In one of his most decisive foreign policy moments, President Trump recognized Juan Guaidó, the president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, as the country’s interim leader. Free countries from the Western Hemisphere, Europe and beyond, including some adamant Trump critics, joined the United States in support of Mr. Guaidó and against Nicolás Maduro’s crumbling ­socialist dictatorship.

Yet China, Russia, Iran, and others jumped to Mr. Maduro’s defense. Cuba — the country that installed Mr. Maduro in power in 2013, as Hugo Chavez was dying in Havana — has overseen the vicious crackdowns against impressive pro-democracy rallies. Since Wednesday, more than 800 anti-Maduro demonstrators have been thrown into Cuba-modeled dungeons.

So the lines are drawn. As Secretary of State Pompeo told the United Nations Security Council Saturday, every country must now pick sides: “Either you stand with the forces of freedom, or you’re in league with Maduro and his mayhem.”

How, though, does America help the forces of freedom win? It’s about money. And, true, the global anti-democratic club has been bolstering Mr. Maduro for a long time, while we’re fairly new to the game. Even so, Washington has the advantage.

China, for one, has offered Venezuela some $65 billion in loans. But Caracas hasn’t made much progress toward repayment, and so Beijing isn’t likely to invest further for now. Sure, China’s communist rulers express public support for Mr. Maduro, but cautious Beijing will await the outcome of the current uncertainty. PS: China isn’t looking for additional anti-US fronts.

Russia might go further. According to Reuters, Moscow is already sending paramilitary troops and contractors to Caracas. The Kremlin uses such mercenaries where it wants to be involved militarily while keeping plausible deniability, as it has in Syria and Ukraine. But while Venezuela may be yet ­another site to confront America, the Kremlin doesn’t see it as Russia’s hill to die on.

Cuba is most deeply involved. Throughout the Cold War, the Soviet Union financed the Castro regime in exchange for sugar cane. Needing a new sugar daddy after the Soviet collapse, Castro found Chavez. Venezuela supplied all of Cuba’s energy needs, while ­Havana guaranteed the regime’s survival.

It is the Cubans who train and reinforce Mr. Maduro’s notorious intelligence apparatus. Like in Cuba, the top Venezuelan army brass is getting rich through high positions in the country’s oil and other enterprises. Venezuelan generals, like their counterparts in Havana, get to profit from illicit drug and arms deals.

Such clandestine deals are aided by the Iranian regime and its Lebanese-Shiite proxy, Hezbollah. Relations between Caracas and the Mideast’s Iranian-led Shiite axis go back to the early days of Chavez’s rule.

Today the No. 3 official in the Maduro regime’s hierarchy, the Lebanese-born Tareck El Aissami, is “a bagman for Hezbollah,” says Vanessa Neumann, president of the consultancy group Asymmetrica and a leading researcher of Mideast terrorist activities in Latin America.

Hezbollah, along with the ­Maduro regime, funds much of its ­operations with the narcotics and arms trades. And that, says the Venezuela-born Ms. Neumann, could help the opposition she strongly supports. “With friends like these,” she says, “it makes it easier for us.” The opposition is making the case for the West to place Caracas on the list of terrorist-sponsoring states, leading to automatically imposed sanctions.

The American response has now gone beyond sanctions. On Thursday, soon after Mr. Guaidó was sworn in, Mr. Pompeo pledged $20 million to help him and the Assembly. That’s small change, but it’s a start.

On Monday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin announced $7 billion in sanctions, including on government-owned oil giant PdVSA. While Venezuelan assets in the United States, including oil giant Citgo, will continue to operate, profits will no longer go to Mr. Maduro’s cronies. They will be deposited instead in “blocked accounts” designed to benefit the people through the United States-recognized Guaidó leadership.

Combined with similar measures by America’s global allies, the latest American move can help turn the tide in Caracas. Democracy “never needs to be imposed. It is tyranny that needs to be imposed,” Elliott Abrams, Mr. Trump’s new point man on Venezuela, said at the United Nations Saturday. While Mr. Maduro’s allies impose, America can unite the Free World in isolating him economically — and win one for democracy.

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This column first appeared in the New York Post.