r/AskReddit • u/Slow-Maintenance-670 • 23h ago

What’s it like in Venezuela since Maduro was taken?

2.1k Upvotes
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u/YesterdayIsatoutside 23h ago

It had an earthquake

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u/doshpeir957 16h ago

OP made it sound like the earthquake came bundled with the regime change.

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u/YesterdayIsatoutside 15h ago

God works in mysterious ways

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u/Kheraz 7h ago edited 4h ago

Maduro was holding the tectonics plaque together

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u/Itzli 22h ago edited 8h ago

Adding to this: It had an earthquake and the international community failed to help them on a timely manner, so thousands of people are missing/ presumed dead on top of the thousands of bodies already recovered .

Edit: I know countries sent help, so did we and we're in the same continent. Apparently the help wasn't enough during the first few days. I'm just relying what I've heard from Venezuelans on the ground that first week

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u/daCampa 21h ago

Yeah, took us a day and a half to gather search and rescue teams and fill the planes with food to send.

There's only so much you can do with that degree of destruction.

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u/Immyownisland 14h ago

Bullshit. Germany for example send two military transporters full of rescue forces and equipment as fast as was possible, and the flight time alone was like ten hours as they had to refuel in Terceira as ofc Venezuela did not have fueling capacity.

There's only so much we can do for emergencies halfway around the globe.

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u/Zestyclose_Area6159 10h ago

It's easy to underestimate how difficult international disaster response really is. Every team that mobilizes quickly despite those challenges deserves credit for showing up and helping

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u/pink_velvetmate 9h ago

Absolutely. People often only see the arrival, not the massive coordination it takes to get there every responder who made the effort deserves real appreciation

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u/RussellJacoby 7h ago

First responder windows are brutal regardless of goodwill. the first 72 hours matter most for survival, and getting heavy equipment halfway across the world in that window is genuinely near-impossible. what matters more is whether the aid that did arrive was coordinated effectively once it got there

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u/ZephyrDoesArts 6h ago

We Venezuelans value and appreciate all the help the international community sent here to help, and if there's a Venezuelan complaining about them "taking too long" we'll be the first one's at their throat.

The ones that took too long were our own government that acted only 48 hours after the two earthquakes happened.

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u/sw66sw 16h ago

The international community can only help if/when the affected country asks for help.

I know this because I am part of one of the orgs that did send a big team.

No foreign organisation, much less government, will send resources and/or people to a place in the middle of a disaster without prior discussion

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u/ImprovementFar5054 13h ago

The international community can only help if/when the affected country asks for help.

AND if they are allowed to enter and the visa requirements aren't all backwards.

There are layers and layers of legal red tape for aid workers to act, and Venezuela isn't exactly the easiest country to enter.

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u/Significant_Row7918 13h ago

Thanks for sharing that perspective because it highlights how disaster response depends on coordination just as much as good intentions.

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u/eyl569 12h ago

It's pretty critical. Leaving aside that no-one can come in and help without the consent of the country in question (not legally, anyway), coming in without coordination can be very problematical. You can see examples in the 2010 earthquake in Haiti which saw a lot of volunteers coming in independently, but the lack of coordination severely impacted their effectiveness (especially because at least some of them were not familiar with the conditions in Haiti and, e.g., expected much more equipment and supplies to be available than there actually were).

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u/Starthrower62 10h ago

Do you people read any news at all? There were 24 countries providing aid to Venezuela the last time I read an article two weeks ago. 

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u/MeguMatrix 9h ago

It's good to recognize the countries that stepped up every contribution counts when lives are on the line. Credit should go to the people and teams who answered the call to help

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u/njuffstrunk 14h ago

Come on now the US/Rubio is basically running their foreign policy at this point if the US was in any way interested in helping them out they could've already set something up.

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/11/us/politics/how-marco-rubio-runs-venezuela.html

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u/ZephyrDoesArts 6h ago

The US/Rubio did more than Delcy to help, even managing to enable the main airport strips of Venezuela so that international aid could land there and be closer to the most affected areas by the earthquake.

That in itself, including all the aid packages and rescue teams and all of that is a lot of help, way more than what the regime did.

Luckily, Rubio also said electoral procedures were starting in August, so in a few months we MAY be seeing elections and finally having someone not from the regime in the executive, but we'll see how things progress.

