What Trump supporters in Florida make of US seizing Maduro

“I grew up with endless wars,” said Dirk Frazier, a longtime Trump supporter in Florida who once set up a stand selling hot dogs to other supporters on the bridge leading to the president’s Mar-a-Lago estate.

But this time is different, he adds. “Venezuela is closer to home.”

Frazier vividly remembers growing up watching the messy foreign entanglements that President Donald Trump has vowed to avoid.

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have left thousands of Americans dead, tens of thousands wounded, and millions of voters seeking to escape overt nation-building missions with limited success.

Now the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and Trump's vow that the US will “run” the country have raised fears that the US will once again find itself responsible for rebuilding a deeply fractured country far from home.

For Frazier and other Trump supporters, the nature of the operation to topple Maduro – quickly and without U.S. casualties – makes it a “stark contrast” to the alarming and steady stream of Americans killed during the decades-long “war on terror.”

Instead, he sees it as evidence of “peace through strength,” the term Trump prefers to describe his foreign policy.

“This is not going to last or last,” a St. Augustine resident told the BBC. “We are behaving like a global superpower again. All bad actors have been warned.”

On the streets of Miami, Trump supporters talked about the potential side effects that Maduro's overthrow could have. Some believe leftist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua may be losing their lifeline.

Others believe that in an economically stronger Venezuela, some migrants will return home, which itself is a key part of the broader MAGA program.

“It's chess, not checkers,” Vianca Rodriguez, a Florida resident who formerly worked for the Republican National Committee and the Trump campaign, told the BBC.

“It turns them on [Venezuelans] thinking they might want to go home,” she added. “To help curb immigration, you want people to want to come back. They are here because they had no choice.”

So far, only a handful of prominent Republicans have criticized the Venezuela mission.

Former Georgia Republican Marjorie Taylor Greene, a once-loyal ally who recently became angry with Trump, for example, said on X that “this is what many in MAGA thought they voted to end.”

Trump's other Republican critic in Congress, Representative Thomas Massie of Kentucky, said simply: “That's not what we voted for.”

But the US president, members of his cabinet and senior officials are unhappy with the suggestion that the strike on Venezuela is in any way similar to previous, criticized interventions such as in Iraq.

“It was Bush…we should never have gone into Iraq,” Trump told the Atlantic. “This marked the beginning of the Middle East disaster.”

Vice President J.D. Vance also supported the move, calling the Venezuela operation necessary to combat the flow of drugs into the United States and accusing the Venezuelan government of expropriating U.S. oil assets to enrich itself.

“I understand the concern about using military force, but should we just let a communist steal our stuff in our hemisphere and do nothing?” he wrote on X. “Great powers don’t do that.”

These arguments seem to have resonated with even the most isolationist wing of the MAGA movement, such as former adviser Steve Bannon, who described the mission on his podcast as “bold and brilliant.”

But he also warned of the specter of Iraq and told the New York Times: “The lack of a clear message about a potential occupation is leaving the base confused, if not angry.”

For many Trump supporters, there is one significant difference between Venezuela and other recent U.S. wars: proximity.

“Isolationists and Reaganites don’t agree on much, but one area where they agree is the Western Hemisphere,” a former Trump administration official told Politico. “Isolationists are more comfortable being a little more internationalist when it comes to our own backyard.”

Giancarlo Sopo, a conservative Florida strategist who worked for Trump's 2020 campaign, said the Middle East and Latin America are “fundamentally different” and even Maduro feels “compelled to put on a semblance of democracy.”

“There is also no indication that we will see a prolonged military occupation in South America… perhaps a residual stabilizing presence to prevent a power vacuum,” he said. “This is far from nation building.”

But even if some isolationist Republicans see a difference, many in the global community, as well as in the United States, say removing the president is a clear violation of international law that sets a dangerous precedent.

It is also unclear how events will develop in Venezuela now that Maduro is no longer in power.

Former deputy director of the CIA John McLaughlin told the BBC: “Typically in military and covert operations, if you use violence, you don't know where it will lead after that – even if you have a plan, analysis and assumptions.”

A prolonged period of unrest could dissuade more Americans from supporting intervention. Pre-operative survey YouGov indicated at the end of December just 22% supported using U.S. military force to topple Maduro, rising to 44% among Republicans.

At a restaurant near Miami, Cuban-born restaurateur Irina Vilariño – a former Republican candidate who has increasingly criticized Trump – told the BBC that “if she took off her Latino hat” she would understand why some Americans are “wondering why this is even our business.”

“I can see why it shouldn’t be my problem,” she said. “But we [Americans] are heavily influenced by bad actors. A lot of Americans just don’t understand it… to a certain extent they had to do it.”

Several Trump supporters from Florida who spoke to the BBC after the Caracas raid continue to return to Trump's term “peace through strength” when describing the strikes in Venezuela.

“This has always been a theme for Trump,” Vianca Rodriguez said.

“This is a return to the ideals of Ronald Reagan and no American casualties. [Venezuela] They fought us with drugs. I think it's time to bring justice.”