The United States is seeking to have Latin American countries lead efforts to find a solution in Venezuela

Biden is seeking to have Lula be one of the presidents leading the pressure for Maduro to acknowledge defeat in the Venezuelan elections (REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque)REUTERS

Almost two weeks after the Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro claim re-election for a third term despite what the United States and others have called “overwhelming evidence” of a massive opposition victory, the future of Venezuela and U.S. policy toward the country remains in limbo.

The administration of Bidenalthough he has stated that the opposition candidate, Edmundo Gonzalezwho clearly won more votes, has avoided declaring him the winner. Instead, it has requested that all official results be published and that Maduro and the opposition negotiate a “transition” of power.

Rather than taking the initiative to pressure Maduro to step down and threaten sanctions and other retaliation if he refuses, as he has done in the past, he has pinned his hopes on a triad of leftist Latin American governments to persuade him to budge.

So far, the efforts of the presidents of Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, all with relatively stable relations with Maduro, apparently have achieved little.

Maduro’s attorney general has initiated a criminal investigation against opposition leaders currently in hiding, including Gonzalez. Despite refusing to publish official results of the July 28 election, which the government says Maduro won with 51 percent of the vote, the government has accused the opposition of falsifying its own district-level results that show Gonzalez with more than twice as many votes as Maduro.

Maduro has called local opposition organizers “terrorists” and arrested thousands in security raids since the election. He has revoked the passports of activists and journalists and ordered Venezuelans to delete WhatsApp, a main communication tool for the opposition. On Friday, he decreed that Platform X, formerly Twitter, was banned for 10 days after its owner, Elon Musk, called him a “dictator” and a “clown.”

Amid meetings with representatives of the government and the opposition, Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, Colombia’s Gustavo Petro and Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva have issued statements urging the Maduro-controlled National Electoral Council to publish full district-by-district voting results and allow for “impartial verification.”

“The international community is united in our call for Maduro and his representatives to release detailed, unmanipulated results. To date, there is no evidence to support” the electoral commission’s “claim that Maduro won,” White House National Security Council spokesman John F. Kennedy said Saturday. Sean Savett.

Thousands of Venezuelans took to the streets in rejection of the Maduro dictatorship after the elections on July 28 (EFE/ Henry Chirinos)
EFE

“We welcome the commitments of our international partners calling for transparency to honor the votes of the people and to support a peaceful path that respects the will of the Venezuelan people. The United States strongly supports these efforts,” he said.

Two senior administration officials, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss diplomatic matters, noted that the inauguration of a new Venezuelan president is not scheduled until January, leaving time to increase pressure on Maduro from the hemisphere and beyond.

Past U.S. efforts, including the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign with increased sanctions on Maduro and his government and recognition of the then opposition leader Juan Guaidó As president, they did little to change the situation in Venezuela. Historical resentment of U.S. power in the hemisphere grew, along with the exodus of millions of Venezuelan refugees.

“I think we’re comfortable with the position that all three have taken at this point,” said one of the senior administration officials, describing Mexico, Colombia and Brazil, all of which are seeking regional leadership. “They’ve all said there needs to be transparency in the results,” which is required under Venezuelan electoral law. His “initiative needs some time to develop.”

All three, to varying degrees, are also important to other U.S. objectives in the region, including combating drug trafficking and migration flows, as well as curb the hemispheric influence of authoritarian actors such as Russia, China and Iran.

“While the United States, Mexico, Colombia and Brazil may differ in their views on the path forward,” a second administration official said, “we remain united in calling for full transparency and the publication of district-level voting results.”

“What we want to do is ensure that the United States is working in coordination with our allies, in the same direction”said this official. “We will have to see what kind of plan they develop. [ellos] to better understand what we can do to support it, if it is in line with our own objectives.”

The US reluctance to intervene has drawn some criticism from lawmakers, especially on the Republican right. In a statement on Saturday, Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) He described previous negotiations with the United States leading up to the election as a “farce.”

“The ‘strategies’ presented by this administration have done nothing but empower the narco-dictator Maduro and his thugs. “It is shameful that the Biden-Harris administration is unwilling to declare victory for President-elect Edmundo Gonzalez while the regime has increased repression,” Rubio said. “Any negotiation is a continued lifeline for the narco-regime.”