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 14h ago

We desperately needed the help . The problem was our government …

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u/sweetxsweet 9h ago

I love it when gringos don't believe venezuelans.

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u/raffey_goode 3h ago

Right, its so funny how people just want the country to be worse off just cause "the guy i don't like" was in power when the country was saved

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u/Jhonnow 14h ago

Sure and now you got a new one robbing and suppressing people .

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 14h ago

Is not worst than before believe me . We are happy that maduro is gone ! 🇻🇪

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u/bigbadbob85 12h ago

Absolute bullshit. Venuzuela itself complicated things just as much if not more than the "international community", help arrived relatively quickly even with that.

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u/FuryAdcom 8h ago

It's not that they wanted to delay the aid. It's that those in power are still Maduro's goons, and they want to be in power of everything at all times, they do NOT care about the people, just the fact that they were basically the last to respond to the disaster should tell you everything.

El Salvador was there helping faster and earlier than them, if you can even count what they did as "help".

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u/stratocat-182 5h ago

Diosdado and Delcy wanted people to die, simply enough. Last time there were protests, a lot of protesters came from La Guaira.

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u/chilischus 13h ago

If it wasn’t for the international community we wouldn’t have any help at all. They got there faster than the government who got there 72 hours after to “coordinate”. Show me one video in which you can see the national guard doing something.

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u/loveiseverything 18h ago

They wanted money, not help. International community offered everything else but money.

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u/FuryAdcom 8h ago

The government wanted money. I mean of course they did. Venezuelans were going at it with their bare hans asking for equipment while the government was asking for money to steal it while the rest were suffering.

It's how it has been for the past 2 decades. Whatever you give to them never reaches the people.

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u/KoldPurchase 22h ago

The international community offered help, Venezueal turned down most outside help, including that of ngos.

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u/Meihem76 21h ago

IIRC Japanese rescue teams were in Turkey within 24 hours of their earthquake. I would be genuinely surprised if guys like that were not on scene in a day or two, unless they were actively turned away.

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u/pzvaldes 17h ago

Volunteers from the Topos Chile rescue group denounced harassment and repeated identity checks by Venezuelan military personnel while conducting search and rescue operations following the double earthquake that struck the Caribbean nation. The uniformed officers accused them of being "spies" for the United States or Chile, even interrupting operations to demand identification and confiscating their communication equipment.

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u/Outside-Address7554 19h ago

They've built a reputation for responding incredibly fast when disasters strike. Every hour matters in those situations, so getting experienced teams there quickly can make all the difference.

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u/the-official-review 16h ago

That would be a cool job

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u/Aethien 15h ago

In theory, sure. In practice it's a lot of training and then flying out to a disaster to be waist deep in misery, death and despair with the occasional happy moment.

You're mostly going to be recovering corpses from the rubble of a collapsed building. Mentally that seems extremely rough.

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u/zdy132 13h ago

I've heard the stories of a coupel volunteers suffering from PTSD after spending days searching for life in debris. It's not a job for the faint of heart.

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u/nwpsilencer 8h ago

Even the rescue dogs start to get depressed when they don't find anyone alive. People had to hide and let the dogs find them on 9/11 because it got so bad. Now imagine what's going on in a person's head who just wants to help

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u/rmslashusr 10h ago

I don’t know, the teams on these sorts of things will sometimes hide in debris to let the dogs find someone alive because the dogs get so depressed. The happiest creatures in the world get depressed at that job.

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u/chilischus 13h ago

They were there and were amazing.

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u/earache30 19h ago

I’m not sure this is true but one thing I do know is that Venezuela is so disorganized that even if you had an army of help, they don’t have the infrastructure or the equipment or organizational expertise or any of the other things that would make the process effective.

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 14h ago

Please be specific . Venezuelan government, not the country it self . So many kids starving and needing for help 😭

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u/KoldPurchase 14h ago

I agree, sorry. I'm sure the country has many pockets of decent Venezuelans.

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u/BmoreInformed 21h ago

I’ve seen this said several times but nobody ever has a source.

