Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s close ties with China, Cuba, Iran, and Russia have kept him afloat for years despite the nation’s painful economic crisis. More than seven million Venezuelans have fled the country and hundreds of thousands have attempted to cross the U.S. southern border. Organized crime and drug trafficking are rampant, and Maduro has now set the stage for the annexation of a chunk of neighboring Guyana. With U.S. sanctions likely to snap back on April 18, what can the United States do to better address the Venezuela problem it faces?
Please join the director of the Carnegie Endowment’s American Statecraft Program, Christopher S. Chivvis, for a special in-person edition of the Pivotal States series and a discussion of Washington’s strategic alternatives in its policy toward Venezuela with Ryan C. Berg and Carolina Jimenez Sandoval. The event will also stream concurrently on the Carnegie Endowment’s YouTube channel.
EVENT TRANSCRIPT
Note: this is a rush transcript and may contain errors.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
When we do these Pivotal States sessions, I always like to start with questions about America’s interests. And what America’s interests are when it comes to Venezuela in particular, in this case. It’s obviously always possible to name a long list of things that could be considered American interests, but I’m interested in identifying what are really the core things that matter to the United States right now. Ryan, would you be willing to get us started in thinking that through what are America’s core interests when it comes to Venezuela?
Ryan C. Berg:
Well, thanks so much Chris, for having me, and it’s always a pleasure to share the stage with Carolina. I think this is a really important conversation and it comes at a really important time as well, as we’re a little over a week out now from when the Biden administration has to make this very important decision on the continued relief of the sanctions effort that had started six months ago, or to snap back in light of the fact that the Maduro regime has not in fact upheld its commitments made in the Barbados agreement. But to your question about what the US strategic interest is in Venezuela, I think first off I would say, it’s largely similar to what it is in Latin America, writ large, it’s democracy. We have an interest in ensuring that strong democratic principles are upheld in Venezuela. Of course, those are what we’re here to talk about today because they’re most lacking.
And really it’s not a US imposition of democracy. It’s a region that upholds standards that we’ve all signed up to in the form of the Inter-American Democratic Charter signed on September 11th, 2001. So we are a community. The Western Hemisphere is a community that upholds the values of democracy and the process of democracy. And even the Venezuelan regime has signed that document. So I’d say that’s interest number one. Interest number two is of course, especially with respect to the present regime, ensuring that the present government in Venezuela doesn’t serve as a beachhead for some of our greatest strategic adversaries in the Western Hemisphere. And we have seen it do that. We’ve seen Venezuela pivot to Russia, to China, to an extent to Iran. There’s some involvement of Turkey and others. And so I think part of our strategic interest there is making sure that China doesn’t have too cozy of a home in Venezuela to be able to present some kind of tangible security challenge to the United States and the Western Hemisphere, Russia the same. I would say Iran the same as well.
We have an interest in ensuring that the regime does not serve as an incubator or nurturing transnational criminal organizations, which it’s done in the past, especially in the border areas between Colombia and Venezuela, nurturing certain criminal organizations like the FARC and the ELN. So we have a number of interests. Some of them are security-oriented, some of them are democracy-oriented. You may say that we have an interest as well in some of the economic factors in Venezuela, particularly some of the oil that Venezuela might be able to offer to international markets.
But I will at later points, I think in this event, argue against that. Mostly because I think it obscures some of the other interests that I’ve just named, which I would consider to be more priority. And frankly, Venezuela isn’t producing the same way that it used to. And so when we’re talking about Venezuelan oil production, which is really the chief economic output of the country, we’re talking about something in the realm of 700,000 to 800,000 barrels of oil per day, reliably at this point in time. If that picture changed and Venezuela was able to reverse some of the decades-long slide in its petroleum industry, we might have a different conversation about the economic interests really kind of rising within that prioritization. But for now, I would say that the priorities for me are really on the democracy front and on the security front.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Great. Okay, thank you. That’s a good start. Carolina, could you weigh in on this? How do you see American interests when it comes to Venezuela? To what extent do you agree with Ryan and where would you maybe add or subtract?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Well, I also wanted to thank you, Chris, for having me, and always great to see you, Ryan. I cannot agree more with Ryan when it comes to democracy. I think it is in US interest to have a democratic Venezuela. For different reasons, and that’s something that Ryan didn’t mention that I would like to bring up. A democratic Venezuela could be a reliable partner. Right now we know that that partnership that once existed does no longer exist, and it’s an important partnership for different reasons. I do think that the energy issues matter. Even if the country is not producing more than 800,000 barrels a day, it doesn’t mean it cannot produce them. It has some of the largest oil reserves in the world, if not the largest. So its not just about what it produces now, it’s about the potential it has to impact the oil market.
And the oil market in the last two years or so has been facing tremendous risks from the Russian invasion of Ukraine to the current situation in Gaza, Israel, which also has this potential to become a regional conflict. So I don’t think it should be underestimated. On the other hand, a democratic Venezuela will be a place where 7.72 million people living abroad will perhaps consider returning to. And it is very unlikely that 7.7 million people will return, even if there is a change of government. But it is possible that an important percentage of that number will return. So that’s really important for the US. It is also important that people stop leaving forcibly from their home communities. You were given the numbers earlier, if you look at the Darien Gap, and for those of you who don’t know about the Darien Gap, that’s the jungle, hostile jungle that divides Panama and Colombia.
