Carrots Need Sticks: The Biden Administration and the Case of Venezuela 

It has been widely reported that the United States and several Latin American countries are suggesting to Nicolas Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, that he negotiate amnesty for himself and his cronies now, in the aftermath of his defeat in Venezuela’s July 28 election.

The Wall Street Journal reported that “The U.S. has discussed pardons for Maduro and top lieutenants of his who face Justice Department indictments, said three people familiar with the Biden administration deliberation. One of the people said the U.S. has put 'everything on the table' to persuade Maduro to leave before his term ends in January. Another person familiar with the talks said the U.S. would be open to providing guarantees not to pursue those regime figures for extradition.” This has been denied, sort of, by the Biden administration: "Since the July 28 elections, we have not made any specific offers of amnesty to Maduro or others. What I can speak to is, since the election, we have just not made that type of offer," said White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre. The words “specific” and “that type” do make one wonder what exactly has been offered or discussed.

As the Washington Post noted, "Rather than taking the lead in pushing for Maduro to step down and threatening sanctions and other reprisals if he refuses as the White House has in the past, the current administration has placed its hopes in a triad of leftist Latin American governments to persuade him to yield.” The triad consists of Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

Perhaps the White House staff is leery of acknowledging amnesty offers in an election year, fearful that Republicans would seize on the issue and call such offers giving in to criminals. After all, “The U.S. Department of State is offering a REWARD OF UP TO $15 MILLION for information leading to the arrest and/or conviction of Nicolás Maduro Moros” because “Maduro was charged in a March 2020 Southern District of New York federal indictment for narco-terrorism, conspiracy to import cocaine, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices in violation of Title 21 U.S.C. §§ 960a and 963, and 18 U.S.C. § 924.”

But the Biden administration would have a good Republican defense to such attacks: amnesty is precisely what the Reagan administration offered Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega in 1988.

“General Noriega was indicted in the Southern District of Florida on February 4, 1988. The indictment alleges that General Noriega was part of an international conspiracy to import cocaine and materials used in producing cocaine into the United States,” a U.S. District Court in Florida noted at the time.

I was Assistant Secretary of State for Latin America at the time, and our offer was clear: if Noriega left power and left Panama (for roughly a year, minimum) the United States would drop the drug charges against him. Noriega negotiated but in the end backed out of the deal. He seems to have thought that the dangers of leaving power were greater than those he faced remaining in power. He was wrong, and ended up in federal prison after the U.S. invasion in 1989.

There is a lesson here: that the dictator must be convinced his situation is unstable and will deteriorate, so that he should make a deal if he can. He and his cronies must come to believe that staying is more dangerous than leaving.

That does not seem to be what the Biden administration is saying. The Wall Street Journal quoted Venezuela expert Geoff Ramsey of the Atlantic Council saying that “The Biden administration is focusing on carrots, like offering to lift the indictments in exchange for transition talks, rather than sticks like sanctions.”

But carrots without sticks won’t work. Maduro must also be threatened—with more economic sanctions, more diplomatic isolation, fewer resources with which to reward cronies, and all the forms of pressure that can be mustered by the United States and our partners in this effort. And his associates should be offered carrots and threatened with more sticks as well. There are countries with potential influence here, including the “triad” mentioned above. How about Spain and the EU? And what exactly are the leftist leaders of the triad countries saying, offering, threatening? Do we know for certain? How much effort is the United States putting into this, given a president who has announced he won’t run again and is not at the top of his game, and a secretary of state and national security adviser handling Ukraine, the Gaza war, the possible Iranian and Hezbollah attacks on Israel, Taiwan, and every other world problem?

There is a good political reason for the administration to put more effort into Venezuela, and it is migration. With a loss of hope for change, how many more millions of Venezuelans would join the 8 million who’ve already left their country—and how many of them would try to enter the United States, even before our election?

As I’ve written before, the Biden administration came into office with lots of strong rhetoric (see for example this blog item about their statements) claiming they were building “a foreign policy that...is centered on the defense of democracy,” as Secretary of State Blinken put it  in 2021. That policy has never appeared, and indeed the Biden administration watched Tunisia slide from being a true democracy to a true one-man dictatorship without much apparent effort to stop the change. In Venezuela, there is a chance—however small—of ending a dictatorship that has crushed Venezuelans, stolen their freedom, ended their prosperity, led 8 million to flee their own country, and imposed real burdens on their neighbors.

This would be a good time for an active Venezuela policy “that is centered on the defense of democracy.” Carrots and sticks are needed, and top-level attention.