President Donald Trump proved that the “extraction method” works. On Jan. 3, 2026, Operation Absolute Resolve lifted Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro from Caracas and delivered him to American courts. This surgical strike severed the South American node of the China-Russia-Iran axis. Overnight, Cuba lost Venezuelan crude, watched 32 of its bodyguards die in the raid, and realized its imperial reach had withered. With Maduro gone, forcing a collapse of the totalitarian Cuban regime requires Washington to confront the remaining hub of this hostile network: Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega.
American statutory law perfectly covers the case. Ortega abolished democracy on July 20, 2026, declaring that Nicaragua would hold no more elections. The subservient National Assembly then permanently barred political dissidents from public office. This political tyranny mirrors a criminal enterprise servicing Foreign Terrorist Organizations under Executive Order 14157. A rogue, murderous ruler who abolishes democratic elections while facilitating designated terrorist cartels meets the exact legal criteria that justified Maduro’s extraction.
Geostrategy hardens the indictment. Ortega’s Presidential Decree 05-2026 authorized Russian troops on Nicaraguan soil, while 22 Chinese firms hold mining concessions across 1.28 million hectares, swallowing one-tenth of the country. Indisputably, extra-regional adversaries are actively converting a corrupt dictatorship into a forward military platform targeting America.
Indeed, extracting the decrepit Nicaraguan dictator would send a chilling message to Havana. Cuban intelligence trained Ortega’s Sandinistas in 1979, and he remains Cuba’s most loyal regional ally. His downfall would undoubtedly signal to Miguel Diaz-Canel and “El Cangrejo” that if they do not seriously change course, they are next. History proves that communist regimes collapse under pressure. When Washington cleared Grenada in 1983, Castro yanked his personnel within weeks. Havana always retreats.
An Ortega operation presents far fewer operational risks than a Cuban invasion. While Cuba fields 76,000 active troops, Nicaragua commands a mere 12,000 soldiers and possesses no meaningful navy. Crucially, land borders with Costa Rica and Honduras provide military planners with geographic flexibility that an island fortress never offers. Ultimately, Managua presents a thinner target and a cleaner legal package.
Three immediate policies should lock the deterrent. First, the Justice Department must unseal a narco-terrorism indictment against Ortega and his wife — a Cilia Flores de Maduro on steroids — the same week the National Security Council pre-positions an extraction package. Simultaneously, the Treasury Department must list Chinese concession vehicles on Nicaraguan soil as blocked property, turning Beijing’s mining assets into stranded liabilities the hour the dictator leaves.
Second, the State Department must replicate the Venezuelan transition model by conditioning economic normalization on a sweeping strategic mandate. Just as the new administration in Caracas realigned to American interests, Washington must compel incoming Nicaraguan leadership to sign a bilateral accord granting the United States direct control over Nicaragua’s massive gold reserves. Securing this mineral wealth provides a tangible asset class to back and strengthen the U.S. dollar against aggressive adversarial de-dollarization schemes and contain oil prices.
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Concurrently, Washington should permanently take over, redesign, and construct the interoceanic canal project originally sought by Beijing. Securing this long-coveted trade bottleneck denies China a maritime chokehold, creates an American-managed commercial highway, and ensures unchallenged U.S. naval mobility through the region. Finally, Washington must launch a joint FBI-SouthCom Isthmus Deterrence Channel. Broadcasting the Grenada precedent to Cuban cadres while recognizing a democratic Nicaraguan government will collapse Ortega’s remnants and sever Havana’s lifeblood without firing a shot.
The time has come for a lethargic Pentagon and a paralyzed State Department to stop peddling unimaginative options. Instead, bureaucrats must brief Trump on this bold strategy in plain, unvarnished terms. Only then can Washington finally reclaim America’s backyard, securing our Nation against devastating narco-trafficking and compounding foreign threats.
Jose Lev Alvarez is an American–Israeli scholar specializing in international security policy. A multilingual veteran of the IDF special forces and the U.S. Army, he holds three master’s degrees and is completing a Ph.D. in Intelligence and Global Security in the Washington, D.C., area.