Venezuelans crossed that jungle to come to the US. 60 miles of pure danger, where there is sexual abuse, is rampant. The New York Times just published a report saying that the level of sexual violence seen in the Darien Gap hasn’t been seen outside of a conflict zone. So that’s the level of violence migrants are experiencing. In 2021, less than 3,000 Venezuelans crossed the Darien Gap. In 2023, 328,000 Venezuelans crossed the Darien Gap. In 2021, less than 51,000 encounters of migrants at the US Mexico border were of Venezuelan nationality. In fiscal year 2023, that number rose to 334,000 encounters of Venezuelan migrants. So in the current political context of the US, in an electoral year, migration... And this is no secret, is a major issue in electoral politics, and part of that migration coming to the US is Venezuelan migration. So I do think that thinking about a democratic Venezuela is also thinking about a place where migrants can return to and where people won’t have to flee their communities of origins as they are fleeing now.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Ryan, when you went through your list of reasons, or major US interests in Venezuela, you seemed to emphasize migration a little bit less. Is that your view or do you agree that this is really a key interest that America has right now when it comes to Venezuela?
Ryan C. Berg:
Well, I do think that the US has an interest in, of course, reducing regular migration to the southern border. And we’ve seen, of course, upticks in Venezuelans. Including an uptick in the number of Venezuelans going through the Darien Gap in the first three months of 2024 after the relief has been given. And so I don’t deny that migration is an important factor when we approach Venezuela policy. I’m doubtful however, and this is where I disagree with the administration’s policy, that sanctions relief can be that switch that we were hoping it would be to immediately shut off Venezuelan migration. And so I think as it turns out, people are leaving for other reasons.
It’s no secret we’re here to talk about the fact that there’s a dictatorship in Venezuela. A lot of it is about regime type, the fact that there’s no human rights practices in Venezuela and repression continues, arguably even more than it did in the non-electoral context. And so we just haven’t seen, unfortunately, the economic relief, sanctions relief and the economic boost that Venezuela’s gotten in the short term being that light switch, so to speak, on migration that we were hoping it would be. And so I’m afraid we were hoping for one thing, we haven’t seen it in the early numbers. And so I think that kind of mitigates against... I’m jumping ahead a little bit here, extending the sanctions-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Maybe, because I definitely want to get there, but I want to paint a little bit more of a picture of the migration here because it seems to be such an important issue I think. And you both talked about the extent to which we see growing numbers of migrants coming to the United States, but there’s also a regional element to this, right? I mean, there are some over seven million, if I remember correctly, Venezuelans, who are now living elsewhere in the region. And this has an impact not just on the region, but also on America’s relationship with countries like Mexico, Peru, Colombia. Is that correct, Ryan?
Ryan C. Berg:
Absolutely. I mean, I think there are about three million, just shy of three million in Colombia, about one and a half in Peru, almost a million in Ecuador, something like half a million in Brazil, maybe a little less. Chile and Argentina are hosting quite a few Venezuelans. So this is something that’s affected the entire region, the US and Spain. And so insofar as we have individual relationships there that are affected by that. Of course, migration is part of this. Part of the approach then to some of the countries that are housing Venezuelan migrants has been on the migration front. Encouraging them both financially and otherwise, to regularize the status of Venezuelan migrants, to bring them into government programs, to bring them out of the shadows and to try to reduce xenophobia in countries like Colombia and Peru, where we’ve seen incidents where xenophobia has increased in some of those countries. So of course, it’s affected our bilateral relationships with other countries in the region as well.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Caroline, can you comment on that also, on the impact of this massive outflow of people trying to escape the conditions in Venezuela? On our relations with other nations in Latin America.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
And some clarifications in the numbers, if I may, because it’s important that we understand this. The main receiving country of Venezuelan migrants and asylum seekers is the country next door, Colombia, 2.9, 2.8, 2.9 million. Then Peru, which is another country that is relatively close by, if you go by bus-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
There are also large numbers in Ecuador, which is smaller-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
In Ecuador, in Chile, in Argentina. But I want to state this, the data shows. The US became the third largest receiving country of Venezuelan migrants. We’re talking about almost 800,000 people now. That’s more than Ecuador. So this was unthinkable five years ago.
So that change of the US becoming the third largest receiving country has an impact on politics, both internally in the US but also in the region. In the same way that I think the US will benefit tremendously from a democratic Venezuela, it is very clear that the countries in the region will also benefit from a democratic Venezuela. Because the truth is that the main number of Venezuelan migrants are still in South America, around 80% are in South America, and these are developing countries facing many needs and lack of services, et cetera. And now they have a foreign population, a large one that also needs goods and services to survive and to be able to... And they need policies to be integrated into these economies. And unfortunately, we don’t see much of that happening, and as Ryan was saying, xenophobia is growing in many of these receiving countries, et cetera.
