“Maduro seize everything from them … they swim here to get away … they sweeping my yard for a box of KFC.”

So said my auntie back in Trinidad and Tobago by phone a decade ago.

Across much of the Caribbean, the collapse of the Maduro regime has been met with a restrained but unmistakable sense of relief. Public statements have been cautious, even muted. Yet beneath the diplomatic restraint lies a shared understanding: For small island states that have absorbed the spillover effects of Venezuelan collapse for more than two decades, this moment represents the possible end of a long and destabilizing chapter.

Since the early 2000s, Chávez-socialist Venezuela’s political and economic deterioration translated directly into pressures felt across the Caribbean. This amped up in the Maduro era, which did not merely reshape Venezuela, but reshaped the Caribbean’s operating environment.

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