Maduro is gone; expert details potential impact on the Caribbean

Globally, the ousting of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela has been met with a mix of reactions and cautious optimism. The University of Delaware’s Kalim Shah can discuss how regime change will play across the Caribbean and the spillover effect that will ripple throughout the region – and the world – in the years and decades to come.

Shah, professor of energy and environmental policy and an expert on the island nations of the Caribbean, says that although public statements have been muted and restrained, there is a shared understanding.

“For small island states that have absorbed the effects of Venezuelan collapse for more than two decades, this moment represents the possible end of a long and destabilizing chapter,” Shah said.

Caribbean governments are not celebrating regime change, Shah said. Rather, they are responding to the prospect of reduced systemic risk. “A Venezuela that no longer exports large-scale displacement, opaque energy leverage and permissive criminal governance is objectively preferable for the region.”

Shah can discuss several aspects of Venezuela’s political history, how the nation has arrived where it is, where it might be headed and the impact this will have on the Caribbean as a whole. Those include:

• Venezuela’s political and economic deterioration during the Chávez–Maduro era and how that has translated directly into pressures felt across the Caribbean in the form of migration, fiscal exposure, security risks and regional uncertainty.

• How the nation’s institutional collapse coincided with deepening organized crime activity across the Caribbean basin. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime consistently places the region within major cocaine trafficking corridors linking South America with North American and European markets. For Caribbean governments, this meant higher interdiction costs, increased exposure to transnational criminal networks and growing pressure on already limited security institutions.

• This moment invites a reassessment of China’s expanding footprint in the Caribbean, Shah says. He can discuss the ways in which Beijing has deepened its presence throughout the region.

Shah says that as this transition unfolds, five policy developments will determine whether the cautious optimism proves warranted:

• The impact on Venezuelan outward migration to the Caribbean.

• Whether Caribbean public systems receive durable support rather than short-term humanitarian fixes.

• Organized crime and drug trafficking pressures in the Caribbean basin.

• External security engagement in the Caribbean.

• 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. Their end creates an opening…but only if policy follows through,” Shah said.

To contact Shah directly for interviews, visit his expert page and click on the "contact" button. Interested reporters can also send an email to mediarelations@udel.edu.