So I think the issue of migration, especially given the recent data that we have been looking at, is an issue that is going to be very present in the mind of policy makers in Washington, in Colombia, in Brazil, in Peru, when it comes to analyzing their next steps around their relationship with Venezuela.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
And obviously democracy has been another big interest that you both identified. It’s obviously something that you can’t help but desire for the people of Venezuela. Maybe we can talk just briefly about how democracy fell apart in Venezuela. I mean, Ryan, do you have a theory of the case? I mean, what happened? I mean, I remember knowing Venezuelans back in the 1980s and always having a very positive impression of the nation. I mean, in brief, without having to review 20, 30 years of history. I mean, what happened here? And what would it take to get back?
Ryan C. Berg:
Well, let me just hit on the salient points and then answer right away your final question. More than one election, of course. I mean, democracy is more than just a process. It’s much more than that. And so we’ve been operating under a theory of change thus far that the process begins with a democratic election, but it certainly doesn’t end. The re-democratization of Venezuela doesn’t end with one free and fair election. But in any case, the democratic decline in Venezuela precedes to an extent Chavez. But let’s start the story with Chavez so that I can pass the mic to Carolina to fill in some of the gaps-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
He came to power in 1998 or?
Ryan C. Berg:
‘98. And so you have a number of moments where there’s democratic breakdown in addition to, I think a story that’s pretty well known now within Latin America because we’ve seen it in other countries. Populism, charisma, quite a few resources at his disposal, the institutional declines that we saw throughout the years, the growing attacking of civil society and the media slowly closing civil societies and political space. This all took place over a period of time where Venezuela was experiencing an oil boom. And so there’s plenty of resources at Chavez’s disposal to create all sorts of programs, where he’s spending literally billions of dollars creating free housing, free healthcare systems, educational systems, and so on, which is of course increasing popularity. But at the same time, there’s less of a sense of accountability, institutionally speaking in terms of Chavez. When he dies in 2013 and passes the baton to his preferred successor, Nicolas Maduro, the rug is pulled out from Venezuela in terms of oil and oil being in Venezuela in terms of oil, and oil being the bonanza, the boon that helped the Venezuelan state spend so much money. The rug is pulled out, there’s a collapse in prices, and Maduro becomes more and more repressive.
And, in fact, one thing that people often don’t realize is that the regime is currently in The Hague. It’s at the International Criminal Court for suspected crimes against humanity. Those actually were committed in 2017, where many people think that they’re being investigated for more recent things. But we’re talking back in 2017, so very shortly after, the point I’m trying to make is very shortly after Chavez passes the baton, things become very much progressively more repressive under Maduro. And there was a rigged election in ‘14, there was a rigged election in ‘18, I fear we’re moving towards another rigged election. And so throughout this time, just to make the story short and try to fit it into a couple of minutes, we’ve seen institutional decline, we’ve seen the way that populism can basically make leaders unaccountable in terms of their behaving institutionally.
And we saw that all take place in a context of quite a bit of resources to spend. And as those resources decline because of the oil, first the crash in oil prices, and then I would consider it to be the mistakes made in economic policy under Chavismo that led to the decline in the oil industry. There’s less money to spend, and the way that the regime makes up for lack of popularity is with growing repression.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay, good. I want to get to the policy, the immediate policy question that I raised. But Carolina, just to stay for a minute or two more on democracy in Venezuela, I mean, what does a good path ahead look like? What’s realistic? I mean, are we talking about a revolution? Or is this just more of a gradual reform towards better governance and rights for the people of Venezuela? I mean, what does it look like?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Yeah. For Venezuelans, the word revolution is a complex one so I probably wouldn’t use it.
But I think there is the belief that we can democratize Venezuela after an election. And I agree with what Ryan said, that the deterioration, not just of the economy, but of democratic institutions is overwhelming. I mean, we have a government that controls all branches of power, and that also controls the military or the military controls the government. It depends on your point of view or preference.
But the truth is that you have a highly repressive, authoritarian government in charge, correct? And if there is one thing we know in politics and the history of Latin America is that authoritarian leaders have one purpose and that is to remain in power, correct? Which is what we’re seeing right now. Maduro basically playing around with electoral rules, changing the rules of the game, putting all the potential impossible barriers to stop the election from being fair and transparent and free.
Yet I think this is also one of the few and best chances that we have had in a very long time to see democracy in Venezuela at least restart again. Of course, the big question is how do we get there? How do we make sure that on the 28th of July when next presidential elections will be held, we have the best possible conditions that are allowed in an authoritarian country because these elections are not going to be free, fair and perfect. Venezuela is not a democracy.
But there are some positive signs that we have seen in the last few months after negotiations, after the involvement of different political international and national actors that have opened opportunities that we did not have before and I think that is the path forward. If we want a transition to democracy that is also gradual, just as democratic decline was, and that is peaceful, which is another really important thing that I think most Venezuelans want.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So the Biden administration should be trying basically to foster that gradual movement towards democracy, but in the process, obviously do it in a way that doesn’t result in violence, but also makes progress on the broader challenge of migration, which is really, that is a very immediate and concrete impact that the situation in Venezuela is having on the United States and on American politics. Is that about right?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Well, I think if you want to defend and promote democracy in another country, you do it through democratic means. And I think the support of the Biden administration to the electoral process has been key and the support of the Biden administration to the democratic actors within the opposition has been key.
