Why Russia and China Are Sitting Out Venezuela’s Clash With Trump

 For two decades, Venezuela cultivated anti-American allies across the globe, from Russia and China to Cuba and Iran, in the hope of forming a new world order that could stand up to Washington.

It isn’t working.

Russia, China, Cuba, Iran and other anti-American powers are offering little more than words of support for Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro as he faces a U.S. military buildup that President Trump has said is aimed at forcing his ouster. Like Iran when it came under military attack from Israel and the U.S., Venezuela is finding its authoritarian allies on the sidelines of conflict.

“The so-called axis of authoritarianism looks much stronger in peacetime,” said Ryan C. Berg, director of the Americas Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “It has proven to be a little hollow in times of need.”

In recent days, with a flotilla of American naval forces arrayed on Venezuela’s doorstep, Caracas’s allies have offered only birthday wishes for Maduro, who turned 63 on Nov. 23. “In tough times, on the difficult paths, on the challenging crossroads, shines the spiritual light of the warrior who knows how to fight and win,” Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega said in a letter.

Trump hasn’t said yet whether he will escalate the U.S. military campaign to land strikes on Venezuela after three months of strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Pacific. Those strikes have killed more than 80 people.

The U.S. says the boats, some of which the military says originated from Venezuela, were carrying drugs for cartels and gangs that it has designated as terrorist organizations. Critics say the strikes amount to extrajudicial killings and are unnerving U.S. allies who are increasingly wary of sharing intelligence.

Analysts who track Venezuela say its partners are essentially powerless against the U.S. Close partners like Cuba, Iran and Nicaragua are economically hobbled and have little capacity to intervene in Venezuela.

Maduro’s two most powerful allies, China and Russia, have previously provided military equipment, maintenance and training, say analysts, along with economic assistance. As Maduro prepares defensive action, the Russians are helping with aircraft upkeep and surface-to-air missile systems, according to people familiar with the matter.

Last weekend, two oil tankers identified by the European Union as having transported banned Russian oil arrived in Venezuela with light crude and naphtha. Venezuela badly needs those products to produce fuel and pump its own heavier oil for export to China.

It is far from enough, analysts said.

“These are small gestures that are not going to be sufficient if the U.S. moves to deadly force on Venezuela,” said Vladimir Rouvinski, an international relations professor at Icesi University in Colombia who tracks Moscow’s engagement in Latin America.

Both Russia and China face challenges that temper their interest in Venezuela’s security concerns. For Moscow, it’s the cost of its grinding war with Ukraine and for Beijing it’s a weak economy that limits its generosity. The U.S.-led financial sanctions on Caracas add to the complications of dealing with the country.

Both countries are trying to negotiate major diplomatic and trade deals with Trump now, giving them little incentive to waste political capital on Venezuela.

“Russia isn’t going to help Maduro beyond what they’ve already done,” Rouvinski added.

Russia and China provided similar diplomatic support to Iran during its 12-day war with Israel this year, but both stood on the sidelines militarily, even after the U.S. military in June bombed the Islamic Republic’s nuclear facilities.

Under Maduro’s predecessor, the leftist firebrand Hugo Chávez, Venezuela used its vast oil and mineral resources to build commercial and political relationships with U.S. adversaries. Chinese banks lent Venezuela billions of dollars, to be repaid in oil, to finance housing, telecoms and other infrastructure.

Cuba received cut-rate oil in exchange for doctors and military advisers who helped root out dissent in the Venezuelan army, former military officials say. Iran set up small auto manufacturing plants. Belarus even had a hand, establishing a brick factory.

After Maduro took office in 2013, falling oil production and civil unrest sent the economy into a tailspin—raising questions in some friendly capitals over whether loans were being wasted on Caracas.

But the alliances still carry weight for Maduro’s regime. After the U.S. in 2019 sanctioned Venezuela’s oil industry, Iran sent small fuel cargoes to try to ease chronic shortages. Russia took over oil-trading operations to move Venezuelan crude on the black market.

And then those allies recognized Maduro’s government even as the U.S. called Maduro illegitimate after the July 2024 presidential election, which the opposition said the regime stole.

As Venezuela’s largest creditor and buyer of oil, China calls the Latin American nation an “all-weather” partner—a recipient of more than $30 billion in major arms from China since 2000, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

But Maduro’s economic honeymoon with China was short lived after he took over in 2013, as loans and grants to Venezuela shortly afterward slowed to a trickle. Beijing has abandoned several infrastructure projects and now relies almost entirely on Venezuela crude exports to satisfy its debt arrears.

“People talk about debt traps,” said Margaret Myers, who studies Asia-Latin America ties at the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington policy group. “This is a situation of a creditor trap.”

Evanán Romero, a former deputy energy minister for the Venezuelan government who now advises the opposition on an oil-sector recovery plan, said China could lose if Maduro were to fall, since a successor government could give priority to ties to the U.S.

“The oil wouldn’t go to China if the U.S. opened up,” Romero said. “It doesn’t make any sense to send to China. That was ideology, not economic sense.”