Venezuela in Crisis: Should the United States Course Correct?

In the midst of a global pandemic, there are growing concerns that Venezuela could soon face a new humanitarian catastrophe due to lack of resilient infrastructure. Yet, this is not the only challenge the country will face in the coming months. A silent threat to the severely hampered democracy looms ahead.  

Despite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s attempt at a parliamentary coup d’état in January 2020, the National Assembly is currently the only symbol of representative democracy and, as the only branch of the government still dominated by the opposition, a hope for a democratic change. However, the possibility of free and fair elections hangs in the balance as National Assembly elections are scheduled for December 2020. In July 2020, Maduro excluded three of the four opposition political parties from the upcoming ballot, and he recently pardoned 100 opponents to the regime in an attempt to create a credible political competition. Organizations such as the Venezuelan Electoral Observatory and the Education Assembly Electoral Observation Network assure that there are many more obstacles to overcome. 

As a worldwide supporter of liberal democracy and a key player in pushing for a regime change in Venezuela, the United States has the ability to bring the Venezuelan parliamentary elections to the attention of the international community and make sure elections will not be another opportunity for Maduro to usurp more power. To do so, the United States should execute a “course correct” and follow a policy of cooperation rather than of conflict with the Maduro regime. 

The Trump administration is using the maximum pressure approach to promote democratic change in Venezuela. Oil sanctions seek to weaken Maduro’s grasp on power and to encourage defection among his loyalists. Yet, the unintended consequences of said approach far outweigh the benefits. Since the sanctions obstruct the use of petroleum profits, Venezuelan political elites have shifted to illegal mining and gold trade as alternative lucrative sources. Further, irregular armed groups and paramilitaries are colluding with the government to extract these resources. Rather than incentivizing a democratic change in the country, the American strategy has magnified the domestic erosion of the rule of law and incentivized further criminalization of the Venezuelan state. Further, a stressed level of sanctions has been an impediment for bilateral and multilateral negotiations. At the inconclusive 2019 Oslo Talks between the Maduro and Guaidó delegations—representing the opposition leader who assumed the Venezuelan interim presidency in January 2019—the United States was only interested in negotiating Maduro’s departure terms. While at the following Lima Group meeting in August 2019, President Trump ordered unilaterally a freeze on all Venezuelan government assets. Due to these events, Caracas claims the United States’ sanctions show that Washington and its allies are “committed to the failure of the political dialogue”. 

To this end, the United States should relax its maximum pressure approach and at least partially lift the oil sanctions. This action could trigger a détente between the United States and the Maduro regime and lead the way to a new round of negotiations. If the United States, the country with the harshest sanctions against Maduro, agrees in relaxing its economic pressure, a new multilateral dialogue may open. On the United States’ side, the demand for fair and free elections in December 2020 could be a term of the agreement. 

Further, America’s demands of Venezuela perpetuate a political standstill that impair the objective of a viable democratic change. On March 31, 2020, the U.S. State Department published the “Democratic Transition Framework for Venezuela” outlining an unrealistic path toward change. First, the document is essentially a set of unilateral demands of an outside third party upon the active parties in the dispute, and it is clearly not seeking any sort of two-way communication. The document makes multiple references to the demand that the lifting of “sanctions” is conditional on following the imposed guidelines. The extent to which the sanctions are used as political and economic leverage conveys a message of penalty for disobedience, rather than promotion for a democratic change. Interestingly enough, the document omits the long-standing American-backed interim president, Juan Guaidó. What is clear is that America’s requests have set the wrong foundation for a renewed bilateral relationship, and so far, the document has failed at its transformative goal. Rather than imposing regime change and interfering in the domestic affairs of Venezuela, the United States should use its influence and visibility to shift international attention to the upcoming National Assembly elections.

As one of the most powerful countries with major geopolitical and economic interests in the Latin American region, the United States must work towards supporting the soon-to-be election in Venezuela instead of fanning the flames of political polarization. To prevent increased levels of sovereignty erosion, the Trump administration must shift its approach towards Venezuela from combative to cooperative and be open to finding common ground for the sake of democracy.

The sanctions designed to weaken Maduro’s grasp on power and accelerate the restoration of democracy have dubious effects. If anything, sanctions have decreased leverage for democratic forces within Venezuela by increasing Maduro’s grasp of power and suppressing individual rights. One way to put an end to this situation is a U.S. policy change: Washington should relax its oil sanctions. This relaxation may open a channel of two-way communication between the United States and the Maduro regime and can be used as a bargaining chip to negotiate internationally-accepted elections. Partial economic activity and international transactions may resume in Venezuela. The immediate benefit of eased capital flow to and from the country may be leveraged by the United States at the negotiation table by demanding a more open political system and that fair and free elections take place in December 2020. A shift in sanctions policy would be a promising step not only towards the normalization of relationships between the United States and Venezuela, but also toward the end-goal of restoring Venezuelan democracy.