Trump Is Not Playing Five-Dimensional Chess in Venezuela

https://www.theatlantic.com/international/2026/01/trump-venezuela-failure-machado-democracy/685563/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=the-atlantic&utm_content=edit-promo

2 Comments

  1. Don’t say. Three rounds of checkers, then flipping the board and walking away, is more his style of gaming.

  2. >A story in *The Washington Post* put Trump’s dismissal of Machado down to pique that she’d won the Peace Prize he coveted—a reminder that just when you think Trump can’t go any lower, there’s a knock on the floor.

    >Regardless, on Monday, Machado gave her first interview since Maduro’s capture to Sean Hannity of Fox News. She lavished praise on Trump, practically offering him her Nobel Prize.

    The cynical part of me believes Trump intentionally dismissed Machado to goad her into “gifting” him the Nobel prize. Or maybe he genuinely doesn’t want to work with her because his own concerns are extracting resources and kicking Chinese out of Venezuela.

    Either way, it would be interesting to see the outcome of their upcoming meetings, though I reckon if restoring Machado has been a priority, she would have met him BEFORE he kidnap Maduro.