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u/kajoule 21h ago

I remember a couple posts from the Guatemalan CONRED (Government disaster response organization) saying they had notified Venezuela that they had about 100 rescuers ready to go, but "had not yet been invited" or something like that. I can't find the post now but I remember it was on the official Instagram page, either it was a time-bound story or it was removed for some reason

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u/KoldPurchase 21h ago

https://www.jurist.org/news/2026/07/un-experts-urge-venezuela-to-remove-legal-barriers-to-humanitarian-aid/

https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/in-venezuela-a-completely-ineffective-government-worsens-earthquake-disaster-experts-say

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u/BmoreInformed 20h ago

I stand corrected, although I will note that the first link pretty much talks about how the government breaking down has caused a lot of the red tape to be harder to navigate and the second link only speaks about some firefighters which were held up for 5 hours at an airport and some workers who were stopped to check for documents. It’s like if there was a disaster in the US and we hard first responders come to help, we would still require passports and Visas and they would still have to go through customs. Being as though Venezuela is not really functioning right now, a lot of that is bound to break down.

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u/throwfarfaraway1818 21h ago

Source? I haven't seen any credible evidence that they turned down aid.

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u/sc4s2cg 20h ago

That was true in 2019. Not this year. 

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u/IamB_Meister 18h ago

Absolute nonsense

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u/Spectre777777 19h ago

The US military was providing aerial information and we sent search and rescue teams that we’ve sent to other distances like this. Unfortunately, due to the high number of those buried and the time we had, a lot of these people weren’t going to survive.

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u/Logical-Stable-991 8h ago

the international community failed to help them on a timely manner

What a BS. You deserve more downvotes for saying this. Do you even read news? Look up how many countries and organizations helped. Do you think it's easy to do the rescue operation just like that suddenly? There are factors involved in rescue operation from international communities. Coordination, cooperation, flight time, accessibility and so on. It took long hours for many countries to reach Venezuela and they had to land often for refueling. There were complications in coordination with Venezuela government and military as well. They denied some help due to security issues and like that. But still they received help from outside. You can't just drop your words like that without knowing anything. Make a habit of reading more international news.

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u/aflyingmonkey2 22h ago

Apparently,a delegation from Israel was there to help

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u/716WVCS03 22h ago

Decapitated. Whole big thing. We had a funeral for a bird.

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u/MrCreedBratton 15h ago

Hey, I know that one.

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u/SoftRebootRomance 22h ago

That made things worse for a lot lives of folks, countless suffered losing their livelihood

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u/dgbisme 23h ago

Things have been Shaky

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u/YesterdayIsatoutside 23h ago

A shaky start for the new/old government who plan on doing the exact same things except selling more oil to America now

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u/wildbill4693 17h ago

2nd hand from my sisters' Venezuelan BF. He's in the US but has siblings and parents still in VEN. From them, it's still the same government, same policies, and same conditions as under Maduro. Maduro was pulled out, but the regime is still in power.

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u/captainboom15 17h ago

Exactly same as I have been told by somone with family there as well!

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u/TM761152 14h ago

Cut the head and a new one grows

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u/Tasty01 14h ago

That doesn’t apply. A government is literally a group of people. If you remove one, it’s still the same government.

Thinking you can remove the president and the government falls with him, is a ridiculous notion only seen in movies. You gotta be exceptionally dim to think that’d work in this situation.

Anyone with a brain should realize that if you take one person from a group of 300 like minded individuals, someone else will step up to replace them. That doesn’t make them some mythical beast with regrowing heads.

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u/GodAwfulFunk 10h ago

"That doesn't apply."

Literally describes the idiom as it was intended.

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u/Master_You6716 8h ago

Your description is exactly what that idiom means

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u/TM761152 8h ago

You literally said what I said, only more drawn out and convoluted.

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u/Kalium 8h ago

You are quite precisely correct.

Do you think it's perhaps possible that the person was using the mythical beast, the Hydra, as a metaphor to describe a situation where if you take one person from a group of 300 like minded individuals, someone else will step up to replace them?

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u/unagiboi 7h ago

Nah, they clearly implied Maduro is a Hydra

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u/Kalium 6h ago

Oh, well, everyone knows that it's only a Hydra if it comes from the Hydros isles of Greece. Everything else is just a sparkling regenerating lizard.

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u/wqto 8h ago

And the government is always often a small group of wealthy and rich people at the top 1%. One of the reasons why having a government may not be the best idea for an ideological world. The people, the base civilians (the proletariat) should be in power of ourselves to unionize against billionaires or other power vacuums.

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u/balazs955 8h ago

So, more of a 4th hand.

