Although there are still some holes, this week the strategy that the United States seems to have designed to, as stated by the President Donald Trump after the surgical coup that culminated in the capture of Nicolas Maduro and his wife, “govern” Venezuela for an indefinite period.
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In an unprecedented way in the region, Venezuela adopted a kind of “tutelage” from Washington over the Chavista regime, now led by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez.
“More than a Trump-Rodríguez co-government, what we are beginning to see is a tutelage that marks a new era in the international relations of the hemispheremarked mainly by oil interest,” explains political scientist Carlos Zambrano.
In conversations with members of Congress, and later before television cameras, Secretary of State Marco Rubio explained that the process would be divided “into three stages.”
The first he called “stabilization” where it is planned to work with the remnants of the Chavista regime, which, having lowered the threat of a second military coup and financially strangled by the oil embargo, will collaborate with the administration to lay the foundations for the following ones.
Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense; John Ratcliffe, director of the CIA; and Donald Trump. Photo: AFP
“Here we are not improvising, it is not speculation. It is already happening”said Rubio, alluding to the agreement being negotiated with PDVSA under which the regime will deliver oil to the US – initially between 30 and 50 million barrels already stored – which Washington will sell on the market and then control the disbursement of dividends so that it “benefits the Venezuelan people” and not the regime.
According to Trump, from now on the regime will buy – with these resources – everything it needs from American companies, becoming the main trading partner of the Caribbean country.
Here we are not improvising, it is not speculation. It’s already happening
Marco RubioSecretary of State
As part of this first phase, and to demonstrate its total submission, the regime agreed to release “an important number” of political prisoners, as was seen last Thursday with the release of five Spanish citizens and several opposition leaders.
However, according to the political coalition Unidad Venezuela, Until 5 pm on Saturday, 22 releases of 863 people deprived of liberty have been reported. In addition, of the total number of prisoners, more than 400 belong to the opposition party María Corina Machado, Vente Venezuela.
On another front, Venezuela confirmed for Friday the start of dialogues with the United States aimed at the “reestablishment of diplomatic missions in both countries” by ensuring that American diplomatic and security personnel from the United States External Office for Venezuela (VAU), including Chargé d’Affaires John T. McNamara, traveled to Caracas to carry out an initial evaluation with a view to a “possible gradual resumption of operations.”
Additionally, Trump signed a “national emergency” decree on Saturday to place Venezuelan assets, including oil revenues, deposited in the United States, under special protection so that they cannot be seized.
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“Trump probably agreed to collaborate with them because he wanted to avoid chaos like that in Iraq and preferred stability to legitimacy. At least in the beginning. But that will be measured rigorously on several fronts where concrete results are expected, among others, accepting more deportees and preventing new migratory flows, stopping drug trafficking, extirpating the presence of Cuba, Russia and China and opening the oil sector to American companies”says Christopher Hernández-Roy deputy director of the program for the Americas at the Center for International Strategic Studies, CSIS.
This, precisely, would be the second stage that Rubio and the Trump administration call “recovery.”
“We are going to ensure that American, Western and other companies have access to the Venezuelan market in a fair manner. At the same time, we will begin to create the national reconciliation process within Venezuela so that opposition forces can receive amnesty or be taken back to the country and begin to rebuild civil society,” said Secretary Rubio.
Trump probably agreed to collaborate with them because he wanted to avoid chaos like that in Iraq and preferred stability over legitimacy.
Christopher Hernández-RoyDeputy Director of the Americas Program at the Center for International Strategic Studies, CSIS
Finally, the third stage would contemplate the transition to democracy, which would lead to an electoral process strictly monitored by the US, the UN and the OAS and where the opposition would finally have a fair game to be able to assume the reins of the country with the support of already purged security forces.
The false steps that could unravel the United States plan in Venezuela
“If Washington manages the next phase with discipline – combining coercion with incentives and force with political legitimacy – it could redirect Venezuela’s trajectory, reincorporate the country into the community of democracies in the hemisphere and reaffirm US influence in a region that over the last decade has sought to protect itself from US power. If this happens, the benefits would be substantial,” says Juan González, former National Security Advisor during Joe Biden’s government.
