Who will feel the impact of Venezuela's leadership change the most?

Across much of the Caribbean, the collapse of the Maduro regime has been met with a restrained but unmistakable sense of relief. Yet beneath the diplomatic restraint lies a shared understanding: for small island states that have absorbed the spillover effects of Venezuelan collapse for more than two decades, this moment represents the possible end of a long and destabilizing chapter. 

Migration pressures were immediate. By 2025, nearly seven million Venezuelan refugees and migrants were living in Latin America and the Caribbean. While mainland countries absorbed the largest absolute numbers, Caribbean islands faced some of the most intense per-capita impacts. Trinidad and Tobago hosted an estimated 45,000 to more than 70,000 Venezuelans in a population of roughly 1.5 million, placing sustained strain on schools, healthcare access, housing markets, and immigration systems.

Against this backdrop, it is unsurprising that the end of the Maduro regime has been quietly welcomed.

This moment also invites a reassessment of China’s expanding footprint in the Caribbean. Over the past decade, Beijing has deepened its presence through port infrastructure, telecommunications, energy projects, concessional lending, and diplomatic engagement, often filling financing gaps when Western attention appeared episodic.

The emerging environment is one of recalibration rather than rupture. Caribbean governments are navigating a landscape in which external engagement is becoming more consequential, not less. Geography has not changed, but expectations have.

What to watch next

As this transition unfolds, several policy developments will determine whether cautious optimism proves warranted.

First, whether Venezuelan outward migration to the Caribbean measurably slows. Sustained declines or credible pathways for voluntary return would be the clearest indicator that conditions inside Venezuela are stabilizing.

Second, whether Caribbean public systems receive durable support rather than short-term humanitarian fixes. Education, healthcare, housing, and immigration systems absorbed migration pressures for years; meaningful relief will require budget support and institutional strengthening, not emergency framing alone .

Third, whether organized crime and drug trafficking pressures in the Caribbean basin begin to ease.

Finally, whether the region avoids a return to dependency-driven energy and infrastructure politics.

For the Caribbean, hope today is not naïve. It is conditional. The Chávez–Maduro years imposed real costs on the region. Maduro’s end creates an opening for an intriguing turn in the historic relations with the US, the region’s most important economic partner.