Big things are happening in US-Venezuela relations. But can they last?
At the beginning of this week, when most people’s attention was, quite understandably, fixated on Trump’s tariff tantrums, Trump announced that Venezuela’s Maduro government had agreed to receive Venezuelans deported from the United States. The news came days after the Trump administration revoked the extension of the Temporary Protected Status granted by Biden to Venezuelan migrants in his days as president, with the upshot that many of the 600,000 Venezuelan currently in the United States could soon face deportation.
Lest we forget, the main trigger for the mass migration of Venezuelans over the past six years, not only to the US but also to Spain, Colombia, Argentina, and many other Latin American countries, was Trump’s sharp escalation of sanctions in 2019. This massive wave of migration was, in the opinion of John Bolton, Trump’s then-National Security Advisor, a price worth paying. Bolton is also on the record admitting that one of Washington’s driving goals behind the 2019 attempted Juan Guaido coup was to get its hands on Venezuelan oil.
The deal to return the migrants currently in the US, who apparently include members of Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua criminal organisation, was secretly negotiated by the White House in the days before Maduro agreed to receive Trump’s special mission envoy Richard Grenell in Caracas last Friday. The mere fact of the meeting was significant given that: a) the US has been trying to depose Venezuela’s Chavista government for at least 23 years; and b) Maduro himself still has a price on his head, originally set at $20 million by the US State Department under Trump 1.0 and recently increased to $25 million by the Biden administration.
As a gesture of good will, the Venezuelan government released half a dozen US citizens held in Venezuelan prisons who are accused of being mercenaries and plotting terrorist attacks on Mexican soil.
“Grenell returned to the United States on Friday with six of his fellow citizens who were being held in Venezuelan jails, accused of ‘terrorism’ and being mercenaries. The Venezuelan hostages arrived home last night in great shape!” Trump posted on TruthSocial, adding that Venezuela has agreed to receive all Venezuelans camped in the United States under an irregular immigration status
.
A Rare Win-Win
Whether successful or not, this is clearly an attempt by the US to reestablish relations with Venezuela after over a decade of escalating sanctions and multiple failed regime change operations against the country. After Maduro and Grenell closed the deal, the prisoners were taken to the airport, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed. No financial or other concessions were promised to Maduro, other than the prospect of improving relations with the US, Grenell said.
The only reward for Maduro was my presence: the first senior US official to visit the country in years
, Grenell said. It was a great gift for him to receive a visit from an envoy of President Trump
.
While these words may ring of imperial hubris and arrogance, the truth is that Maduro seemed the picture of contentment in the meeting. And who can blame him? Just a month ago, all the talk was of yet another regime change operation led this time by Venezuela’s CIA-sponsored “Iron Lady”, Marìa Corrina Machado. Biden had just given the opposition’s official candidate, Edmundo González, the red carpet treatment at the White House, pronouncing him as “president elect” of Venezuela just days before Maduro’s inauguration for a third term.
But all of that fizzled to nothing as the opposition failed to gather even a sizeable crowd of protesters on the day. While the Trump White House has also labelled González as Venezuela’s “rightful president”, its actions speak louder than its words. There can be no escaping the fact that one of Trump’s most important diplomatic aides just met up with Maduro and other members of his government to discuss ways forward. Maduro said he had a good, frank, direct, open and positive conversation
with Grenell and noted that whoever knocks on the door, we will always open it, whoever wants to talk, we will talk
.
Venezuelan Attorney General Tarek William Saab called the dialogue between the two nations a triumph for Bolivarian diplomacy and said that it leaves Venezuela’s far opposition right in a bad position
:
“If President Donald Trump’s special envoy comes to discuss diplomatic issues and requests an audience with the president – who ended up receiving him in the office of the Miraflores Palace – what does that imply in formal, diplomatic, public and communication terms?”
