Former U.S. Ambassador Peter Romero said he hoped there would be “no [U.S.] boots on the ground” after the United States captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro early Saturday outside the capital, Caracas.
The U.S. action came after months of escalating pressure from Washington and public comments from President Donald Trump, who said in a news conference Saturday that the United States would “run the country” to prepare it for post-Maduro free and fair elections.
Romero, who served as U.S. ambassador to Ecuador and assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said direct U.S. control of Venezuela would be “a prescription for disaster” if Washington bypasses Venezuelan opposition figures such as María Corina Machado and Edmundo González, both of whom had competed in legitimate elections.
Romero said he hoped the president’s rhetoric was intended as a “negotiating threat” aimed at pressuring the current leadership toward a democratic transition. He stressed that the United States should avoid any military presence in Venezuela, saying American boots on the ground would produce an effect opposite to what Washington would want.
The following interview, recorded January 3, 2026, has been edited for length and clarity.
Ia Meurmishvili, IAM editor in chief: Things unfolded in Venezuela early this morning in Caracas. Did you expect it? What do you think is happening?
Peter Romero, former U.S. assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs: Of course nobody knew the exact timing of any of this, but it’s not surprising. President [Donald] Trump has [signaled] his intentions now for several months since the beginning of September, and he went ahead and did it. I think it probably is one of those things that had been on the agenda, if you will, his agenda for Christmas Day, and what I’m told is that he used that day to strike some al-Shabab bases in Nigeria, so I guess it was too cluttered an agenda. And as a diplomat, I’m just saddened by the whole thing. … This is not the right way to go around regime change.
IAM: What part of it makes you sad? Why do you say that?
Romero: There’s so many parts of it. There’s the unilateral nature of blowing up boats with no proof that they’re carrying anything. Those are the drug boats that have been blown up since the beginning of September. But also besides that, a notion that the end justifies the means. In other words, if it’s a good end for a country, then whatever it takes to achieve that.
Throughout my career, I was working towards a day where the end doesn’t justify the means, that there is a way to do things. International law does count. And it just seems that we have gone probably three or four steps backwards. And the thing that really is most troubling now is that President Trump is saying that we can run the country, which I think is a big, big mistake.
IAM: How do you think that’s possible? That surprised everybody when he said it.
Romero: It did. The thing that’s most surprising is that María Corina Machado, who had just won the Nobel Peace Prize, dedicated that prize to Trump. He called her all kinds of great names, you know, a real democratic advocate and hero and all that stuff. And now he is saying that she doesn’t have the backing to run the country and says that we’ll run it.
Truly, that would be a huge mistake. … The street goons in Venezuela have been armed for 25 years. Cubans see this fight as survival for the island too. And then you’ve got, of course, the armed forces and the police, security forces, and that all has to be dealt with. You can’t just say we’re going to run the country and everybody’s going to get rich. Big mistake. I think now more than any other time is a time for diplomacy inside Venezuela with those leaders.
IAM: Do you think the vice president of Venezuela can be an ally of the administration in running the country before the elections?
Romero: It’s not inconceivable, but only if there was a plan to move the country towards a democratic transition. That’s really what needs to be done. The economic situation can be turned around with foreign investment. Venezuelans sit on the largest oil and gas reserves in the world. Certainly they could turn this country around pretty easily on the economic side, but there needs to be clarity about where the country is going and whether it’s going to achieve some kind of democratic transition. And I’ve heard nothing mentioned about that at all.
IAM: Do you think Cuba is next for the administration when it comes to the region and the continent?
Romero: It’s hard to know. This is not a president that has policies. This is a president that thinks that unpredictability is a useful tool in the toolbox. And I think it showed that it has severe limitations.
I don’t think Cuba is next. It would be a big mistake to try to invade that island. The Cubans have been waiting for something like this for almost 60 years. It would be foolhardy, particularly [for] a president that basically ran in the election campaign as saying that he was not going to engage in foreign wars.
So with Venezuela now and Cuba next, I tend to think that there would be a light touch on this. I don’t know how he hopes to achieve it, to be honest with you, but I hope that there’s no boots on the ground.
IAM: Let’s talk briefly about Russia and China. Both were Maduro’s partners. President Maduro was meeting with a special representative from China yesterday. What do you make of the implications for Chinese positioning on the continent?
Romero: Yes, well, I think it will be increased Chinese power. Russia is just too distant and too tied down and engaged in the war with Ukraine to make any headway on something like this. But China certainly could.
You’ve got President [Claudia] Scheinbaum of Mexico, President [Luiz Inácio] Lula [da Silva] of Brazil already speaking out, condemning the actions, reminding the world that the United States has reacted to these kinds of situations in the past, over the last couple of hundred years. They called it gunboat diplomacy back in the day, and I think you’re seeing a replay of that.
Nobody’s going to adhere to it. If there were some diplomacy that was conducted beforehand and you brought together a group of like-minded countries that saw Venezuela as a threat and brought everybody in and respected their points of view and did the diplomacy first. But now nobody is going to jump in and say that this was a great thing. I think President [Javier] Milei of Argentina was somewhat cautious in what he said. President [Daniel] Noboa of Ecuador the same. But you’re not going to get presidents in this hemisphere say[ing] that this was really a good thing. Maybe President [Nayib] Bukele of El Salvador, who seems to be a close ally of Trump, might. But over the longer term, I think the beneficiaries of this are China.
IAM: How are the Chinese beneficiaries?
Romero: Beneficiaries to the extent that the Americans are doing what Latins have always thought that they would do, whether you call it the Monroe Doctrine or whether you call it the Trump Doctrine. There’s been a lot of speculation about using gunboat diplomacy again, and that puts us 250 years behind the curve.
Countries are moving towards international rights, multilateralism in terms of solving world problems and that sort of thing, and we’re going back to the gunboat diplomacy. That’s not a good look, and there’s not a lot of people that are going to embrace that.
IAM: Do you think this sets a precedent for other big power leaders, let’s say [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, let’s say [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping], others, to conduct similar operations elsewhere?
Romero: It very well could. I hope not, but it could open the door.
Getting back to my first statement about the end justifies the means, there’s certainly countries like Russia who believe that invading Ukraine in the end justifies the means because culturally, historically, religiously, etc., Ukraine has had close ties to Russia over not only centuries but the millennia.
And you can use what Trump just did as an excuse to invade Taiwan. Why not? If you believe firmly the way the Chinese government does — the Chinese Communist Party — that Taiwan belongs to mainland China, and it would be a good thing for them to become part of the family, so to speak, then of course, yes, this action in Venezuela would make it easier for the Chinese government to basically invade. …
IAM: Do you see this as a short-lived operation, or do you think this will continue for a long time? Do you think this can get messy down the road?
Romero: I hope it doesn’t. I think probably at this point, if you’re not going to use those elected officials or those officials who run legitimately for elections in Venezuela in the past, like María Corina Machado or like Edmundo González, etc., and you’re going to run it yourself, that is a prescription for disaster.
I’m hoping that this is … a negotiating threat that President Trump can use with the existing leadership to try to achieve some kind of understanding of a transition towards democracy. But, you know, it just is really up to how Trump feels and the last person who talks to him that day that, you know, convinces him of course of action. Hopefully, it will be the right one. Right now we do not need American boots on the ground in Venezuela. It would have the exact negative effect that you would not want.