Sanctions are a tool of its foreigner policy and, as a tool, it should be used as such, not as a means or as an objective in itself. Sanctions to punish, well, clearly after how many years of sanctions now since 2017 at least, well, 2017 if you think of the first sanctions, Maduro is still in power, and that is the reality and the result of this process.
But we want a change. I mean, Venezuelans wants a change. All the polls clearly say that Venezuelans want to vote and that if there is the right candidate of a unified opposition, Maduro will not be able to win these elections if Venezuelans go out and vote massively.
I think the US needs to, yes, lay the ground and support the democratic opposition, that is with a lot of obstacles, trying to get to July 28th with the best possible conditions. And, of course, continue to support civil society because human right defenders, academics, leaders of NGOs, activists, etc., are also organizing themselves in the country to make sure people can register and vote. It’s not going to be easy, but it’s possible.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. So let’s go directly to the decision that’s facing the Biden administration and just to sketch again for people who may not be super familiar with it. Very heavy sanctions were imposed on Venezuela during the Trump administration, and those remain in place early on in the Biden administration.
But over the course of 2022 and ‘23, there were actually secret negotiations that were going on, which resulted in an agreement between the opposition and the Maduro regime that was intended to open up some of the space that you’re talking about. And concurrently, the Biden administration lifted some of the main sanctions that were in place.
And my understanding is that the theory of the case was that the administration wanted to demonstrate that it was really willing to do something if the Maduro regime was willing to undertake meaningful reforms. But now here we are six months later, and the question is whether or not to reimpose those sanctions because so little progress has been made by the Maduro regime on its end of the bargain.
Ryan, do I have that about right? Is that about it? Is that an accurate depiction of what the situation is?
Ryan C. Berg:
I would say that’s the broad strokes. I mean, we lifted on October 18th of last year. We’re coming up on April 18th this year. That’s the self-imposed deadline for the Biden administration to make their decision. The initial idea was to give the regime a six-month period of pretty juicy economic inducements through sanctions relief to try to get them to change behavior.
What we’ve seen, I think over the last six months, is not just that behavior change hasn’t been induced, it’s that the regime, to Carolina’s point, is an authoritarian regime and its objective, number one objective, is self-preservation. It has done whatever it thinks that it needs to do to remain in power, including throw more innocent people in jail, build up the number of political prisoners that it has repressed main parties, in my opinion, most importantly, not respected the results of the primary elections, which were organized independently of the state and yielded a very popular candidate with 93% support, Maria Corina Machado, blocked her, blocked her preferred successor, blocked pretty much everyone across the political spectrum, including, by the way, leftist parties. The Communist Party of Venezuela is as upset as folks on other sides of the political spectrum because they, too, have been blocked from putting forward their candidates.
So the pantheon of candidates, so to speak, the 13 candidates that we have are all regime-approved candidates. Else, they wouldn’t be candidates, right? That’s the point of the regime’s control of the CNE, which is the formerly independent electoral council, now controlled by the regime.
And so I could go through the bullet point agreement, the Barbados Agreement, but suffice it to say that the regime hasn’t kept their end of the bargain. And so my position would be next week, a little over a week from now, the Biden administration should be looking to make alterations to the General License Number 44, which was the one that allowed them to make the lift in the first place and allowed companies to partner with Petrovez, the state-owned oil enterprise in Venezuela, to be able to operate for this six-month period of time.
Monetarily, the estimate was between six and $10 billion of economic value in that six-month window.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
To-
Ryan C. Berg:
For the sanctions relief, right? That was what we were looking at, is the-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Sorry, the value to?
Ryan C. Berg:
To the regime, the value to the regime of that six-month window of sanctions.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Right. Got it.
Ryan C. Berg:
Relief would be anywhere between six and 10 billion, depending upon how many agreements they could sign with oil companies because in Venezuela, you have to partner with the state-owned oil company.
If you actually look at the overall budget of the regime, that’s a huge percentage, right? And so we’ve done everything we can to give economic inducement to the regime to behave differently and to give at least a modicum of concessions and I just don’t see that they’ve really given anything. They did allow the primary process to move forward. That’s one thing that they did. They did not shut that primary process down, and that took place less than a week after they signed the agreement. But immediately after the primary process occurred, they declared it null and void, right? The results would have no legal effect. They started investigating the primary organizers. They tried to haul certain primary organizers before the Attorney General’s office, and they clearly haven’t allowed Machado to present herself as a candidate despite her overwhelming support.
So all of that, plus the human rights abuses, I think my position would be that we need to show that there’s some consequence to not abide. If this is a deal, we lift it as we promised we would on October 18th. The regime, in my opinion, didn’t follow through and so [inaudible 00:27:25].