Most importantly, the fact that Trump officials are willing to meet and work with the Maduro government to carve out possible win-win solutions to some of their shared problems implies at least some degree of diplomatic recognition of Maduro as Venezuela’s head of state. As the foreign relations expert, Francisco Rodríguez notes, this marks an important change in US policy towards Venezuela:
“Since 2019, Washington recognised Juan Guaidó and then the 2015 National Assembly as legitimate representatives of Venezuela. Recognition is a matter of practical engagement. The United States maintains relations with governments that it does not consider legitimate—such as Iran, North Korea, and Russia under Putin. Diplomatic recognition is distinct from political approval.”
Some neocons in Washington are horrified at such a prospect. They include Elliot Abrams, a long-time cheerleader for US meddling in its “back yard” and defender of Latin American death squads who served as former special envoy to Venezuela and Iran during the first Trump administration. Abrams called the meeting in Caracas a terrifying moment
, saying any interaction could be seen as an implicit recognition of Maduro by the Trump administration.
It is also somewhat misleading to suggest that the Maduro government got nothing in return for agreeing to meet Grenell. One day after Grenell’s visit to Caracas, the license from the Office of Foreign Assets Control of the Department of the Treasury that allows the oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela was automatically renewed for six months. The renewal was preceded by an attempt by Chevron to lobby so that the White House would not pay attention to Marco Rubio’s statements to cancel it.
Latin America’s Fastest Growing Economy
Venezuela is the third largest supplier of crude oil to the United States after Canada and Mexico, providing roughly 300,000 barrels per day, according to the United States Energy Information Administration. Most of these barrels are produced by the oil company Chevron, and they provide key business to many of Texas’ oil refining companies. They represent almost a third of Venezuela’s total oil production, estimated at almost one million barrels per day .
The extension of Chevron’s license suggests that other operating permits given to other foreign oil companies, such as Repsol or Total, will also be renewed. As the Argentina geopolitical analyst Bruno Sgarzini notes, the renewal is vital for Venezuela because the liquidation of Chevron’s foreign currency in the exchange market allows it to keep its currency more or less stable, and therefore keep inflation more or less in check. Meanwhile, the diluents sold by Chevron and other oil companies are vital for transporting and refining the extra-heavy crude oil from the Orinoco Belt to help support overall oil production.
The biggest loser in all this process is Venezuela’s political opposition. Trump completely ignored Edmundo González’s pleas not to strike an agreement with Maduro over the deportation of Venezuelans. Venezuela’s real opposition leader, Maria Corrina Machado, admitted that Grenell’s meeting with Maduro was “a terrible look, but it is what it is.”
As we reported on January 6, a few days before Maduro’s inauguration, Trump had suggested his new government would stop buying Venezuelan oil altogether. Now, it appears to be doing the exact opposite. But as we also noted in that article, Trump already bet the house on economic sanctions, Juan Guaidó and regime change last time round, and it was a humiliating disaster, culminating, in 2023, in Guaidó’s expulsion from Colombia and his return to Florida on a US government-paid flight.
This painful experience appears to have informed Trump’s decision making this time. According to a former official of his previous Administration, the president considers the opposition to be losers. “He gave them a lot and they failed. There is no way he will go down that road again.”
A potentially even bigger blow for Venezuela’s opposition forces will be the suspension of USAID funding, which has for over a decade filled the coffers of its political parties and affiliated NGOs and media outlets. According to the US Embassy in Venezuela, the US government has provided $2.3 billion of funds to support Venezuelans since 2017.
Here is Mark Green (centre), USAID administrator, handing $52 million to Julio Borges (on right), the former president of the Venezuela’s national assembly, and Carlos Vecchio (on left), who was ambassador to the US of Juan Guaidó’s interim government, in September 2019. If you watch to the end, you will actually see Borges literally rubbing his hands together in apparent anticipation of the money.
However, the Trump administration has ordered a three-month pause on almost all USAID aid abroad, to review whether the assistance complies with the policies of his government. An eventual audit could also reveal some of the sordid dealings that occurred during Juan Guaidó’s interim government that will, at the very least, cause embarrassment and reputational damage for many of the senior opposition leaders.
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Nick Corbishley 