One has support, the other has power. What’s next for Venezuela’s dueling presidents?

Venezuela’s newly recognized interim President Juan Guaidó spent his second day in office out of the public eye but rallying the world’s support over Twitter and the telephone. Meanwhile, his so-called “illegitimate” rival Nicolás Maduro, who also claims to be the country’s leader, received the backing of his armed forces and the Supreme Court and vowed he would “never step down.”

What seems clear is that Venezuela is in a political stalemate that will test the resolve of the international community. Guaidó has support but no real power, and Maduro has power but no real support. But both men will see just how much strength each has in coming days, as the international community grapples with how to deal with the South American nation and its dueling presidents.

The first real showdown could come as soon as Sunday at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas. Shortly after Washington recognized Guaidó as the country’s president on Wednesday, Maduro broke diplomatic ties and ordered all U.S. Embassy staff to leave the country within 72 hours.

But Guaidó countermanded that directive, and U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo says the country’s diplomats are staying put. It’s a game of diplomatic chicken.

“Nicolás Maduro put the rope around his own neck,” said Ronal Rodríguez, the head of the Venezuelan Observatory, a think tank that’s part of Colombia’s Rosario University. “Is he really capable of keeping his promise and expelling the U.S. diplomats? Is he going to expel the diplomats of every other country that recognized Guaidó? I don’t see how this can happen.”

By Thursday, more than 18 nations had explicitly recognized Guaidó as president, including the biggest economies in the western hemisphere, the United States and Canada, and Venezuela’s two biggest neighbors, Brazil and Colombia.

Late Thursday, the U.S. asked all of its “non emergency” embassy staff to leave the country and said all U.S. citizens in Venezuela “should strongly consider departing.” But Washington has warned of dire consequences if Venezuela hurts or uses forces to expel its diplomats. Even so, Maduro isn’t backing down. At a public event Thursday, he reiterated the demand, giving the staff a new deadline, Sunday, to leave.

“Who do they think they are?” Maduro asked. “Do they think they have a colonial enclave in Venezuela and can do anything they want?”

He also said he would be shutting down all of Venezuela’s embassies and consulates in the United States.

As for Guaidó, he’ll face a critical test in February, when he pledged to open “humanitarian corridors” to funnel in desperately needed food and medicine from neighboring countries. On Thursday, Pompeo said the United States would be donating $20 million in aid to that effort.

But exactly how Guaidó will bring in the cargo without the approval and help of the Bolviarian National Guard, which controls the borders, is far from clear.

Despite opposition hopes that factions of the military might break ranks and support Guaidó, there’s no clear evidence of it yet. On Thursday, Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, flanked by the high command of the armed forces, pledged his allegiance to Maduro and accused Washington of flirting with civil war by trying to install a puppet leader.

If Guaidó wants to make good on his promise of a humanitarian corridor, he may have to rely on foreign troops to protect the cargo, leaving his international allies open to charges that they’re engaged in a military invasion.

The corridor issue could show exactly how far the international community is willing to go to support Guaidó’s claims of legitimacy, said Eric Farnsworth, with the Americas Society / Council of the Americas.

“If the Maduro government wants to repress Guaidó or take actions to delegitimize him, then what’s the international community prepared to do? And if they don’t do anything what’s their support worth?” he asked.

Maduro claims he won 68 percent of the vote in May, giving him the right to rule through 2025. But Washington and others say the election was marred by fraud, that Maduro is illegitimate and that Venezuela’s constitution requires Guaidó, the head of congress, to be acting president.

And Washington has repeatedly said that all “options are on the table” to make that transition a reality. On Thursday, National Security Adviser John Bolton said the U.S. will be targeting Maduro’s finances.

“What we’re focusing on today is disconnecting the illegitimate Maduro regime from the source of its revenues,” he said. “We think consistent with our recognition of Juan Guaidó as the constitutional interim president of Venezuela that those revenues should go to the legitimate government.”

Despite all the heated rhetoric and existing sanctions from Washington, the United States is still Venezuela’s largest market for crude, sending more than $8 billion dollars back to state-run PDVSA oil company in 2016. One of the ideas making the rounds on Capitol Hill is to divert that money. In 1989, the United States used a similar approach with Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, putting money from Panama Canal tolls into an escrow account until it could be turned over to his successor.

But it’s not clear that tactic would work with Venezuela, as the country could simply quit exporting crude to the United States, said David Moran, an economic analyst who served as Venezuela’s vice minister of finance from 1994 to 1996.

“Venezuela is not going to send petroleum simply to lose it,” he said. “That’s not feasible.”

However, the mere act of recognizing Guaidó will already create financial hardship for Maduro, he said.

“The legal uncertainty that [Guaidó’s] recognition creates means nobody is going to make an investment of, say, 10 to 15 years in the country,” Morán said. And while Maduro still has international allies they’re losing interest in a country that has defaulted on $10 billion worth of debt and seems to be teetering on collapse, he said.

“China is not going to finance Venezuela’s socialism, much less Russia or Turkey,” he said.

It’s unclear how long Venezuela will operate with two competing executives. Much will depend on if Guaidó can keep from being arrested or forced into exile, like many other opposition politicians.

Farnsworth said that if Guaidó doesn’t have a firm plan in place to evade authorities and exercise his power “things could get messy pretty quick.”

“There is going to be greater entanglement going forward,” he said. “Nobody out there is suggesting that Maduro will go anywhere anytime soon under his own volition.”

McClatchy’s Franco Ordoñez contributed to this report.

This story was originally published January 24, 2019 at 5:24 PM.