🪞 Maduro’s Syrian mirror, Bukele’s gold rush

The fall of Syria’s Assad is a bad omen for Maduro in Venezuela. And Bukele wants to end a historic gold mining ban in El Salvador

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Ignacio Portes & Lucas Berti
December 13, 2024 • Reading Time: 3 minutes

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Venezuela sees itself in the Syrian mirror

President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela never misses an opportunity to display control over the military. Photo: RS via Fotos Publicas

Venezuela and Syria are clearly different in many ways. The religious sectarianism driving politics in the Middle East finds no foothold in Latin America, and no armed rebel group is threatening President Nicolás Maduro in the way Sunni militias did to Bashar al-Assad since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

  • Yet, the abrupt collapse of Syria’s Assad regime, after five decades in power, strikes an unsettling chord with its longstanding allies in Caracas — who fear Venezuela could face a similar fate. 

👉 Why it matters. Both regimes share close ties with Russia and Iran, alliances now weakened by Russia’s war in Ukraine and Iran’s battle with Israel.

  • As The Brazilian Report has warned, US President-elect Donald Trump could leverage this instability, potentially trading concessions in Ukraine for reduced Russian support of allies like Venezuela.

In their words. “Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer,” Trump said last weekend, calling for a swift peace deal in Ukraine.

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