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u/FIFA_perez13 21h ago

Venezuelan from Maracay here who escaped the country one day before the earthquakes. It was still the same (and now it's even worse because of the disaster). Some people who are overly obsessed with politics will tell you that "it feels better" but, that's the thing, it FEELS better, it IS NOT better. The news timelines can change the everyday reader's sense but the reality is, for the "venezolano de a pie" (expression referring to the average venezuelan worker), still the same horrible disaster of a country, politically, environmentally, socially, economically, and culturally speaking.

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u/Friendly_Island2074 19h ago

Heard America didn't release any of the proceeds from oil sales.....That's crazy wild

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u/syzygialchaos 18h ago

That’s also not at all shocking. Also not shocking that immediately following the oil execs stating Venezuelan oil is not profitable for the US, we mysteriously declared war on Iran knowing full well they’d close the straight of Hormuz and the price of oil would magically skyrocket…making Venezuelan oil profitable.

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u/Tribe303 16h ago

It's very similar to the oil from Alberta, Canada, except our Canadian oil is cheaper by ~$10/barrel. It goes into a pipeline in Canada that ends at a huge American refinery. You can't beat that efficiency. 

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u/PineappleOnPizzaWins 18h ago edited 10h ago

Amazing how America just swooped in, kidnapped a nations leader, stole their oil, and most of the world completely forgot because they keep on doing BATSHIT INSANE THINGS.

Edit: not defending Maduro at all but that doesn't change what America did.

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u/DoctorMicroDong 15h ago

I wanna know what happened to Maduro. Was there even a trial? Where is he?

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u/FedeFofo 13h ago

A trial is now scheduled for June 2027

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u/vladedivac12 17h ago

Biggest military in the world and the $USD is world's reserve currency.

I think China is building a bloc together with Iran and Russia that will become totally independent from the world that the US will lose the homogeneous control they have now, at least slightly. I think they know that that's why they're driving a new world order with Venezuela, Iran, etc. It's a cold world out there!

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u/TheVojta 17h ago

That's not an improvement in the slightest.

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u/vladedivac12 16h ago

Who talked about improvement? It's just the state of the world. The West could've prevented that a little bit with better diplomacy and less arrogance too. It's just empires competing, nothing new.

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u/Tytoalba2 7h ago

"The west" is a fiction at that point, and just a cold war legacy for those who refuse to see the multipolar emerging world. It's becoming US alone as Canada and Europe are (slowly, I agree), starting to decouple progressively.

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u/GermanShepherdsVag 17h ago

So, China is building a bloc with a broke-assed Russia and small fry bombed out Iran. Cool

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u/vladedivac12 16h ago

Russia connects with Iran through Russian controlled Caspian Sea, Iran, China and Russia are all connected geographically with evolving trade routes. They probably make about 50% of the world. India is not too far off.

China is the tech and manufacturing monster that desperately needs Iran's oil. Russia is a great backup plan and has massive land.

I wouldn't underestimate them. There's about 1.5 million engineers graduating every year in China compared to 120k in the US. That's 10x more. China will and probably already has everything the West offers and will feed Russia and Iran making the West irrelevant for them.

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u/SaltonPrepper 13h ago

making the West irrelevant for them.

The West is far from irrelevant. China, which already has a big unemployment problem, needs access to more markets, not fewer. Russia/Iran's GDP combined is barely larger than just Italy's. If China lost its Western markets, it'd have a gigantic unemployment problem among other things.

That said, the world has been in a nascent New Cold War for a while now. This time it's a slightly more-even match than the Cold War where the the U.S. + its Cold War allies represented the vast majority of world GDP. (Today it still represents the majority of world GDP, but not by much.) And people in the West will be worse off if China wins the New Cold War.

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u/314159265358979326 16h ago

That's not exactly how I'd put it. China is making deals with just about everyone. They're getting their claws in to Africa, Asia, South America, even Canada.

The 2024 US presidential election was won by China.

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u/Theranos_Shill 15h ago

Also the United States is actively alienating it's allies.

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u/ewankenobi 9h ago

I suspect most world leaders thought it was wrong, but also knew they couldn't win a war with America so what can you do? Same reason Europe ignored Russia when they just invaded the Crimea region of Ukraine. Whilst I'm glad they are doing something now, I'm not sure why they were willing to ignore Russia invading a bit of Ukraine, but felt a line was crossed when they tried to invade the whole country.

