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Laura Dogu: The American Coup Expert Appointed by Trump as Top US Envoy in Venezuela
Dogu’s appointment ultimately signals not innovation but continuity: a recalibration of tactics in pursuit of the same objective that has defined US policy toward the Bolivarian Revolution for decades—regime change.
Feb 13, 2026
Laura Dogu, newly appointed US envoy to Venezuela, is described by the Los Angeles Times as an appropriate choice because she “navigated crises” in Nicaragua and Honduras during periods of “social and political volatility.” What the LA Times fails to add is that it was precisely Dogu’s job to create crisis and volatility in both countries.
In Latin America she is widely regarded, for good reason, as the “US ambassador of interventions and coups.”
The LA Times appears entirely relaxed about a US diplomat’s job being to meddle in the internal politics of a country whose president the US has just kidnapped in an operation resulting in the murder over 100 people and involving the bombing of key public buildings and health facilities.
Dogu enters the fray “leveraging her experience with authoritarian regimes” and her “deep Latin American expertise.” The LA Times implies that her job is likely to be proactive, looking for ways to ease out the Chavista government and replace it with one more to Washington’s liking, even if that takes a while.
Nicaragua
Signaling that this is the case, the LA Times reporter asked right-wing opposition figures from Nicaragua for their opinions of Dogu, presumably on the basis that she is charged with working with similar quislings in her new role. Predictably, they praised her, admitting to having had clandestine meetings with her when she was based in the country and noting her public support for opposition groups.
Dogu was US ambassador in Managua from 2015 until October 2018, a period coinciding with the preparations and then the coup attempt that began in April 2018 and was defeated in July. At the start of her term, she had relatively cordial relations with the government. That changed after President Daniel Ortega was reelected in 2016 with an increased popular mandate. It became clear to Washington that electoral means to oust the Sandinistas lacked sufficient public support.
Instead, as the State Department admitted, the US concentrated their efforts on “civil society” groups led by opposition figures, “limiting their contact” with the elected government. It later emerged that, in the run-up to the April 2018 insurrection, millions of dollars were spent promoting such groups.
When the coup attempt fizzled, President Ortega explicitly identified Laura Dogu, as Washington’s representative, of being “the leader and financier of this conspiracy, the destruction, the fires, the torture, the disrespect for human dignity, the desecration of corpses, and other acts carried out with cruelty against all Nicaraguans marked by the great sin of being Sandinistas.” Within three months, Washington replaced her.
Honduras
In Honduras, Xiomara Castro of the progressive Libre Party became president in January 2022. Laura Dogu arrived in Tegucigalpa as US ambassador just three months later.
The Center for Political and Economic Research (CEPR) catalogued some of her egregious interferences including with energy and tax reforms, creation of a Constitutional Tribunal, replacement of the attorney general, and the building of a prison.
By 2023, Dogu was already drawing criticism from the Honduran foreign minister, who asked her to “stop commenting on internal Honduran matters.” He criticized her again for similar reasons, in December 2024, after she held a series of meetings with NGOs critical of the government.
In August 2024, President Castro complained about Dogu, after the US diplomat criticized Honduran officials for meeting with their counterparts in Caracas. The ambassador characterized this meeting as “sitting next to a drug trafficker."
Then after a conflict with Dogu over Honduras’s extradition treaty with the US in September 2024 and a spate of rumors about the president’s family, Castro warned that a coup attempt was underway. Dogu concluded her term in Honduras before the presidential elections at the end of 2025, where the US did, in fact, decisively interfere.
Venezuela
The LA Times ingenuously commented that Dogu was “an unusual pick signaling a strategic shift in US policy.” It was neither. US policy remains regime change, but the tactics have shifted in response to the successful and unified resistance of the Bolivarian Revolution.
Venezuelan analyst Francisco Rodriguez noted: “Laura Dogu presented credentials as diplomatic representative of the US to the government of [acting President] Delcy Rodríguez today, that would count as an act of formal recognition.”
As for Dogu being “an unusual pick,” her record, as shown above, suggests a continuation of business as usual. CEPR put it bluntly: “Dogu’s appointment suggests that the administration sought someone with experience in aggressively interfering in a host country’s domestic affairs.”
There is nothing unusual about that. Between 1898 and 1994, the US perpetrated coups and government changes in Latin America at least 41 times. Dogu now presides over just another such attempt. The only reasons Washington itself hasn’t suffered a coup, Latin Americans quip, is because there is no US embassy there.
Far from breaking with the past, Dogu actually invokes it: “We never left the Cold War in Latin America,” she said.
