“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........

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