Maduro failed to comply with all of the agreements reached with the US and the opposition before the elections in Venezuela (AP Photo/Matías Delacroix)AP

Secret talks between the Biden administration and Maduro’s government, brokered last year by Qatar, resulted in a draft bilateral agreement to lift Trump-imposed sanctions that, along with Maduro’s mismanagement of the oil industry, have led to Venezuela’s economy being nearly in ruins. In return, among other things, Maduro promised free and fair elections and the release of American and Venezuelan political prisoners.

Although that deal was never signed, negotiations also led to an agreement between Maduro and a united Venezuelan opposition that set a date for elections last month. Maduro only partially complied, releasing some opposition political prisoners but arresting more. He set the date of July 28, but its Supreme Court banned the candidacy of the opposition candidate, María Corina Machado.

U.S. oil and gas sanctions that had been lifted when the election date was announced were reimposed last spring after Machado was disqualified. Gonzalez, a relatively unknown former Venezuelan diplomat, was then chosen as the opposition’s alternate candidate. But the administration left the door open for further relaxations as the vote approached.

Pre-election and exit polls indicated an overwhelming victory for the opposition. After the vote, Carter Center observers said the election was flawed. Opposition election observers quickly gathered printed results from voting machines that have since been verified by several other governments and news organizations.

Some regional experts have called the Biden administration’s wait-and-see policy more realistic than a sudden rush to action.

“Do we recreate our policy towards Cuba and turn them into pariahs, or do we do what we can to help them find a space and move in a better direction?” he said. Caleb McCarrywho worked on Cuba policy during the administration of George W. BushMore than six decades of U.S. sanctions have failed to topple Cuba’s communist government.

New sanctions, including against Maduro and other individuals in his government, may still be in the future. But for now, the Biden administration is focused, along with its allies, on offer incentives to return to the negotiating table and offer an exit strategy. Possibilities range from dropping U.S. drug charges against him and several of his cronies in exchange for safe passage to a third country, to negotiating a temporary power-sharing deal with the opposition.

Other Latin American countries that have recognized the opposition victory, led by Panama, are organizing their own lobbying group that U.S. officials believe can be more effective in persuading Petro, Lula and López Obrador to take a firmer stance.

“There are many conversations in the hemisphere between all governments”the second administration official said. “Everyone is talking at some level about what the next steps are.”

For the administration’s part, “we believe the opposition wants to have a dialogue, and we support that,” although “the Maduro side is certainly acting as if it has no intention of negotiating.”

The US and the international community are also seeking to have the governments of Mexico and Colombia take advantage of their closeness to the Maduro regime to help achieve a peaceful solution to the crisis in Venezuela (Mexico Presidency/Handout via REUTERS)via REUTERS

“It is the responsibility of everyone in the hemisphere to make clear that we oppose” Maduro’s actions, “and that ultimately Maduro must respect the will and votes cast by the Venezuelan people”said the State Department spokesman Matthew Miller to reporters on Wednesday.

While elements of dialogue are forming in the region and among the parties directly involved, there is a recognition within the administration that it will inevitably be a player in any outcome.

“I’m not going to get into what we will or won’t do,” the first administration official said, though this person and others said possible U.S. actions will eventually from a return to bilateral negotiations with Maduro to more sanctions.

But sanctions are not going to be “a silver bullet,” he said. Geoff Ramseya senior researcher at the Atlantic Council which is focused on Venezuela. “I think that’s why the United States is focusing more on carrots than sticks right now.”

“The situation within the regime [de Maduro] It is not all that good”Ramsey said. “There is a set of interests” that have benefited from the sporadic steps toward sanctions relief that the administration has taken “and those people have been rubbing their hands together talking about debt restructuring, talking about the global financial reintegration of Venezuela, and they don’t want to go back to the old days of isolation and economic pressure.”

“That pressure, while it hasn’t resulted in any kind of formal break within the regime, and I don’t think it will, I think it’s playing a role behind the scenes in a very quiet way in reducing Maduro’s room for maneuver,” he said.