Marco Rubio, Secretary of State, will be in charge of the transition. Photo: AFP
However, achieving such an outcome, González warns, “will require a level of political expertise and favorable circumstances that are not guaranteed. Plausible paths to failure include a partial transition that leaves criminal networks intact, a prolonged period of political limbo that perpetuates migration and instability, or a gradual security commitment that the US never intended to make but then finds difficult to reverse. What happens next will determine whether this moment becomes a turning point in hemispheric history or another chapter in the long catalog of US foreign policy excesses.”
These possible obstacles are already obvious. No one knows, for example, if the regime is simply trying to survive the current moment, aware that Trump’s mandate in the White House is limited and his room for maneuver will narrow as the midterm legislative elections, such as the 2028 presidential elections, approach, on the one hand.
Additionally, without deploying “boots on the ground,” the remote control management that the administration promises is complex and raises many questions. Among them, how to ensure that the regime has effectively broken its ties with external actors who have been in the country for decades, as well as the end of links with the same criminal structures of which it is supposedly a part.
Not to mention the questions that exist around the resurrection of an oil infrastructure that experts say would take up to a decade and where it is not clear whether the US private sector wants to invest without guarantees of stability.
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The reality of the regime in Venezuela
Delcy Rodríguez faces the titanic task of sustaining the structure of Chavismo while negotiating under direct pressure from Washington. Although the person in charge of the Venezuelan Government insists that no “external agent” governs the country, the reality is that economic and military pressures have led her to accept everything ordered by Trump.
Accompanied in her management by her brother Jorge Rodríguez, president of Parliament; Diosdado Cabello, Minister of the Interior; and Vladimir Padrino López, Minister of Defense; The Chavista leader has navigated a first week in office in which she discursively insists that there are “neither subordinates nor subjects.”but in practice it has accepted the oil conditions, opened negotiation tables and released political prisoners.
If Washington manages the next phase with discipline – combining coercion with incentives and force with political legitimacy – it could put Venezuela back on track.
Juan GonzalezFormer National Security Advisor during the Joe Biden administration.
On the other hand, the person in charge of the country faces internal pressure when the hardest wing of Chavismo, its base, has begun to question that the “first woman president” is beginning to “bow” to the United States.
“Why do we have to give our oil to the gringos if for years we have said Yankee go home? We don’t know what is happening, but that is not Chávez’s legacy,” María Cristina Rincón, a member of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV), tells EL TIEMPO.
Scenarios that put Delcy Rodríguez on “a tightrope.” At least, that’s what analyst Phil Gunson, a consultant on Venezuela and Latin America for Crisis Group, believes.
Delcy Rodríguez walks with Jorge Rodríguez (right) and Diosdado Cabello (left). Photo:AFP
“Rodríguez is going to have to carry out a very complicated balancing exercise, trying to meet Trump’s demands without crossing the red line of the hard-line Chavistas, particularly in terms of political openness,” says Gunson.
For the analyst, it seems that strong Chavismo insists on sending a message of not wanting a political opening with the United States.
“Contradictions that occur within the regime, while the majority of Venezuelans have expressed very clearly their preference for drastic change, while they see that their representatives (María Corina Machado and Edmundo González) are not participating in this process,” Gunson insists, warning that “this cannot be resolved, neither politically nor economically, without moving towards the relegitimization of the institutions, which is a complicated process and cannot be agreed upon simply between Miraflores and the White House.”
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A new relationship that begins to flourish without Nicolás Maduro completing his first year of having been re-elected for the third consecutive time without showing evidence of his victory and that for political scientist Carlos Zambrano seems to be a bittersweet “honeymoon.”
While the pieces of a plan that is slowly revealed are moving in Miraflores and the White House, Venezuela remains silent, with the prohibition of celebrating the capture of Maduro under penalty of prison. the so-called collectives of civilians frightening the population under police support and several journalists detained.
Ana María Rodríguez and Sergio Gómez Maseri – EL TIEMPO Correspondents – Caracas and Washington