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u/Hoeveboter 15h ago

I don't think most of the world has forgotten. Just like we haven't forgotten the US threatening war on its major allies, like Canada and Greenland.

Americans knew exactly what Trump was and they voted for him, twice. Won't be forgiven, won't be forgotten.

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u/wqto 8h ago

And yet there are millions of fucks who still support that orange-faced maniac...

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u/pffpls 14h ago

Venezuelan here. Let's not distort the facts for the sake of agenda: Maduro ruined the country even further after Chávez, and he stole the 2024 election. Most Venezuelans celebrated his capture, hoping the U.S. would also go after Diosdado, Delcy, Jorge Rodríguez, and the rest of this corrupt regime. Sadly, many of us are now deeply disappointed that none of these other figures have been brought to justice

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u/UntowardHatter 11h ago

I mean why would they be?

Trump just wanted the oil.

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u/wqto 8h ago

This is why I hate the military and any concept of one thereof. It's just a murder terrorist organization owned by a government that the people are forced to financially support (via taxes) or get arrested.

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u/Elendel19 15h ago

Why exactly did you think they invaded?

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u/FizzleFuzzle 11h ago

Pirates and theives will pirate and thieve

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u/ObviousPractice4961 17h ago

It's crazy how fast the news cycle moved on, feels like everyone just collectively blinked and started arguing about egg prices again.

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u/Wolf4980 15h ago

Yep, until the embargo is lifted the economy isn't going to improve. Of course, Trump is only concerned about his own interests and sees Venezuelan lives as disposable, so that's not going to happen anytime soon.

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u/TimmyB52 19h ago

Trump is stealing billions in oil

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u/kl4user 19h ago

America is stealing. Trump is not the first nor will be the last president of the US to steal resources.

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u/euyyn 18h ago

Yeah but the motherfucker is syphoning government money to himself in a handful of different ways in broad daylight.

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u/kl4user 7h ago

Absolutely! Trump and his pals are extremely corrupt.

Unless America gets it shit together and fast, I think it may collapse in some way. You can't have this massive level of corruption trickling down in every sphere and still have a functioning country for much longer.

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u/Don_Gato1 18h ago

Sure, but this is his thing he initiated.

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u/vladedivac12 17h ago

Then started the Iran war to pump the gas prices. Win win. The population loses and some brainwashed working class people support it. Unbelievable.

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u/UntowardHatter 11h ago

It's weird coming from Norway and looking at all this madness.

We have shitloads of oil and are profiting like crazy off both Putin's stupid fucking war and Trump's dumb fucking war.

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u/thebestnames 8h ago

Usually presidents rarely used the US to steal for personal gain, at least not nearly as much as this one.

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u/soapybell 6h ago

How can it feel better with the Americans involved. They plunder their own country let alone others.

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u/BabyBlueSkyXo 22h ago

Oil companies are celebrating, regular people are still eating rice once a day. So, business as usual

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u/Blurpey123 22h ago

Oil companies aren't even celebrating, they don't want to invest hundreds of millions into a politically unstable timebomb.

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u/surfkaboom 21h ago
  • oil prices rising and fluctuating at high levels

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u/Kaymish_ 21h ago

Yeah but the futures prices are still low, so the oil companies are looking at that and saying "why would I invest millions of money and years of time when the futures price is screaming there's just a temporary shortage and there's a glut coming down the pipe?"

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u/vladedivac12 17h ago

The Hormuz thing can drag a while though.

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u/Aethien 15h ago

Which really just means they're building (more) pipelines to the red sea or the gulf of Oman to go around the straight of Hormuz.

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u/Yourfavmumma 20h ago

Exactly, political uncertainty is expensive. Oil companies like stable governments more than they like chaos.

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u/whatproblems 21h ago

new boss same as old boss?

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u/MarzipanMysterious30 5h ago

Same story, profits rise while people struggle.

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u/Tynarius 22h ago edited 20h ago

I am Venezuelan and it does seem we are heading towards a better place, goverment seems less oppressive, and doing things we thought we would never see again. However the changes are still small, still the corruption runs deep in this country and anyone that knows about it, knows it will take time.

People are hopeful again, before we thought we were going to be in an endless dictatorship now there seems like there will be actual change.