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. So it’s partially a question of American credibility, it sounds like.
Ryan C. Berg:
I think so. I think-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. So let me ask, so Carolina, it sounds like it’s pretty hard to make the case that the regime in any way really stuck with its end of the bargain. I mean, but still there is an argument to be made for extending the sanctions relief, right? I mean, what do you think about this?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Again, a friendly reminder, Venezuela is not a democracy. So yes, it signed an agreement, but because the main purpose of the regime is self-preservation regardless of democratic rules, it wasn’t going to perfectly respect each point of the agreement. And I think we all knew that it was going to happen.
So for me, the question is what has happened since the Barbados Agreement was signed that has opened a window of an opportunity that did not exist before? So I agree with Ryan. I mean, the primary elections took place and days later, the government was persecuting the organizers, the winner, etc. I mean, it did not take more than, I don’t know, 48 hours?
But I have to say one thing for anyone watching Venezuelan politics in the last 10 years, the primary elections have been one of the most significant events of the decade. Because in a country with a humanitarian emergency, and you need to think about that, that’s why so many people are fleeing and besides also the authoritarian nature of the government, to be political or to be politicized in an environment where you have to fight to send your kid to school, you have to have three jobs to make $10 a month, where one out of three Venezuelans is food insecure, it’s very difficult to be politically active. And the primary did something that we hadn’t seen in years. It reenergized the society at the political level and that was possible because there were negotiations.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So even if the regime did not live up to its end of the bargain, we still see benefits from the-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
But it’s a tremendous benefit because for the first time in years, people saw that the opposition had a chance to stand against the regime. And Maria Corina Machado who is, of course, the winner of this exercise, a citizen exercise that surprised everybody, by the way. People thought that they were going to be a disaster, that people were not going to vote. On the contrary, citizens have self-organized them inside the country and outside the country, and they worked, okay? And millions of people went and voted and voted for Machado. And I think they voted for Machado because for many people, she represents change, which is what most people want.
Since then, what have we seen? Well, yes, persecution, repression, no surprise. And it’s horrible because, I mean, we have colleagues now, Rocio San Miguel, very well-respected human right defender in prison. We have almost 300 political prisoners in the country. People still fleeing in exile, etc. But we also have international electoral observation missions going into Venezuela that we did not think this was going to happen. Now we still have to wait and see if these missions sign an MOU with the government. But those steps, something as relevant as the primary elections, as having an opposition that once again excites people and make them political again, and those registrations to vote is open, very irregular with a lot of problems, but it’s open, and then we might have international independent electoral observation. All those steps has been possible because negotiations happen.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Because of the Barbados, okay.
And there’s another point here, which I think you guys may disagree to some extent about, but I want to be sure that we bring out, which is, what is the concrete impact of the sanctions on migration, which we’ve identified as being one, but not the only, but one of the big issues here? I mean, Carolina, do you see an impact from the sanctions regime on the migration challenge that we face with Venezuela?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
For migration, they started long before the sanctions, so that’s the first thing we have to say.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay, so it’s not the cause, [inaudible 00:32:03].
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Yeah, and it’s not . . . we have to say.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So you can’t say-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
And the-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay, so it’s not the cause?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Yeah.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Right.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
It’s not the cause. The humanitarian emergency predate the sanctions, but I do think it’s undeniable that sanctions have contributed to deepen the humanitarian emergency.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Therefore, they have an indirect impact on forced migration.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. Ryan, my sense is you disagree with that. Is that right? Or is it more complicated?
Ryan C. Berg:
I think there’s more nuance than that. I think Venezuela’s done quite a bit of its self-harm to destroy its own economy. And I could go through a litany of things there. I think Carolina would agree with that a hundred percent there. But I mean, I think sanctions do have an impact. It’s not like I’m afraid to admit that. We wouldn’t engage in sanctions practices if they didn’t have an impact. They wouldn’t be effective if they didn’t have an impact. Where I disagree with Carolina is, I don’t think this is a question of whether we negotiate with the regime or not. That’s not the question. The question is whether we think within the context of that negotiation that we’ve already had with the regime and continues to be ongoing, whether they’ve upheld the commitments that they said they would within the timeframe that we set.
And I think when you’re dealing with authoritarian regimes, of course there are going to be violations, right? No one expected the Maduro regime to dot all the i’s and cross all the t’s, but I think you would really have to have a level of tolerance that, for me, I just can’t go to, to extend in a clean way GL44 on the 18th of April. I think the message that it would send to other authoritarians, on whom we also have sanctions and we’re trying to use them to negotiate certain outcomes and certain concessions, is that when the US sets a timeline for negotiations and when the US sets certain commitments that we expect them to abide by and then they don’t abide by them, well, then there’s a precedent there for not snapping back the sanctions. And I do worry about that.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. So can you talk a little bit then about your alternative strategy here? We don’t know what decision the Biden administration is going to make but the alternative to where we are right now. Reimposition of sanctions, and then what? Where does this lead us, and how?