Dogu recently tweeted: “Today I met with Delcy Rodríguez and Jorge Rodríguez to reiterate the three phases that @SecRubio has outlined regarding Venezuela: stabilization, economic recovery and reconciliation, and transition.”
The comment drew an immediate repudiation from the aforementioned Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly. The failure by Dogu to refer to him and acting President Delcy Rodríguez by their formal titles is a disrespectful snub. He characterized her remarks as “diplomatic blackmail” and a “colonial roadmap.” The Venezuelan leadership may have a gun held to their heads, but they continue to respond militantly.
For now, Dogu is concentrating on the “stabilization and economic recovery” phases of the Rubio dictate. The more contentious third phase will be “transition.”
In a telling pivot from its previous myth-making that the “opposition [is] more unified than ever,” the LA Times now admits that Dogu is just the right official to be foisted on Venezuela because of her experience navigating “fragmented opposition movements.” The opposition to the Chavista government has long been fractious despite hundreds of millions of dollars pumped into “democracy promotion” by the US.
Contrary to the myths in the corporate press, María Corina Machado and her hand-picked surrogate Edmundo González Urrutia may not be the people’s choice in Venezuela. No lesser authority than Donald Trump himself commented that Machado “doesn’t have the support within or the respect within the country.”
If the claims that the opposition won the July 2024 presidential by a 70% landslide were credible, why didn’t González present his evidence when summoned by Venezuela’s supreme court? Failing to do so left no constitutional basis for him to be declared the winner.
But that was the whole point of the Washington’s interference in backing an astroturf opposition with more traction inside the Beltway than in Caracas. The US objective was not to win the contest but to delegitimize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The deadly sanctions—illegal unilateral coercive measures—were explicitly designed as collective punishment to erode Maduro’s authority with his compatriots.
And when that failed and the Bolivarian Revolution prevailed, Washington escalated further, culminating in the January 3 kidnapping of a constitutional head of state. That military action formed part of its hybrid war, accompanied by sustained demonization of Maduro before the US public.
Conclusion
Laura Dogu’s appointment ultimately signals not innovation but continuity: a recalibration of tactics in pursuit of the same objective that has defined US policy toward the Bolivarian Revolution for decades—regime change through pressure, attrition, and delegitimization. Whether branded as “stabilization,” “economic recovery,” or “transition,” the underlying premise remains that Venezuela’s political future should be shaped in Washington, not Caracas.
Yet the record in Nicaragua, Honduras, and Venezuela itself suggests that external coercion has limits. Dogu’s mission will test not only Venezuela’s resilience but also the durability of the unremitting US strategy of Latin American interventions.
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'War by Another Means': Union Movement Condemns Trump Economic Siege of Cuba
"Recent actions by the Trump administration have further exacerbated an already US-manufactured humanitarian crisis," said Public Services International Inter-America.
Feb 10, 2026
The inter-American branch of a global labor federation representing tens of millions of workers issued a statement Monday condemning the Trump administration's intensifying economic assault on Cuba and threats of regime change, calling such actions "war by other means" and violations of international law.
"They are incompatible with peace, the human right to dignity, and the principle of national sovereignty," said Public Services International (PSI) Inter-America as the Trump administration's blockade of oil imports fueled a worsening humanitarian crisis for the island nation, bringing rolling blackouts, straining hospitals, and causing shortages of food and other necessities.
The labor federation said Monday that the Trump administration's policies are an extension of the catastrophic, decades-long economic US blockade on Cuba, "which constitutes a violation of the United Nations Charter and has been condemned year after year by the overwhelming majority of the international community."
"Recent actions by the Trump administration have further exacerbated an already US-manufactured humanitarian crisis," PSI Inter-America said, pointing to the White House's blockade of Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threats of economic retaliation against any country that provides the island nation with fuel.
"These measures deliberately deepen suffering and place lives in danger," the union federation said. "The blockade itself causes avoidable hardship, illness, and death among the Cuban people every year. Its intensification follows months of sanctions, seizures, and interference targeting Venezuelan oil shipments, further depriving Cuba of essential energy supplies."
The federation called on all of its affiliates worldwide and trade unions in the Americas to:
- Stand in active solidarity with the people of Cuba and publicly oppose the US blockade by raising their voices in protest, in every possible arena, to condemn this arbitrary and immoral measure;
- Demand that their governments take immediate and concrete action to defend international law, continue trade relations with Cuba, and ensure the delivery of all contractual and humanitarian goods;
- Advocate in all multilateral bodies for continued support for Cuba in the face of this ongoing economic aggression.
