MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The saying goes, history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. On Saturday, the U.S. seized an unpopular Latin American dictator and brought him to the United States to face drug charges, just as it did exactly 36 years earlier. In 1990, the target was Panama's military leader General Manuel Noriega - last weekend, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro. NPR's Frank Langfitt reports on the similarities and the big differences between these two U.S. interventions.
FRANK LANGFITT, BYLINE: President George H.W. Bush broke the news to the nation on January 3, 1990.
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GEORGE H W BUSH: At about 8:50 this evening, General Noriega turned himself in to U.S. authorities in Panama with the full knowledge of the Panamanian government.
LANGFITT: In a news conference Saturday - also January 3 - President Donald Trump described an even more dramatic scenario.
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PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: All Venezuelan military capacities were rendered powerless as the men and women of our military working with U.S. law enforcement successfully captured Maduro in the dead of night.
LANGFITT: In both cases, the United States used force in order to secure strategic assets, namely the Panama Canal and Venezuela's oil resources.
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TRUMP: We'll be selling oil probably in much larger doses because they couldn't produce very much 'cause their infrastructure was so bad.
LANGFITT: And both Noriega and Maduro were widely seen to have stolen recent elections. But the similarities largely end there. Bush announced that American troops would be out of Panama proper by the end of February 1990. The administration also handed over the Panamanian government to the democratic opposition.
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BUSH: Yesterday, a dictator ruled Panama, and today, constitutionally elected leaders govern.
LANGFITT: Unlike in Panama, Trump has dismissed a role for the leader of Venezuela's democratic opposition, Marina (ph) Corina Machado, even though the United States government says her coalition won the country's 2024 election.
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TRUMP: Oh, I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader. She doesn't have the support within - or the respect within the country. She's a very nice woman.
JAVIER CORRALES: I think everybody who heard that was absolutely shocked.
LANGFITT: Javier Corrales is a professor of political science at Amherst College. He says sidelining Machado, who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize, undermines American rhetoric about democracy and could alienate many Venezuelans who voted for a coalition.
CORRALES: This is going to be very, very hard to swallow. I think at some point there are going to be some people interested in giving the United States and the leaders the benefit of the doubt, but this would feel like an incredible betrayal.
LANGFITT: For now, Trump appears to be leaving the Maduro regime in place, minus Maduro. He's also said the U.S. will, quote, "run" Venezuela. Then on Sunday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said the U.S. would coerce the regime to make policy changes. Here he is on ABC News.
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MARCO RUBIO: What we are running is the direction that this is going to move moving forward, and that is we have leverage. This leverage we are using, and we intend to use.
LANGFITT: After the U.S. invasion, Panama became a stable democracy. Venezuela presents far more challenges. It has seven times as many people and a land mass 12 times larger, plus narco-trafficking guerrillas who can threaten political stability.
DOUGLAS FARAH: I'm Douglas Farah. I am the president of IBI Consultants.
LANGFITT: Farah advised the Pentagon for a decade. In 2019, he worked with Trump officials to look at scenarios for a Venezuela after Maduro.
FARAH: The conclusion of everyone was that unless you had some sort of managed transition from the regime to a democratic or some semifunctional democratic system, you would have absolute chaos for a long period of time.
LANGFITT: President Trump says at some point, there will be a, quote, "safe, proper and judicious transition." Until then, scholars and analysts say the U.S. and Venezuela face a lot of risks.
Frank Langfitt, NPR News.
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