The United States and Venezuela have been locked in negotiations for years that have so far gotten nowhere. Washington has conditioned the lifting of sanctions on the Chavista government on free and fair elections in which the opposition would have real options for appointing a president, among other demands. A year ago, representatives from both administrations They met secretly in Qatar and they designed a roadmap that was to clarify the political panorama at this stage, with a winner and a loser after the vote, that both parties recognize the results and that democratic normality is gradually restored to get the country out of the conflict in which it has been immersed at least since 2017, when Wall It has experienced a crisis of legitimacy and street protests have multiplied.
The reality is that the situation has worsened. Maduro is going through his greatest crisis of legitimacy, the opposite of what was sought at this stage. Chavismo accepted the challenge of the United States because it was convinced that no one could beat them in the electoral arena, especially if they managed to exclude María Corina Machado, the leader of the opposition, from the game. Since the time of Hugo Chávez, the so-called Bolivarian Revolution has deployed clientelist networks throughout the country that ensure the mobilization of supporters and their families. Once the electoral process is over, Joe Biden's government would be forced to lift the sanctions, especially those on oil, which most affect the Venezuelan economy.
Maduro, however, was unable to demonstrate his victory on July 28. Although the law requires it, the National Electoral Council (CNE), the plebiscitary body in the hands of Chavismo, did not show the minutes where the results are reflected in the polling centers. The opposition published those that its volunteers collected throughout the country, and in them the candidate who replaced Machado, the diplomat and writer. Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutiabeat Maduro by a wide margin. Efforts to conceal the documents have led almost the entire international community to take the opponent's victory for granted. Countries with ideologically similar presidents, such as Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, are also openly wary of the Chavista triumph.
In a diversionary move, the Venezuelan president asked the Superior Court of Justice (TSJ) to validate the minutes and declare the winner. The TSJ, presided over by a Chavista bureaucrat, unsurprisingly awarded Maduro the victory. The court released footage in which experts, wearing gloves, masks, and plastic gowns, were seen inspecting the minutes with flashlights. It was reminiscent of a scene from CSI, a series about a forensic investigation team. After analyzing the footage from Venezuelan media, it was discovered that the experts were actually Chavista officials from the CNE itself. In other words, it was the researchers themselves who were being investigated.
Far from being lifted, the sanctions increased this Thursday and now they are reaching the leaders of the CNE and the TSJ, whom they consider complicit in the electoral fraud. They also extend to the military, intelligence and government positions responsible for intensifying the repression through intimidation, indiscriminate arrests and censorship following Maduro's failure in the elections, as announced by the Treasury Department. Washington considers that Maduro has broken his word by not authorizing a transition and returning the institutions to democratic paths comparable to those of neighboring countries. Chavismo has responded harshly to the impositions of the United States and accuses that country of not complying with what was agreed in Qatar, which led to a signing in Barbados. The position of the Venezuelan government is that the elections were transparent, as it has claimed, despite all the evidence and even common sense that without the minutes, it is not at all credible to invest Maduro.
Do the sanctions against Chavismo put them in a very delicate situation? Without a doubt, they are completely reducing their income as a government and making them live in the most absolute precariousness. To give you an idea, the income of the Venezuelan state has fallen by 90% in recent years. However, Maduro and his political agents have survived that situation, better than better, and the one they are now going to encounter seems even more difficult. The people around Maduro have proven to be rock-solid, marathon runners of conflict and engage in daily verbal wars against those they consider their enemies. Characters like Diosdado Cabello, considered two of the regime and now a minister, have been hurling invectives, disqualifications and defamations at anyone who crosses his path since the time of Chávez, of whom he was a friend in arms. So, day by day, with an anthological persistence.
In addition, Maduro hired Cabello as Minister of the Interior and put him at the head of the repressive apparatus. In addition, he appointed Delcy Rodríguez, also of his greatest confidence, as Minister of Oil, that is, in charge of PDVSA, the state oil company, one of the most important positions in the government structure. These movements have been interpreted as a Chavista radicalization, which is closing in on itself and entrenching itself, far from an opening as one might expect. The sanctions, defended by presidents such as Gustavo Petro, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and Andrés Manuel López Obrador, among many others, do not help in any way and do not achieve their objectives and only harm the Venezuelan people, who already live alone in scarcity.
