MIAMI — Newsweek’s August 7-14 international cover delivers a blunt verdict on one of the most consequential foreign policy gambles of President Trump’s second term: “TRUMP WAS RIGHT (ABOUT VENEZUELA).” The cover shows a giant, safari-clad caricature of Trump straddling North and South America, fuel pump in hand, oil flowing down to pump-jacks below.
Trump reposted the cover himself; the White House followed with its own share captioned “TRUST IN TRUMP.”
The Case the Cover Makes
The subhead states it plainly: “Six months later — and after a natural disaster no one planned for — the skeptics who predicted chaos were wrong.” Trump reinforced the message in a video statement circulated alongside the cover: “Trump was right about Venezuela. They’ve gotten stability and America has gotten oil and safety. It’s a win and a win and a win.”
What the Skeptics Predicted
When Trump ordered the January 3 raid that captured Nicolás Maduro and ended his presidency, warnings of chaos came from a wide range of voices, not a single source, and the “chaos” framing was explicit and widespread from day one.
House Armed Services Committee ranking Democrat Adam Smith warned that U.S. military intervention “always ends badly,” pointing directly to Iraq and Libya — two cases where removing a strongman by force triggered years of civil war, insurgency, and state collapse. Representative Jim Himes, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, drew an equally pointed comparison to the fall of the Taliban in 2002, when early optimism about Afghanistan gave way to two decades of instability.