The United States and the Venezuelan Election

It would no doubt be wrong and unfair to argue that the Biden administration is seeking to undermine Venezuela’s democratic opposition forces, but it’s hard to escape entertaining that speculation this month.

The last meeting between U.S. and Maduro regime officials –before this month- was in April. Since then the regime has worked hard to ensure that the July 28 presidential election is not fair. For example, it barred the leading opposition candidate, Maria Corina Machado, from running, and in May the regime revoked its invitation to the EU to observe the election. And as an article in Americas Quarterly noted, “Nicolás Maduro’s regime is also taking steps to block Venezuelans’ access to ballot boxes at home and abroad.”

On July 3^rd, the EU issued a statement in which it “expresses its deep concern with the decisions intended to prevent members of the opposition from exercising their core political rights, as has been the case of María Corina Machado and other political figures.  These decisions undermine democracy and the rule of law and will only deepen the longstanding political and social crisis in Venezuela.”

Yet the United States sought a meeting with Maduro regime officials, and it was held (virtually) on July 3. To repeat, it was not Maduro who sought the meeting but the United States. Why? According to Reuters, a White House spokesman said of Wednesday's meeting that "We discussed a wide range of issues and continued to urge competitive and inclusive elections on July 28 in Venezuela.”

Urging free elections on Nicolas Maduro is about as useful as urging them on Cuba’s president. Meanwhile, the lawyer and scholar Rocio San Miguel, seized by police on February 9, remains in the hellish El Helicoide prison—detained, as Amnesty International put it, “for defending human rights in Venezuela.” One hopes, without much confidence, that among the “wide range of issues” raised in the U.S.-Maduro talks was her detention—and that of hundreds of other political prisoners.

Venezuela’s oil production rose from around 400,000 barrels per day when President Biden entered office to double that today—a period in which repression also grew steadily.  During 2023, as Reuters reported, “Venezuela's oil exports increased 12%...to almost 700,000 barrels per day (bpd) as the United States eased sanctions….” Production increases continued in 2024, and “US oil giant Chevron, which received a limited license to reactivate extraction and sales from its Venezuelan operations in November 2022, recently announced plans to drill 30 new wells in the crude-rich Orinoco Oil Belt.”

Why is this in the interest of the United States? With global crude oil production of over 80 million barrels per day, and total liquid fuels production over 100 million barrels per day, these Venezuelan increases in production will not affect U.S. and global oil prices, so any Biden administration thinking that concessions to Maduro will help keep U.S. gasoline prices down until the U.S. election is simply foolish. Equally foolish is the notion that such meetings with Maduro regime officials will produce improved human rights conditions or a free election.

What they can do is undermine the democratic opposition. I wonder if the opposition was consulted by the Biden administration and asked if they thought holding such a meeting three weeks before the Venezuelan election was wise. I wonder if there was a serious meeting between U.S. officials and opposition leaders to discuss the positions U.S. officials would take with the regime: what priorities, what strategies? I wonder if there has been or will be a full report to the democratic opposition leaders as to what transpired between U.S. officials and Maduro’s representatives. Given the Biden administration’s treatment of the opposition in the last three and half years, one is entitled to harbor doubts.

I will be delighted to withdraw all this criticism if the election on July 28 is remotely fair and the opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez is “permitted” to win. Every poll shows him way ahead. Then the Biden administration can assist in a smooth transition back to democracy in Venezuela and critics like me will apologize. But it is far more likely that the regime will claim victory, and then what will the Biden administration do? Recognize the failure of its policies, reimpose sanctions, and seek to organize the democracies of Latin America and the rest of the world against the regime? Or will it slowly make its peace with Maduro, lifting more sanctions and eventually sending a U.S. ambassador back to Caracas and allowing Maduro to take over the Venezuelan embassy in Washington?

That’s no doubt Maduro’s thinking. Perhaps in the July 3 meeting, U.S. officials not only demanded a free election, but also spoke about transitions (accompanied by amnesties) that would ease Maduro and his cohorts out, and promised to launch a powerful new effort against the regime if it steals the election. Perhaps U.S. officials explained how a transition could be made to work, while theft of the election would bring down retribution. Perhaps--and I wish I believed that. But looking at the Biden administration’s record on Venezuela over the last three and a half years, the signs unfortunately point in a different direction.