The US already sanctioned Maduro in 2017. Since then, its sanctions have been extended to more than 150 individuals and more than 100 entities of the regime, including all its heavyweights, such as Attorney General Tarek William Saab; Delcy Rodríguez herself; her brother, the president of the National Assembly, Jorge Rodríguez; and Cabello, of course. Military, intelligence, judicial and electoral authorities have been designated by Washington, but the Treasury sanctions mainly affect assets in the United States, so their scope is limited.
It is the sanctions against the oil and gas sector that are really hurting the Venezuelan regime. The United States has tried this route, but it has obvious downsides. The impoverishment of the population has resulted in an unprecedented exodus that Maduro has barely blinked at. Many of these emigrants have arrived in the United States, which has plunged into a migration crisis. Moreover, the supply restriction has made oil more expensive at a time when the world’s largest economy is suffering from the highest inflation in four decades. At the same time, the Maduro regime has sought safety valves by exporting to other countries, mainly China.
Washington Lifted sanctions on Venezuelan oil and gas temporarily to achieve democratic presidential elections within the framework of the Barbados Accords, signed between Chavismo and the opposition, for the holding of free elections. However, the Maduro regime disqualified the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, to the great displeasure of American diplomacy, which felt cheated. The government of Joe Biden decided to reactivate these sanctions upon expiry of the agreed six-month period and that's what he did. Washington, however, has avoided returning to the policy of maximum pressure applied during the mandate of Republican Donald Trump, which triggered a wave of asylum requests from Venezuelans at the southern border of the United States.
Machado's disqualification did not prevent an electoral setback for the president against the new opposition candidate, Edmundo Rodríguez Urrutia. However, the Maduro regime has embarked on a headlong flight through what the United States calls “electoral fraud” and the implementation of brutal repression to illegally extend Maduro's mandate.
The Treasury Department imposed new sanctions on judicial, electoral, military and intelligence authorities, But when asked whether the United States plans to tighten restrictions on oil licenses that Chevron and other international companies still have to operate in Venezuela, a senior Biden administration official demurred on Thursday: “We are closely monitoring political and economic developments in Venezuela and are committed to appropriately calibrating our sanctions policy in response to both developments on the ground and broader U.S. national interests,” he said.
“In coordination with our partners, we are also considering a number of options to demonstrate to Maduro and his proxies that their illegitimate and repressive actions in Venezuela will have consequences. We are also very focused on implementing existing sanctions, as well as assessing how best to calibrate our sanctions policy toward Venezuela in light of broader U.S. interests. And most importantly, we remain committed to promoting accountability for actors in Venezuela who undermine the democratic process and the will of the Venezuelan people,” he added.
Like the European Union, the US government has avoided recognizing González Urrutia as president-elect, probably scalded by the fiasco of the recognition of Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela, which ultimately proved useless, dividing the opposition and giving wings to the regime.
When it was pointed out to him that international diplomacy had failed to put pressure on Venezuela, he dismissed it. “I don’t agree with your assertion that regional diplomacy has failed. In fact, I think the careful diplomatic work that we’ve done with a number of partners in this region has been extremely important in ensuring that the results, the fraudulent results that have been released by the Maduro authorities, have been widely rejected. And while there are some differences and variations in terms of the diplomatic positions that our partners have taken, I believe that a level of diplomatic pressure has been maintained on Venezuela that would not have been possible without the constant work and almost constant communication that we have with our partners throughout the region, as well as in the European Union and beyond,” he added. “We stand by our conclusions and the statement made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken a few days after the July 28 elections, in which we consider that there is clear evidence that Mr. González Urrutia obtained the majority of the votes in those elections, and that fact must therefore be respected and validated by the Venezuelan authorities.
Despite the precedents, Washington does not lose hope that sanctions and international pressure will eventually have an effect: “We believe that there is still plenty of time until January for Venezuelan actors, including Nicolás Maduro, to start making better decisions than they have made so far,” the senior official said. “That is why we see these sanctions as an important step in shaping the general context of the political trajectory in Venezuela. But we must not forget that these measures are also being taken in the context of a broader effort that the United States has joined with its partners and allies, both in this hemisphere and around the world, and that includes diplomacy, diplomatic pressure, pressure, in this case, specific and individual sanctions and other measures to ensure that the will of Venezuelan voters is respected,” he concluded.