Sources say the Venezuelan leader might be willing to step down under certain conditions from the Trump Administration. Is it possible?

There comes a point in every national tragedy when euphemisms become a form of self-betrayal. We have reached that point with Venezuela. The world has spoken in circles for too long. So let’s speak plainly: Nicolás Maduro cannot restore Venezuela. He cannot lead it to normalcy, much less prosperity, because the architecture of his power is built on collapse — scarcity, fear, patronage, and the criminalization of dissent. Asking Maduro to rebuild Venezuela is like asking a drowning man to save the ocean.

And yet, astonishingly, Venezuelans have not surrendered hope. Societies can regenerate. Disaster is not destiny.

We’ve seen this before.

Georgia in 2004 was a shattered, corrupted state where bribes determined everything from electricity to education. Then came reform — not perfection, but seriousness — and the country stabilized, modernized, and rejoined the world. Colombia in the early 2000s was dismissed as ungovernable; whole regions were ruled by cartels and militias. Yet through negotiated demobilization, institutional rebuilding, and persistence, it clawed its way back to relative stability. Chile emerged from dictatorship with a battered economy and a traumatized people, but by prioritizing rule-of-law and professional governance over ideology, it rebuilt its institutions and revived its middle class.

Venezuela is not exempt from this pattern of renewal. Nothing fated it to ruin.

What stands in the way is not cultural, not economic, not spiritual — it is Maduro’s regime.

Now, for the first time in ages, Venezuelans might have reason to hope that the murderous regime of Maduro might soon come to an end.

“The United States is amassing an armada in the Caribbean as Trump figures out his endgame with Maduro,” reported Missy Ryan, Vivian Salama, Michael Scherer, and Nancy A. Youssef for The Atlantic last week.

An anonymous source, buried deep within the article raised a startling possibility: Given the right incentives, Maduro might agree to step down.

“With a U.S. armada floating off Venezuela’s shores, Maduro now faces the choice of whether to stay and suffer the potential consequences or to flee,” the reporters of The Atlantic relayed.

“One person who speaks with both U.S. and Venezuelan officials told us that there are indications that Trump’s interest in negotiating Maduro’s exit could regain momentum in the coming weeks.

Proponents of resuming negotiations note that attempting to forcibly remove Maduro would be an unpredictable, potentially hazardous move. The military leaders who might take over would have little inclination to hand power to the U.S.-backed opposition, which is led by the Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado. Or they could splinter, generating greater instability. The Trump administration hasn’t explained whom it sees taking over from Maduro, preferring a wait-and-see approach.

Maduro would be open to a managed exit if the United States provides amnesty for him and his top lieutenants, lifts its bounties, and facilitates a comfortable exile, people who have dealings with the Caracas regime say.” — Missy Ryan, Vivian Salama, Michael Scherer, and Nancy A. Youssef . The Atlantic.

A real recovery demands legitimacy. It requires institutions that all major actors — business, civil society, the military, the poor, the diaspora, and yes, former Chavistas — can trust. That means courts that are not weapons. A central bank that is not a printing press for a corrupt regime — and not good for much else. An oil sector run by engineers rather than party loyalists. Elections where losing is possible.

But Maduro cannot allow any of this, because the day institutions become real again is the day his rule ends. His government survives by controlling the judiciary, the oil revenue, the military purse, and the borders. Scarcity is not failure in this system — it is strategy. When food, jobs, passports, electricity, and fuel depend on loyalty, loyalty becomes the only real currency. Reform would destroy that economy of dependence.

Yet imagine Venezuela after Maduro.

The country has everything it needs: Oil, gas, and mineral wealth; Fertile land and water; A young population; One of the most educated diasporas in Latin America — engineers, doctors, teachers, musicians, welders — who want to return.

Give Venezuela a functioning legal system — just basically trustworthy — and investment returns. Give people safety, and the diaspora comes home. Give citizens real elections, and civic life revives. Within five to seven years, the country could be unrecognizable in the best possible way.

Recovery is possible. Renewal is possible. A future is possible.

But not under Maduro.

To pretend otherwise is to lie. And Venezuela has had enough lies from the Maduro regime.

(Contributing writer, Brooke Bell)