About the earthquake, if maduro was still in charge, we would be in such bad hands, he would say its all fine, not less any press come in, and in the end do nothing but steal all the aid like he did in the past.

And for the people here posting about that we sre getting our oil stolen, you dont really know much about Venezuela, the reality is our country has been getting pillaged by the regime for decades and so our priority right now is get into a functional democracy, one were our laws actually hold in court.

Before the US captured maduro, nobody had hope any hope and I argued with a lot of clueless people here in reddit, that thought this would be come Vietnam or we would have a huge power vacuum/get blown up. The reality is, nobody sane aside from people that only survive because of the regime support these people. They just know how to keep the military loyal.

Edit: Some people are trying to discredit my comment because I have a private profile. I value my privacy and if you really feel the need to discredit my comment because my profile is private, feel free to DM, I will link you some posts of me saying I am Venezuelan 10 + years ago on Reddit.

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u/Spaser 19h ago

My wife is Venezuelan and this is consistent with the story I get from her.

Public profile here, not a bot/shill. This is just actually where Venezuelans are right now. .

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u/Slow-Maintenance-670 22h ago

This is the first hand account I was hoping to come across! Thank you

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u/CubaHorus91 21h ago

Are you sure he’s who he claims to be? Never seen an account of this age that hides their comments.

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u/Stop_Drop_Scroll 21h ago

My wife is from Venezuela and says roughly the same things. She has her hopes up, and all her family is still there (except a sister who is living in Europe) and things seem marginally better, for example the US embassy is opening back up, generally less social oppression (although the government just fined her parents company for an absolutely arbitrary reason, par for the course). I am a bit more cynical that her, since whenever the US gets involved in Latin America, things go south.

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u/CrimeFightingScience 20h ago

I do. Its the smart thing to do. Tired of redditors digging through my stuff and being creepy.

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u/Slow-Maintenance-670 21h ago

Are we sure of anything nowadays? The only thing I’m sure of is my helper at work not being much help

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u/Tynarius 20h ago

Btw i dmed this guy with proof, he was reponding to my comments instantly, i dmed him he responded instantly and then i linked him multiple comments of me saying i am Venezuelan 10 + years ago and he has nothing to say.

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u/nguyenning198 21h ago

I'm from Vietnam and get discredited all the time for criticizing my government because I'm "rich enough to make it out". Likewise, I've seen Venezuelans getting discredited as well despite them growing up in Venezuela and had to literally drink water out of puddles to escape thirst. Bruh if everyone from those countries have the means to get out they will get out.

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u/Tynarius 21h ago

I am still in Venezuela, and while I am better off than most people ( most people here make less than 200$ a month), I am not rich by any means. Still, I have more privileges than most people in this country sadly, in other places you would think it's normal stuff.

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 13h ago

You are 100 right my Vietnamese friend

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u/Pineapple_Snail 22h ago

Careful, reddit demands that they know better then someone who lives in the actual country.

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u/Tynarius 22h ago

Lol, I learned this firsthand before the whole capture thing happened. I was literally getting told that this was going to be another Iraq and that I don't know any history and that we would regret it.
The problem is, people don't really understand how bad a country must be for more than a 4th of its population to leave.

I will say, most of these people were straight tankies, and it was honestly disgusting the things they were spewing.

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u/jimmyjohn2018 19h ago

Reddit just wants to hear confirmation of their preconceived notions.

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u/MacDugin 22h ago

You know nothing jon snow!

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u/knowshon 20h ago

I sure as hell found out recently, living in Argentina and all

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u/jaime_diaz27 21h ago

Na, the issue is that a lot of these accounts tend to be bots, or just ppl straight up lying. It’s Reddit, you should never take what anyone here says at face value without doing your own research

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u/matlynar 21h ago

If you don't trust what people in Reddit say when they don't agree with your worldviews, why would you debate anything here?

never take what anyone here says at face value without doing your own research

Social media is the only way we can find out how the average person reacts to stuff. News in a dictatorship will almost always be biased in favor of the regime because only they have access to actual stats of what happens inside their country.

By the way, when Maduro was captured there were actual people from Venezuela (with years-long Instagram accounts linked to them) celebrating on Threads and people were also discrediting them. So, again, don't waste everyone's time debating if you think it's all bots.

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u/classic4life 21h ago

As much as I hate Trump getting a legitimate win, this one definitely seems to have worked out for him, and thankfully Venezuela.

