Maybe I used the wrong phrasing. To me, if you lose an election and then use illegal means to attain/maintain power, that is a "coup".

A resumption of sanctions may be in order.

Correct, but I think that occurred in the prior election, so he's already in office illegally. What you describe is a self coup.

There also was an unsuccessful coup attempt by disaffected Venezuelan military living in neighboring countries. I use coup here for lack of a better word in my vocabulary.

So we were at a stalemate with Maduro, and we negotiated to get free and clear elections. We recognized the sanctions weren't working and people were fleeing the country and coming to the USA because of how bad it was there. I haven't read it, but I think it was an attempt to alleviate conditions causing Venezuelans to show up at our border that were caused by the sanctions.

Maduro had bad faith and the opposition leader was prohibited from running, so she used a surrogate. Her surrogate won the election according to the exit polls. Removing the sanctions does appear to have stopped the exodus from the country.

If we reinstate the sanctions, people will start fleeing again and we have changed our border policy. It looks like we made a "right way" to apply for asylum the made crossing our southern border except in a couple of spots the "wrong way". It appears if you do it the wrong way, we can prohibit you from reapplying the "right way" at times and I'm not sure what "times" those are. Fuzzy here.

I think Argentina is trying to get the momentum going for Maduro to step aside, or his ouster, and he would have to be weak for that to happen. he's not weak - yet.

Gotta run. :)