Ryan C. Berg:
Well, I think we’ve run this experiment now for a little over a year. Six months was the period of the sanctions relief, but we’ve been negotiating with the regime for a while. We’ve been hoping that the results would be different than what we experienced in the previous administration. So we had a maximum pressure campaign. Unfortunately, we didn’t get political change in Venezuela. We’ve had a set of negotiations. It doesn’t look like we’re on the path to get political change there. So there are some people who I think will say our policy matters a lot less than we would like to think because the regime is going to do what it wants.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Maybe we just overall have less influence than we would like to believe.
Ryan C. Berg:
There are many folks who are going to take that away as the conclusion. And from that conclusion, or from that premise rather, they’re going to have various conclusions. One is going to be that we should keep the sanctions lifted because they do more harm than good. And then the other path is going to say, "Well, Maduro is going to continue behaving as an authoritarian regime that commits human rights abuses up to and including things that have risen to the level of crimes against humanity, which are now being investigated." And if that’s the case, which it is, I prefer what I would call a strategy of containment, which kind of hearkens back to the Cold War strategy. You want to keep a lot of the negative externalities of having a dictatorship firmly consolidated in Caracas, in Caracas to the best as you possibly can.
What do I mean by that? I mean, you try to prevent the regime from having all the resources at its disposal to commit that level of human rights abuses because we care about the very valiant democracy defenders who are on the ground pushing at risk of their own life for change within the country. But you also want to prevent them from providing a beachhead to China and Russia. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, you want to prevent them from having ample resources to fund criminal groups and terrorist networks throughout the Western hemisphere. And you also want to prevent them from engaging in things like extraterritorial assassinations, which they most likely did against an individual named Ronald Ojeda in Chile. If you have a certain set of sanctions on the regime, you are making it more difficult for them to have the resources to engage in that kind of behavior. And that’s a short and medium-term goal, while the long-term goal, I think, should remain democracy, democracy promotion, even if you recognize in the shorter term that the regime is consolidated, and unfortunately we might not have the current auspicious moment to see that.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So I guess my question, so if the theory is you’re putting pressure on the regime, and it seems like you accept that at least in the near term, it’s not going to make the governance better in Venezuela, economic conditions will get worse as a consequence of the sanctions that’s part of the pressure. Migration is probably also going to get worse, and certainly it’s not going to get better, right? So we just have to accept that in this strategy. Is that right?
Ryan C. Berg:
I think what we’ve seen in the first six months of the sanctions relief is that sanctions relief is not the light switch that we hoped it would be on migration, right? Like I said, we’ve seen the registration of more Venezuelans going through the Darién Gap in the first three months of ‘24 than we did during the same time period in 2023. So it’s not that easy. María Corina Machado herself gave a very important interview to Andrés Oppenheimer, a Miami Herald columnist, and she said a rigged election in Venezuela is the type of precipitating event that could trigger a massive outpouring of migration. And I think she’s a hundred percent right about that. People lose hope. And they leave, and I can’t blame them.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Absolutely. Very, very complex. Uh-huh.
Ryan C. Berg:
And I think that’s the tricky part here, is it’s just not so easy to say, "We’ll lift and we should see fewer Venezuelans at the southern border, and countries and regions should see fewer Venezuelans at their borders." It’s a lot more nuanced than that.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Very interesting. We have some interesting questions coming in here. Before we turn to these questions, and please, I’ll encourage our audience to submit your questions online, whether you’re here in the room or whether you’re watching online, and we have them filtering in electronically here to me on the stage, I want to talk a little bit about Russia and China’s role here. Because it occurs to me that part of, Ryan, which you’ve identified as waning US influence in Venezuela, is partially due to the fact that there is an alternative to the United States. And I’m not saying that it’s one that I favor to be very clear, but that a country like Venezuela can look to Russia and especially to China, to some degree, even to Iran, for support when we impose these sanctions. Is that accurate? What do we make of that? Carolina, do you have thoughts on this?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Yeah. Well, it already did it.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Yeah.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I mean, there will be nothing new about Venezuela looking for support from China, Russia, Iran, and a lot of black market if it cannot sell its oil to the United States. I mean, the last few years show that this is exactly what the government does. It does create a major deficit in its income because it sells oil at discounted prices to China, to India, etc. But the country continues selling oil even with the sanctions.
Now, I do want to refer to something that I said earlier. For the record, I’m not saying that on April 18, the US should lift all sanctions and continue business as usual. What I’m saying is that, because of this small window opportunity the country has, it needs to craft a smart response to the situation. And I don’t know if a Cold War framework as containment will be the best solution to what is happening now. I think looking for the transformation of the political conflict is perhaps a better framework. But the relationship between Venezuela and Russia and China-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Just to put on your last point, which is an important one, and you believe that the United States needs to be more engaged with Venezuela in order to encourage that transformation? Is that the-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I think it needs to be ... Well, I think it needs to be engaged with the democratic opposition, listen to what they need, support their-
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Does the opposition want the United States to reimpose sanctions?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I think there are different groups in the opposition.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
There are different groups. Okay. Uh-huh.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
But I think what we do know, and I will insist on this till the end of this event, Venezuelans want to vote.