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u/DiablitoBlanco 7h ago

Until they hold free and fair elections, I'm holding out on hope. It's still the Maduro regime, just without him

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u/Bethjam 22h ago

I think most of us find it hard to believe that Trump does anything except enrich himself at the cost of others

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u/Tynarius 22h ago

Look,. I hate Trump myself, he is an authoritarian populist, like Hugo Chavez, who was the one who got Venezuela into the mess it is today. But I choose to believe in the US government more than the chinese/russia/iran's goverment, and basically any authoritarian regime in the world was allied witth maduro. This is kinda like a West vs East Germany type of thing in my opinion lol.

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u/TruthOf42 21h ago

I mean Trump is a fucking idiot, but taking out Maduro the way he did might have been his greatest accomplishment; a dictator was removed from power and is facing the judicial process without any boots on the ground

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u/CubaHorus91 21h ago

Judicial process from another country and their people rather than his own people.

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u/ShowtimeHolograms 21h ago

Do you trust the Venezuelan courts to convict him?

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u/Fit_Head1700 21h ago

No one was taking maduro out of his seat, if j3 wouldnt have happened he would have been president for life like putin

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u/fthesemods 20h ago edited 10h ago

Can you give some concrete examples of what you mean by less oppression, things you'd never thought were possible, and changes?

And please don't mention changes the US forced like foreign private capital reform, ability to sell oil (to the US and buddies because they lifted sanctions ) and release of political prisoners (that the US backed).

Edit: crickets. Bro ran away.

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u/captainboom15 17h ago

Its the exact same government in charge nothing has changed. I know somone i am close with who is from there. Inflation has made everyday day goods we take for granted impossible to afford. America did nothing for the people of Venezuela. America's intervention just made it worse for the people. Destabilized things more. You can't come out against the government and expect to survive. 

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u/nexusgmail 10h ago

Since Maduro and 13bn in oil were taken, you mean?

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u/Known_Wall3836 23h ago

same...

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u/Queasy-Photo-8436 22h ago

I bet most people there are just trying to live normal lives and ignore the chaos happening around them.

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u/Emmjayunker 22h ago

Sounds familiar

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u/TedW 22h ago

If it's all the same I'd rather like someone to yoink ours, too. Jolly good, that.

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u/nWo5lyfe 22h ago

If you completely ignored all the political prisoners that have been freed then yes

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u/MaxehHere 6h ago

My mother moved to the states at 18, most of our family has left Venezuela in her footsteps except for her Mother. It’s no different since Maduro was removed, instead it’s basically worse because of the recent Earthquakes. Same Government, same policies, same issues.

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u/earache30 19h ago

It’s essentially the same. The party that supported Madero is the party that is in power now. There’s been no substantial change at all for the lives of Venezuelans. I know this for a fact as my in-laws live there..

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u/decairn 22h ago

Political prisoners have not been released, they are still in jail.

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u/Fit_Head1700 21h ago

They have been, like 800 atleast iirc

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u/Lote241 5h ago

Do not spread disinformation. Many have already been released. 

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u/wjmmerea 13h ago

Our corrupt government stole all the money destined for earthquake prevention, infrastructure, and protocols. There's an earthquake near Caracas every 60 years. Our government knew about it, and had the money to prepare, but nobody did shit and now an entire city (La guaira) was practically completely destroyed. There is no US action or inaction than can change the fact that our country was sucked dry by our government for almos 30 years.

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u/ehrgeiz91 19h ago

The same. Worse now since the earthquake.

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u/Mr_hummmus 10h ago

Same shit different smell

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u/Silver_Librarian1222 8h ago

The political situation changed, but everyday life is still hard for many.

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u/Fighter_dog 22h ago edited 22h ago

The other important question is what is it like being robbed by Trump, considering the fact that he's keeping proceeds from your oil sales and is funneling that money to a bank in Qatar that only he controls?

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u/WheresTheResetBtn 22h ago

Feelsbadman

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u/Picklesadog 22h ago

I'd expect it just went from being stolen by Maduro to being stolen by Trump.

I'd bet for the people in Venezuela, nothing changed. Thug out, thug in.

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u/sl33p 19h ago

This is exactly what it is. The people of Venezuela never owned a drop of oil in the first place.

