What percentage of people in Venezuela are happy with Trump's invasion?
Executive summary
There is no reliable, publicly available poll in the provided reporting that measures what percentage of Venezuelans are "happy" with the U.S. military operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, so any single numerical claim cannot be supported by these sources; reporting instead offers anecdotal scenes of relief, fear and uncertainty among Venezuelans [1], and broad diplomatic condemnation abroad [2] [3]. Where polling exists in the dataset, it measures American— not Venezuelan— attitudes toward the strike, showing about one-third of Americans approved of the U.S. action and deep partisan splits, but that figure does not translate to sentiment inside Venezuela [4] [5].
1. What the sources do — and do not — measure
The reporting made available focuses on political and international reactions, expert analysis and on-the-ground anecdotes rather than systematic Venezuelan public-opinion data: Reuters/Ipsos and other polling cited measure American views of the strike (roughly 33% approval overall, 65% among Republicans) and U.S. domestic division [4] [5], while Chatham House and international outlets examine strategic consequences and diplomatic fallout rather than publishing Venezuela-focused polls [6] [2].
2. Ground-level Venezuelan reactions recorded in the press
Contemporary reportage captures mixed feelings in Venezuela: BBC reporters found some people expressing relief that Maduro was gone and hope that U.S. investment might improve the economy, yet the same interviews recorded fear and skepticism about U.S. intentions and uncertainty about the future [1]; The Guardian recorded similar notes of relief among some expatriate Venezuelans but framed those emotions against a backdrop of unease about U.S. motives and the risk of renewed instability [7].
3. The wider international and regional signal
World leaders and regional governments largely condemned the intervention as a breach of international law and warned of dangerous precedents, with Spain, Mexico, Uruguay and others publicly rejecting unilateral military action and allies like China and Russia denouncing it as aggression [3] [2] [8]; these diplomatic rebukes shape the context in which Venezuelan attitudes will evolve but do not quantify them.
4. Why no precise Venezuelan percentage can be given from these sources
None of the supplied articles include a scientifically conducted poll or representative survey of Venezuelan public opinion that asks whether citizens are "happy" with a U.S. invasion; where the term “happy” appears in public narratives it is anecdotal or emotional reporting from selected individuals, which cannot be extrapolated to produce a percentage without risking misrepresentation [1] [7].
5. A cautious synthesis of what the evidence suggests
Taken together, the sources point to a fractured picture: pockets of relief or celebration exist among some Venezuelans and expatriates who repudiated Maduro [7] [1], but there is also widespread fear, uncertainty and vocal official and popular opposition to foreign intervention, amplified by Maduro loyalists’ denunciations and regional governments’ condemnations [9] [2] [8]; without representative polling, the balance between those currents cannot be reduced to a precise percentage from the provided reporting.
6. How to get a defensible percentage — and why it matters
A defensible estimate would require a recent, methodologically sound poll conducted inside Venezuela or among a representative diaspora sample that explicitly asks about approval or happiness with U.S. military action; absent that, journalists and analysts must avoid numeric claims and instead present the documented mix of reactions, domestic uncertainty, and international backlash that the sources describe [1] [2] [6].