But Venezuelans will vote for a unified candidate. And it is clear that the opposition is having a difficult time choosing that person. Yes, we run the risk of a person chosen, a person disqualified; another person chosen, another person disqualified. But still, that will just show more and more the nature of the regime. What I think is the US needs to continue engaging with the opposition fore sure, with civil society for sure, but it needs to provide a platform for the government to go back to the negotiating table. Because the few things that have worked so far and that have been a game changer in Venezuelan politics from the primary elections, two electoral observation from international missions, have been accomplished because of those negotiations. Otherwise, I think we will be speaking about a Nicaragua scenario, and that is the least thing desirable scenario of all.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. Okay. Now, I cut you off there on the Russia and China, which is actually my original question. So here’s one of the controls, so if we reimpose sanctions, and I see the credibility argument, and it’s very interesting what you say, Ryan, but what’s to stop Russia and China from just stepping in, saving the regime, and in the process gaining even more leverage over it?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
It did before, as I said. I mean, Russia, it’s in the midst of a horrible war. So I don’t know if Russian economic support and financial support to the government can be the same as it was two years ago. And China, I have to say, is a very pragmatic player as we know in politics. Venezuela, I mean, the government has been launching this attack against Guyana, the country next door, in the last few months. And we have seen that there were a lot of tensions last year. There are tensions again. I think it’s a way for the government to diffuse attention, etc.
But the truth is that Guyana has important oil resource, and that is now exporting and producing more oil than Venezuela. Correct? Have you heard China strongly condemn Guyana because of exploiting that oil? No, because it’s interested in Guyana’s oil. So in that sense, I think China tends to play a very pragmatic game. It supports Maduro when it feels he needs to, and it might not support Maduro in the future if it doesn’t need to. But Russia does have a strong political and ideological connection with the Maduro government, which has been very well documented.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Okay. We’ve got some questions here, but Ryan, please, you-
Ryan C. Berg:
Yeah, just a quick comment because I think that it is hard to remove the geopolitical frame from any conversations on Venezuela. I agree with Carolina that Maduro might not be China’s favorite person or their favorite partner. In fact, in Beijing, they probably consider him to be a clown, but he’s their clown, right? And they certainly feel more comfortable with him than a situation of democratic change where the outcome is super uncertain as opposed to the clown that they know in Caracas.
One of the things that the administration said at the start of this process, and in fact even before the start of this process, was that the US goal in approaching Venezuela was to try to cleave Russia and China away from Venezuela, to try to reduce that amount of influence. I share that strategic objective. I think that’s a good one. But the problem that we’re facing now is I think a kind of loose network of authoritarian alliances out there. They don’t look like our alliances and partnerships, but it’s China and Russia and their new infinite partnership, and then any other kind of countries they can bring along on the margins, the Irans, the North Koreas, occasionally the Venezuelans, into that group to challenge the global order, to engage in Revisionism, et cetera, et cetera.
So Venezuela’s interests under the Maduro regime, and I think the way that Russia and China look at Venezuela as being an occasional traveler in that exercise, that loose authoritarian network, it’s really hard to cleave Venezuela at present away from China and Russia. It’s really hard to consider clever diplomacy that can somehow cleave them away. And I worry, we think that we’re more clever than we actually are.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So again, manage your expectations on that one. I want to get to some questions from the audience here. We have a number of them to come in. Again, this is Pivotal States with the American Statecraft program here at the Carnegie Endowment, really enjoying this conversation with Carolina Jiménez Sandoval and Ryan Berg about Venezuela.
Let’s start here. We’ve got one actually following up Carolina on something that you got us into a little bit earlier, which is Essequibo. This is actually a question from my colleague here at Carnegie, Chris Schell, and he wants to know how does this play? I mean, how serious is Maduro about it? I mean, could he actually take real action to seize it? Do you think that he’s emboldened by a sense that US power in the region is waning? I mean, what factors are driving his bombast? Or is it more than that on this issue?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I think it is no coincidence that the whole Essequibo issue was revived in an electoral context. I mean, the Maduro and the Chavez government forgot about the Essequibo, then retook the issue of the Essequibo, then forgot about it again. But now it is a political issue because I think in Maduro’s mind, it was supposed to rally nationalistic feelings, and he did not. That attempt to do that through a referendum in which Venezuelans were supposed to vote about annexing the Essequibo exit had failed dramatically. But it’s there. I mean, the threat is there. It passed a law. It annexed the Essequibo by law. There is a new state. But there is, of course, no de facto control of that territory, that is controlled by Guyana. I think if we were to see a stronger movement from the Maduro government towards sending more troops to the region or becoming more threatening, I honestly think that we will see the same that we saw last year. Brazil, Colombia, and the regional neighbors, but also the Caribbean neighbors, but also the Caribbean countries will step in, because if there is one thing we know the region doesn’t need, it’s another armed conflict. And I think diplomacy will be at play and hopefully the worst case or scenario will be avoided. President Lula from Brazil played a key role in lowering the high level of tensions that we saw last year between two countries, and I think different regional players will play the same role again if tensions were to rise at that level again.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Ryan, how likely is it that this could actually... I think some of us may tend to say, well, it’s just bombast. But then again, we’ve obviously seen similar situations in the world where things that sounded like bombast suddenly overnight turned into reality. So, what’s your analysis?