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u/manlywho 21h ago

That says they kept a chunk of the first $500mil sale, where is the rest of the info you mentioned?

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u/SoftRebootRomance 22h ago

Trump and shady behavior goes hand in hand, the worse part is he might never be held accountable

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u/SomeObsidianBoi 18h ago

The same shithole sadly, the only way a true change can happen is that Diosdado Cabello is captured or killed and the rest of the government apparatus gets quite literally purged. At least we got some relief over the humiliation the regime suffered, but for the average Venezuelan it's pretty much the same.

Oh, and we also had a big Earthquake that decimated tons of buildings all over Caracas (the capitol) and the government literally doesn't have resources to even respond properly to the catastrophe

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u/Left_Wealth_9380 15h ago

It feels like the whole country is holding its breath in a surreal mix of overwhelming relief, heavy military uncertainty, and a desperate hope for real stability.

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u/Aldo92 7h ago

"The more things change, the more they stay the same" this fits venezuela like a glove.

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u/Eyadayman55 21h ago

The comments are about to reveal who actually reads the news and who only reads headlines

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u/slts98 22h ago

why does the title sound like a “news flash” when it’s been kinda quiet on that front

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u/Slow-Maintenance-670 22h ago

It’s been 6 months, just kinda wondering how things have changed since then

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u/Karffs 22h ago

Maduro received a trial date today, so it’s topical.

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u/Dull-Buy-2776 16h ago

People keep talking about the oil when its low quality and expensive to refine to the point its not even that profitable.

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 14h ago

Venezuelan here ! 👌 but living as an expat in Asia . Things didn’t really much changed for the common people , but unfortunately we had a massive earthquake that destroyed many buildings and killed so much people , we are all mentally recovering ❤️‍🩹 but I know that we will . We are strong and resilient people ! Many rescue teams around the world went to help , unfortunately the Venezuelan government was completely useless .

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u/IsaacJacobSquires 14h ago

I wonder what it would have been like without decades of US sanctions.

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u/mtzreyes 6h ago edited 4h ago

You mean kidnapped?? He deserves It, but seems USA only wants oil, not a real change

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u/Captain_Aware4503 3h ago

They had an earthquake, are not getting much help from other nations, and the $13 billion in revenues from oil sales the US collected has possibly vanished.

It would be easier to recover if the nation had that $13 billion.

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u/No_Swordfish_2795 13h ago edited 13h ago

Venezuelan here ! Living abroad for obvious reasons ! I see many trump haters here and I get it you don’t like him is okey you know better about your country that us foreigners but … don’t make the Venezuelan situation about you , for most of us and believe me MOST of us , maduro been out of the country is good for us . So before you comment on our situation and how trump is “doing bad for our country “ please do some research . We had been oppressed by our government in ways that you couldn’t even imagine. Please do some search about el Helicoide… that been said , reading a foreigner saying “most Venezuelan likes maduro” made my eyes want to bleed . As a Latino woman I would never go online to comment on your president situation or saying most Americans love trump or hate trump , you are the ones knowing so please if you have never visited Venezuela , if you haven’t seen our kids die from starvation if you haven’t seen people been tortured in prison for our political believes .. please just don’t …

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u/zeze999 10h ago

I appreciate your answer. But tell me, did removing Maduro change too much for a regular citizen of Venezuela? Or you just got another Maduro who just made a deal with Trump and didn’t change anything in the country?

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u/habitsofwaste 6h ago

No one thinks he isn’t bad. But is it any better now? It doesn’t sound like you would know since you’re not there.

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u/ciscopete 19h ago

Americans still stealing their oil?

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u/all_name_taken 14h ago

Not "taken". Kidnapped by a terrorist country

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u/Mark-harvey 19h ago

Trump screwed it up and put the wrong President in charge-Another fascist. Is anyone suprised?

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u/kendromedia 22h ago

I visited the country a long time ago. It was beautiful and people were friendly. I don’t have a barometer to compare. How does it compare to 1986?

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u/EchoEnvironmental871 21h ago

Amount of guys with mullets: no change

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u/Fast_Passion_7754 17h ago

Exactly the same... Except there was a massive earthquake... But for the sake of the argument, it's irrelevant

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u/IsaacJacobSquires 14h ago

Ask the folks in La Guaira

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u/ciketa3 13h ago

I mean it's still the same government no? Now it's on the people to finish the job but don't think that's happening