- Mobilize members to contact elected representatives through coordinated phone calls, emails, and letters demanding an end to the blockade;
- Press national labor centers to carry these demands forward on behalf of the entire labor movement;
- Organize and collect humanitarian and solidarity aid for Cuba; and
- Where possible, organize delegations to Cuba, including participation in the May 1 demonstrations in Havana and the Solidarity Conference on May 2, and consider earlier solidarity visits.
During a news conference on Monday, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum condemned the Trump administration's escalating economic warfare against Cuba as "deeply unjust" and vowed to "continue supporting Cuba"—even as her government halted oil shipments to its ally amid the US president's threats.
"You cannot strangle a people in this way," said Sheinbaum, who this past weekend authorized a shipment of more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, including food and other necessities.
"No one can ignore the situation that the Cuban people are currently experiencing because of the sanctions that the United States is imposing in a very unfair manner," the Mexican president added.
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Pushing for Regime Change, Trump Accused of 'Asphyxiating' Cuba With Fuel Embargo
"Bus stops are empty, and families are turning to wood and coal for cooking, living through near-constant power outages amid an economic crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s steps in recent weeks."
Feb 09, 2026
The Trump administration's decision to tighten the decadeslong US stranglehold on the Cuban economy by depriving the island nation of its largest source of oil has plunged the country into a rapidly worsening energy crisis, forcing its government to take far-reaching emergency steps to avert catastrophe—from curbing transportation services to shortening work and school hours.
"We are not going to collapse," Oscar Perez‑Oliva Fraga, Cuba's deputy prime minister, said in an address outlining the emergency measures late last week as White House officials—including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a longtime Cuba hawk—pushed for the overthrow of the Cuban government by the end of the year.
The Wall Street Journal reported late last month that President Donald Trump's administration is "emboldened" by its kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and is now "searching for Cuban government insiders who can help cut a deal to push out" the government of Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has expressed openness to talks with the US—but not under economic coercion.
"The Trump administration has assessed that Cuba’s economy is close to collapse and that the government has never been this fragile after losing a vital benefactor in Maduro," the Journal noted. "Officials don’t have a concrete plan to end the Communist government that has held power on the Caribbean island for almost seven decades, but they see Maduro’s capture and subsequent concessions from his allies left behind as a blueprint and a warning for Cuba."
Since its abduction of Maduro in early January, the Trump administration has vowed to bar any Venezuelan oil or money from reaching Cuba and threatened to slap tariffs on any country that sells oil to the Cuban government. Venezuela was previously Cuba's largest oil supplier, providing the island nation with roughly 70,000 barrels of crude oil and refined products last year.
In a January 29 executive order, Trump proclaimed—laughably—that Cuba "constitute[s] an unusual and extraordinary threat" to US national security.
The Trump administration's increasingly aggressive economic warfare has been disastrous for the Cuban people, who have always been the primary victims of the illegal and globally condemned US blockade.
"Bus stops are empty, and families are turning to wood and coal for cooking, living through near-constant power outages amid an economic crisis worsened by the Trump administration’s steps in recent weeks," Al Jazeera reported Sunday. "The government says it will prioritize available fuel for essential services—public health, food production, and defense—and push the installation of solar-based renewable energy sector and incentives therein. It will prioritise shifting energy to selected food production regions and accelerate the use of renewable energy sources, while cutting down on culture and sport activities and diverting resources towards the country’s early warning systems."
A spokesperson for United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned last week that the UN chief is "extremely concerned about the humanitarian situation in Cuba, which will worsen, if not collapse, if its oil needs go unmet."
David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, wrote Monday that "right now, Donald Trump is laying siege to the island of Cuba: asphyxiating its people, shuttering its hospitals, starving them of food."
"If you care about 'America', this is your fight," Adler added.
Over the weekend, the Mexican government announced that its Navy is sending more than 800 tons of humanitarian aid to Cuba, including "essential food items" and "personal hygiene products."
"Through these actions, the government of Mexico reaffirms the humanistic principles and spirit of solidarity that guide it, and its commitment to international cooperation among peoples, especially with those who require humanitarian assistance in situations of emergency and vulnerability," the government said in a statement. "Cuba and Mexico are sister nations, heirs to a long history of solidarity that we honor today."
In a social media post during the National Football League Super Bowl in the US, Drop Site journalist Ryan Grim wrote that "there are obviously a lot of shameful moments in American history, but Mexico being forced to send militarily protected humanitarian relief to a Cuban population we are starving for no reason, while we all stuff our faces with chicken wings, has to rank among our low moments."
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