Rarely can more than two birds be killed with one stone in foreign policy. That is, unless leadership can grasp multi-causality or multi-causal synchronicity and carry out bold and adept policy executions with finesse in different theaters. A unique part of President Donald Trump’s success in leadership is precisely this ability.
The surprise stealth operation in Venezuela in the dark of early morning January 3, 2026, resulted in the flawless capture of President Nicolás Maduro – one of the worst international criminals and enemies of the United States. What many underappreciate is that the Venezuela shaped by Maduro is the key to achieving peace in the Western hemisphere and beyond.
The capture and arrest of Maduro have resulted in the U.S. taking charge of Venezuela and controlling Venezuelan oil and the tankers that carry it, which means an oil embargo of Cuba. Without oil, the communist government of Cuba will collapse within weeks – a major achievement after 65 years of communist oppression. At the same time, Trump did not miss a beat in warning that the U.S. is "locked and loaded" to intervene and defend Iranian civilians should their Islamic government – the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism – crack down and kill civilians.
Venezuela and Iran have security agreements going back some 20 years. Iran has been taking uranium out of Venezuela for at least the last decade, sourced in both Venezuela and Bolivia. So, the embargo of shipping out of Venezuela is directed at more than just oil.
Like Cuba, the Iranian government may be only weeks away from total collapse. The mullah’s totalitarian, Sharia government is a theocratic system that empowers a small exclusive religious elite who command far-reaching totalitarian laws and political authority over a much larger majority, just as Cuba’s communist rulers Fidel and Raoul Castro exercised a different kind of totalitarian rule of absolute power that severely restricted the peoples’ civil rights and liberties, with no substantive countervailing democratic checks.
Trump’s actions have effectively signaled a hemispheric shift and opportunities to lead and help more than just Venezuelans, notably the people of Mexico, Colombia, and Brazil, to find their way to the light of freedom, human dignity, and self-rule.
Similarly, Trump’s actions send a clear message to CCP leader and PRC President Xi Jinping, that an invasion of Taiwan might not go well. The greatest threat to Xi Jinping’s continuing rule of the People's Republic of China and head of the CCP is a failed military invasion of Taiwan. Xi Jinping exhibited uncertainty and hesitation to move on Taiwan in the weak Biden years because of this perceived risk of failure, which would end his career and possibly his life.
Under Trump, the U.S. has just demonstrated extraordinary military success in complex action requiring unprecedented inter-agency coordination and effectiveness, something the Chinese PLA cannot do. America’s strength and advantage over the Chinese military was demonstrated by battle-hardened experience and the ability to adapt and coordinate. These qualities, combined with the power of the American war spirit to liberate rather than to conquer, give America a huge spiritual, psychological, and practical advantage over the Chinese.
Trump has effectively closed the window of opportunity for an easy PRC/PLA takeover of Taiwan that existed in the latter Biden years. Xi Jinping’s fear of failure, undoubtedly greater now, serves as an impediment to aggression against Taiwan.
But perhaps the most important potential benefit from Trump’s capture of Maduro is the prize of his detailed knowledge and intel about Venezuela’s role in originating and managing vote manipulation and fraud, which affected elections in not only the U.S. but also 71 other countries around the world. While the details about widespread election rigging in many disparate countries are not fully known, Smartmatic voting technology has played a key and recurring role. Additionally, it should be obvious that leaders of the globalist Deep State are major coordinators and protectors of vote fraud and election rigging because it is central and critical to their goal of creating a new world order.
Smartmatic was founded in April 2000 as a Delaware corporation by three Venezuelan engineers – Antonio Mugica, Alfredo Jose Anzola, and Roger Pinate – who had previously collaborated at Panagroup Corporation in Caracas, Venezuela. Since its founding, Smartmatic has gone through changes, such as acquiring in 2005 the U.S. company Sequoia Voting Systems, expanding Smartmatic’s footprint to 17 states where Sequoia systems were in place. Several years following Smartmatic’s November 2007 divestment of Sequoia after scrutiny by the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), Dominion Voting Systems acquired Sequoia and its residual and embedded Smartmatic source code. Dominion’s large global footprint helps explain the reach of the Smartmatic code to manipulate elections globally.
While Maduro is removed from Venezuela, the Trump Administration cannot afford any illusions about the swearing in of Delcy Rodriquez as the succeeding president and her brother Jorge Rodriquez as president of the Venezuelan National Assembly. Delci and Jorge Rodriquez are not only hostile Cuban-style communists. They also retain significant ownership of Smartmatic by way of a complex corporate reorganization in Curaçao, a Dutch-controlled island country off the coast of Venezuela. That reorganization was done as part of a broader "web" noted by the U.S. State Department, designed to hide Venezuelan control behind offshore entities.
Just when some domestic urban conditions hit new lows at the close of the year, 2026 started with an unexpected bang of success overseas – partially due to weakness of asymmetric enemy alliances and the circumstances of multi-causal synchronicity. When a nation’s cause is right, with enough of its citizens “turning from their wicked ways,” then, as 2 Chronicles 7:14 asserts, “[We] will hear from heaven.” We are living through a time where the need for American leadership is vital, and it seems providential that an unexpected non-politician outsider was raised up to serve as president – against all odds – at such a time as this. President Trump has executed with boldness and finesse, and done so in multiple theaters. The greatest challenges are still ahead. May we hope and pray for God’s protection and the continuing defeat of evil this year.
Scott S. Powell is senior fellow at Discovery Institute and a member of the Committee on the Present Danger-China. His timeless book, "Rediscovering America," was a #1 Amazon New Release in the history genre for eight weeks. Reach him at scottp@discovery.org.