States with cocaine.”

Maduro denies the allegation. His administration said the Cartel of the Suns doesn’t exist.

Trump has authorized covert Central Intelligence Agency operations in Venezuela and ordered the biggest military buildup in the Caribbean in decades. The U.S.’s most advanced aircraft carrier is in the region, along with a flotilla of warships and a force of Marines.

That is on top of U.S. Strikes on alleged drug speedboats that since September have killed dozens of people in the Caribbean and the Pacific.

Unlike past dictators such as Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines or Haiti’s Jean-Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier, Maduro has limited options. Departing Venezuela could mean losing his freedom and fortune.

“The calculation for Maduro is that he will always be safer here than anywhere else,” said Phil Gunson, an analyst in Caracas for the International Crisis Group, which works to prevent violent conflict in Venezuela.

The first problem Maduro and his allies face is criminal liability, analysts said. The president and some of his most senior officials have been indicted in the U.S. For allegedly trafficking tons of cocaine and providing weapons to Colombian guerrillas—charges they deny. The U.S. Has put a $50 million bounty on Maduro.

At home, Venezuela’s military brass could under a new regime face prosecution on allegations of drug trafficking and taking kickbacks in the energy and aluminum industries, as well as from food imports, even as Maduro has presided over one of the world’s biggest economic implosions in modern history.

“The regime’s cohesion revolves around the need to maintain their criminality, and save their skins, very much like a loose mafia,” said Brian Naranjo, a former senior U.S. Diplomat who served in Venezuela.

The opposition accuses Maduro of stealing the presidential election in July 2024, a vote that the U.S. And many countries in Europe and Latin America decried as fraudulent.

The International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, has been investigating Venezuela for alleged crimes against humanity since 2018. These include political persecution, torture and rape, and date to the violent repression of protests in 2017, when at least 5,000 people were arbitrarily detained and more than 125 were killed in clashes with police.

Maduro has ensured that a military coup is unlikely. Former Venezuelan officers said military men who might try to oust Maduro are held in check by a combination of complicity in the corruption that binds them to the regime and dread of the punishment—torture, prison and even death—that disloyalty brings.

“Today, in the army there’s incalculable terror,” said Carlos Guillén, a former Venezuelan soldier who was jailed for conspiring against the regime and now lives in exile.

Venezuela’s armed forces are seeded with skilled Cuban counterintelligence operatives, making coup plotting nearly impossible, said John Polga-Hecimovich, a Venezuela expert at the U.S. Naval Academy.

Another problem is there are few places to seek refuge beyond Russia, where former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled after rebels took over the country last December.

Cuba is a possible haven for Maduro, who in his youth trained on the island to be a union organizer. But the communist country has a bleak future. Its economy is in meltdown, barely able to keep its lights on.

Security in exile in a European capital such as Madrid would be a major problem. The city is home to tens of thousands of Venezuelan exiles, many of whom despise Maduro, said Naranjo. It is difficult to envision Maduro in a place like Turkey, several time zones away from Caracas.

Finally, Maduro’s military deeply distrusts any opposition that could take power should Maduro leave office. The opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, won the Nobel Peace Prize this year and has been an uncompromising opposition hard-liner, contemptuous of the regime and its military.

The Maduro government fears that a Machado government would seek revenge. In a recent “Freedom Manifesto” published by Machado, she said that Maduro’s “criminal regime” must be held accountable” and pledged to reform the country’s military and police forces.

“There’s a tremendous animosity between the two sides,” said Jorge Castañeda, a former Mexican foreign minister. “It’s the product of 25 years of conflict, torture and repression.”

Write to José de Córdoba at jose.decordoba@wsj.com

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