Venezuelan in 2026: Maduro and the WBC

Written by: Gabriel A. León 🇻🇪

Ronald Acuña Jr. after his home run of the World Classic quarterfinal baseball game on Saturday, March 14, 2026 (AP Photo/Lynne Sladky)

I remember being woken up much earlier than normal on Jan. 3, 2026. I was home because it was still winter break. My dad woke me up and told me the news while the sun was barely rising. I was still half asleep when I asked who he was talking about. He told me that the United States had captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, from their home and that he’d be on his way to New York. 

I remember being somewhat shocked. I hadn’t been to Venezuela since 2013, and the last time my dad went was only a few years later. At this point, I had accepted that I would not be able to go back for a long time. Perhaps until I had kids or maybe even until my kids had kids. 

I had accepted this because nothing really ever changed in Venezuela. Whenever I’d ask my dad or abuelo if there was any news from down there, they shared a similar quiet disappointment that I did. “Todo sigue igual,” or “everything remains the same,” as they often both looked into the distance, lost in thought. When I would ask either of them that question, I could tell it took them back to a place they long to be. 

Since Hugo Chavez took office in 1999, my family slowly started to leave the country. First, it was my dad who came to the United States that same year at the ripe old age of 18, leaving his entire family in Caracas. The rest of my family remained in Venezuela until the mid-2010s. By the time I was in middle school, it seemed like every other week, my dad would tell me a cousin or aunt was moving! 

I was sad to hear that most of my family had left, but at the same time, I understood. By this point, Nicolas Maduro had assumed the presidency. A great mass exodus ensued, and almost 8 million people have left since 2014. 

I grew to feel intense resentment towards Chavez and Maduro because I often wondered what would have been my life had I not been fortunate enough to be born in the U.S. I felt resentment for the other kids my age who had to leave the only country they had ever known and endure often perilous journeys to safety. 

This resentment was coupled with the acceptance that I will probably never see Venezuela in the state it was when my father lived there. When Maduro was captured, the acceptance and resentment should have vanished, but it didn’t. Don’t get me wrong, I was ecstatic that Maduro had been removed, but I realized that most of his government remained. 

My dad and I briefly discussed this as we anxiously waited for President Trump’s press conference. I do not remember much of it because it confirmed what I had suspected. This was not about “preserving democracy” in Venezuela. Why would a president who has spent so much time demonizing Venezuelans all of a sudden care about the Venezuelan people?

In my opinion, this was an economic endeavor that sought to benefit the U.S. and oil companies that had lost their stakes in Venezuela. The U.S. has received at least 80 million barrels since the change, and I am sure those numbers will rise. 

Currently, Delcy Rodríguez is the acting head of state. She served as Vice President for Maduro for years. Since assuming power, there have been no parades of celebration and hope in Miami or Santiago de Chile like there were after Maduro’s arrest.

President Trump only resented Maduro because he was openly against the U.S. Rodríguez has been more open to the U.S., and cooperation has been at an acceptable level for Trump. I suspect that had Maduro been more supportive, he would still be in power because Trump would have no reason to meddle in Venezuela’s affairs. 

Maduro’s arrest was expected to inspire incredible change. It didn’t. For Venezuelan families around the world, nothing changed except the headlines coming out of Washington. 

Then, only a few weeks after Maduro’s arrest, something else captured the attention of Venezuelans around the globe. Not politics, not oil, not regime change, but a game that was less powerful than geopolitics but meant so much more to Venezuelans. 

It was the World Baseball Classic. 

Baseball is by far the most popular sport in Venezuela, and phrases from the game dominate our dialect of Spanish. We hadn’t won this tournament before a ball was thrown in the 2026 World Baseball Classic, although we had come close. This time, it meant so much more. You could see it in how the team took the field; they carried a swagger that dared their opponents to beat them. 

I will always remember how it felt to watch these games with my dad and abuelo. There was a sense of nervous excitement that I had only ever seen when he’d speak about the Venezuela he grew up in. This time, though, he was not looking into the distance. He was locked into the screen, living and dying with every pitch. It felt like we couldn’t lose. 

When we’d gone down against the mighty Japan or when the U. S. tied the game in the final, we knew that we would come back and win. We had to. When the last pitch hit Salvador Perez’s glove, our house exploded in joyous shouts and embraces that allowed us to escape the sad reality of our country, even if it was just for a night. What mattered was that Venezuelans everywhere were united in something that felt ours entirely

The next day, reality returned. The same questions remained about the government, about the future, about whether Venezuela would ever recover. Nothing material had changed. But for one night, Venezuelans around the world were able to see themselves not as products of a broken system, but as part of something triumphant.

That feeling did not fix Venezuela. But it revealed something just as important: how much had been lost and how much was still worth holding on to. Because if scattered people could come together like that, even for a night, then the Venezuela my father remembers is not entirely gone. It is still there, waiting.