Trump Flirts With Venezuela

Trump Flirts With Venezuela

Pres­i­dent Don­ald Trump’s spe­cial envoy, Ric Grenell, flew to Venezuela Fri­day to meet with the recent­ly inau­gu­rat­ed pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro. Grenell, charged with estab­lish­ing the new administration’s pri­or­i­ties there, met with Maduro and dis­cussed a range of top­ics, includ­ing U.S. sanc­tions, Amer­i­can hostages held by Venezuela, and migra­tion. 

By all appear­ances, he suc­ceed­ed in accom­plish­ing his objec­tives: That same day, he flew back to the Unit­ed States with six Amer­i­cans who had been held in prison by the Maduro gov­ern­ment. The next day, Don­ald Trump announced that the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment had agreed to accept the depor­ta­tion of Venezue­lans who had ille­gal­ly immi­grat­ed to the U.S., with a par­tic­u­lar focus on mem­bers of the noto­ri­ous Tren de Aragua gang.

The depor­ta­tion agreement—which, notably, has not been offi­cial­ly con­firmed by the Maduro government—is of par­tic­u­lar inter­est. Maduro has long used immi­gra­tion as a form of pres­sure release for his unpop­u­lar rule of the coun­try: Dis­si­dents who flee the coun­try no longer trou­ble the sta­bil­i­ty or integri­ty of the gov­ern­ment. Accept­ing repa­tri­a­tion flights is also a break from his usu­al pol­i­cy of hos­til­i­ty towards the U.S., which has been a major com­po­nent of Venezue­lan for­eign pol­i­cy since before Maduro inher­it­ed the pres­i­den­cy from his pre­de­ces­sor Hugo Chávez.

Grenell’s odyssey presents an inter­est­ing ques­tion regard­ing the posi­tion of the new Trump admin­is­tra­tion to Maduro in Venezuela, whom the U.S. does not cur­rent­ly rec­og­nize as the right­ful leader of the coun­try. Will Pres­i­dent Trump seek to prac­tice the art of the deal with Venezuela? Trump has tak­en a harsh line towards the coun­try in the past, plac­ing sig­nif­i­cant sanc­tions on them in 2017 and 2018. Some Trump-asso­ci­at­ed fig­ures, like Erik Prince, have even pub­licly advo­cat­ed for over­throw­ing the Maduro gov­ern­ment by force. Nev­er­the­less, there is some poten­tial for the admin­is­tra­tion to attempt nego­ti­a­tion with Maduro if he so choos­es. Venezuela is always in des­per­ate need of mar­kets for its oil, and Trump has placed great empha­sis on expand­ing Amer­i­can ener­gy pro­duc­tion. Fur­ther, the grow­ing num­bers of Venezue­lan immi­grants that have entered the U.S. could present a thorny prob­lem for the Trump admin­is­tra­tion and its depor­ta­tion pri­or­i­ties if Venezuela proves unwill­ing to accept repa­tri­a­tion flights.

On the oth­er hand, Venezuela has proven itself an unre­li­able part­ner in the past. The Biden admin­is­tra­tion tem­porar­i­ly raised sanc­tions in return for a promise by Maduro to end the prac­tice of impris­on­ing oppo­si­tion polit­i­cal fig­ures and run­ning a free and fair elec­tion, some­thing that the Venezue­lan gov­ern­ment almost imme­di­ate­ly reneged on. The U.S. had to imple­ment the tar­iffs again only months lat­er, and the whole inci­dent made Biden look faint­ly ridicu­lous. Addi­tion­al­ly, the strict sanc­tions the U.S. cur­rent­ly has in place against the coun­try leave Trump with rel­a­tive­ly lit­tle lever­age. He can offer incen­tives, such as the lift­ing of sanc­tions, but there’s lit­tle poten­tial pun­ish­ment he can wield to force Maduro into a deal.

A major part of Trump’s for­eign pol­i­cy has been a renewed focus on Latin Amer­i­ca as part of a revived Mon­roe Doc­trine, and he’s shown will­ing­ness both to play hard­ball, as with Petro in Colom­bia, and to make deals, as with the recent agree­ment between the U.S. and Mex­i­co. One of new­ly con­firmed Sec­re­tary of State Mar­co Rubio’s first actions has been to con­duct a whirl­wind tour of Latin Amer­i­ca, where he has already tak­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to extract from the gov­ern­ment of Pana­ma a promise to end its par­tic­i­pa­tion in China’s Belt and Road ini­tia­tive. As the most pow­er­ful of the few remain­ing explic­it­ly anti-Amer­i­can regimes in Latin Amer­i­ca (along with the fail­ing nations of Cuba, Bolivia, and Ortega’s Nicaragua), Venezuela may prove the biggest chal­lenge to suc­cess­ful­ly accom­plish­ing this goal and reestab­lish­ing Amer­i­can dom­i­nance in the West­ern Hemi­sphere. 

What­ev­er the Trump administration’s plans at present, it will have to come up with a seri­ous way to engage Venezuela in the future. The unpop­u­lar and repres­sive Maduro gov­ern­ment is a major cause of insta­bil­i­ty in the region and also serves as a sig­nif­i­cant source of Chi­nese influ­ence. Find­ing an effec­tive way to man­age U.S.–Venezuela rela­tions that allows Trump to accom­plish his objec­tives at home and abroad will prove one of the most sig­nif­i­cant tests of his admin­is­tra­tion this term.

Trump Goes to Venezuela

Does the release of pris­on­ers and a poten­tial repa­tri­a­tion agree­ment sig­nal thaw­ing U.S.–Venezuela rela­tions?

Caracas,,Venezuela,,08.28.2024:,Opposition,Demonstration,Led,By,The,Leader,Maria

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