The US walks a fine line against Venezuela

WASHINGTON — The Biden administration is walking a fine line as it tries to get Venezuela’s dictator out of office without falling into the costly traps that vexed previous U.S. administrations and angered Latin American allies.

After a July 28 presidential election riddled with fraud, both of Venezuela’s leaders Nicolas Maduro and opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez claimed victory.

The United States sided with Gonzalez and declared him the winner but stopped short of recognizing him as president-elect. U.S. diplomats cited polling surveys conducted by both the opposition and independent observers that gave Gonzalez a 2-1 margin of victory.

Memories are fresh of the Trump administration’s efforts to oust Maduro, including harsh sanctions and arrest warrants. After an attempted coup in 2019, the Trump administration embraced an alternative president, Juan Guaido. who led what became a government in exile.

Nothing budged Maduroa former bus driver and socialist who took office after the death of Latin American left-wing icon Hugo Chavez in 2013.

VENEZUELAN’S PRESIDENT Nicolas Maduro speaks during a march amid the disputed presidential election, in Caracas. (Credit: MAXWELL BRICENO/REUTERS)

Now U.S. officials hope to try an unproven tactic while relying on the negotiating acumen of three Latin powerhouses friendly to both Caracas and Washington: Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. But they and other regional leaders have so far proved timid in their willingness to pressure Maduro.

Presidents Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva of Brazil, Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Andrés Manuel López Obrador of Mexico, all left-leaning politicians, have called on Maduro to release a full vote count — something the Venezuelan government has still refused to do two weeks on. voting closed. However, none of the other leaders have publicly declared him the loser.

The fall of Venezuela

The Organization of American States, the region’s largest multilateral organization, failed to win majority approval of a mildly worded demand for openness.

“We hope to see all parties take the steps that we have taken,” State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said, referring to the U.S. declaration that Maduro lost. But, he added, a fuller recognition of Gonzalez “is not a step that we are taking” now.

At stake as Maduro clings to power is further political and economic chaos and international isolation. He has launched a deadly crackdown on protesters, with more than two dozen killed and at least 2,000 arrested, including opposition politicians and journalists.

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Once South America’s richest country, Venezuela saw around six million of its citizens flee as refugees, with another wave possible in the coming months. Many have reached the United States, fueling an intense and divisive debate here over immigration.

“It was extremely important for us to get on the record: The most critical thing is that the results are respected, and we’re working with allies to make sure that’s the case,” a senior Biden administration official working on the Venezuela issue said in an interview. The official was granted anonymity to discuss internal policy deliberations.

“The decision (not to accept a Maduro victory) is already a major form of diplomatic pressure,” the official said.

Maduro had agreed to hold elections in July after months of negotiations involving regional officials and, unusually, Persian Gulf nation Qatar, an OPEC partner of oil-rich Venezuela. U.S. officials offered Maduro many benefits if he lost the election and agreed to step down, according to U.S. and Venezuelan sources. Qatar has continued to participate in efforts to get Maduro to release the election results, the White House said Monday.

Incentives included dropping charges and offering Maduro safe passage to a third country. (A State Department spokesman said Monday that such amnesty offers have not been repeated since the election.)

The Venezuelan strongman was apparently worried that even if Washington could drop its charges against him, the US government was in no position to stop an International Criminal Court investigation into widespread human rights abuses attributed to Maduro’s government.

Maduro apparently believed he could use the election to cement his legitimacy, the senior administration official said, after a decade of ruling with an iron fist, crushing dissent and stacking courts, legislatures and other major institutions with loyalists.

Before the election, he often warned the crowds that if he did not emerge the winner, Venezuelans would face a “bloodbath” and civil war.

WAYS in which the Biden administration’s approach to Maduro diverged from the Trump era include emphasizing incentives over punishment — more carrots than sticks, as several diplomats put it.

After a botched election in 2019, the Trump administration quickly recognized Juan Guaido, a little-known opposition politician who declared himself “interim president.” Guaido was seen as legitimate enough because he led the National Assembly, which at the time was one of Venezuela’s last remaining democratic institutions.

However, it was never clear how much domestic support he had, and many of the people who made up his shadow government lived in Washington. In late 2022, the Venezuelan opposition removed Guaido, who is believed to be living in exile in Florida.

In addition to indicting Maduro on drug-trafficking and other charges, former President Trump imposed tough sanctions targeting the Venezuelan economy, including its once-robust petroleum industry, in what was dubbed a “maximum pressure campaign.”

Diplomatic ties between the two countries were essentially severed in 2019. Beginning in 2022, however, Biden began to thaw the diplomatic freeze by secretly sending a team of emissaries to Caracas, where they began talks that eventually led to prisoner swaps that freed more than a dozen Americans detained by Venezuela, including several executives from Houston-based Citgo Petroleum Corp.

Last year, Biden eased a number of sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, gas and gold sectors in exchange for Maduro’s commitment to negotiate with the Venezuelan opposition on holding fair elections. That set the stage for the July vote, with an opposition more united than ever, fighting an election battle at home rather than in Washington, and, according to opinion polls, with a solid lead over Maduro.

Now, American officials are being forced to reassess their strategy, and they will have to maneuver carefully. Reinstating the tougher sanctions could backfire by pushing Maduro further away from any negotiations at the same time as the Latin American countries that are trying to pressure him, but also don’t want to be seen as doing Washington’s bidding.

The administration “must keep the allies on board,” said Ryan Berg, who directs the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

“They must avoid giving (the presidents of Brazil, Colombia and Mexico) reason to care more about what the US government is doing to Maduro than what Maduro did when he stole this election in such a brazen way,” he said.

On Friday, Panama’s president, Jose Raul Mulino, stepped in to offer a solution, saying he would facilitate Maduro’s safe passage through Panama to a third country so he could leave office in peace.

Maduro responded with contempt and a derogatory term for the US officials he suspected were behind the offer. After warning those who were “messing with Venezuela”, Maduro said Panama’s president was being “carried along by gringos”.

(Los Angeles Times/TNS)