Ryan C. Berg:
So it’s a great question. I think we’re still very unlikely to see any kind of kinetic action against Guyana, first because the state of the Venezuelan Armed forces, they’re not a fighting force. They’re better understood analytically speaking as a drug trafficking organization, as an organization that participates in any number of criminal activities. Morale is low, equipment is old. If you are stationed out there on the border near Essequibo, it’s because you’re doing penitence for something. You’re trying to avoid getting dengue or malaria. It’s not a nice post.
So I think a lot of this was about increasing nationalism and hoping to get a electoral boost right after the opposition’s primaries. Note that it was right after the opposition’s primaries, when almost 2.5 million people came out to vote. Many of them for María Corina Machado. The regime wanted to have an effort that tested their electoral apparatus. The feedback mechanism that they got for that event was that their electoral apparatus was in shambles. They said that 10 million people voted, but there were five questions on the referendum. If you divide that, you get about 2 million people. That’s being very generous. There were plenty of photos all over social media showing completely empty voting booths. And this should have been a clear win for the regime, because this is an issue. Well, you grew up and understand-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Yeah, drawing the map.
Ryan C. Berg:
Exactly. And so as young children, all learn in Venezuela that we’re missing this part of the country, and all the maps are drawn with the extra little finger, which is of course two-thirds of territory that is administered by Guyana. So a lot of it is the domestic and Maduro didn’t get the boost that he thought. Now, I think we at CSIS are slightly unique in the sense that we’ve said that this could be maybe 20% or 30% some kind of international strategy. We’ve said, "Okay, let’s just assume that there’s some kind of strategy there against Guyana. What could actually be happening here?" And we’ve been tracking using satellite data, and we put out a couple pieces showing satellite imagery of the regime, moving some of their military hardware to the border to intimidate, to engage in what we think is an active course of diplomacy.
What is it that they’re trying to get out of Guyana? We’re speculating that they might be trying to get some element of the resources that are being exploited in the Essequibo region. How might they do that? By increasing the cost or the perceived cost to Guyana of that military equipment being on the border, of exercises being done on the border, including in January, Chris. When Brazil was negotiating and arbitrating the two sides, they were doing tank exercises at a place called Ankoko Island, which is about one football field away from the border. Not a very friendly, neighborly thing to do if you’re in Brazil negotiating peace terms and trying to climb back from escalation.
So, what we think Venezuela’s goal might be is to get Guyana into a situation where they’re actually negotiating over some of the territory or negotiating over some of the claims that are currently in the International Court of Justice. Why? Because they might be able to get a better deal by negotiating bilaterally than they would be able to waiting to probably lose the case. And then have to explain to a population that’s been told since they were very young, that there’s actually this other way that we draw the map and we’ve been historically wronged and so on. So the strategy is to try to bring military equipment to the border, do some exercises, build some infrastructure way out there in the middle of the jungle and make Guyana think that there’s a greater threat than there actually is. And so far it hasn’t amounted to anything, but there’s a whole lot of nationalistic rhetoric going on if you follow Venezuelan Twitter and Venezuelan social media, where the general who’s been put in charge of that area is tweeting every day that [foreign language 00:52:59] and look at these new buildings we’re building out here in the middle of the jungle at this jungle warfare training school.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Very interesting and enlightening. Let me ask another question that combines a couple that we have here from the audience about the role of regional powers in trying to make the situation better. We’ve talked about the impact of the conditions in Venezuela on a number of its neighbors and other nations in the region, but is there a path where the United States can leverage its relationships with these countries towards some kind of a settlement or strategy that promises a better outcome in Venezuela? Carolina, what do you think?
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I think that is actually a very good strategy. When you think about... In thinking of the sanctions regime, there are individual sanctions that we in civil society support, because they are usually targeting perpetrators of human rights violations and sectorial sanctions. When you look at the individual sanctions, they’re multilateral. The European Union has imposed these sanctions, Canada, Switzerland and the U.S. And the sectorial sanctions as such are American sanctions, correct? They tend to create tensions with Venezuela’s neighbors who feel that the U.S. is extra limiting its power, et cetera. But the truth is that there is a different political landscape, especially in South America since Lula da Silva took power in Brazil, Gustavo Petro in Colombia. And these are two really important leaders that speak to Maduro, unlike many others that have no connection with the Maduro government.
Yesterday, Gustavo Petro was in Venezuela. I don’t think anyone was expecting Petro to fly to Caracas. He did. They issue a very broad and general statement, but today, Petro revealed that he did not only speak to Maduro, that he spoke to the opposition as well. So that shows that those countries that are able to speak to both sides are playing a role. And of course, we cannot forget that the negotiations have been facilitated by Norway, for example, who has also been a very key player and continues to be a very key player in this political context. So I think supporting multilateral efforts and engaging regional powers is a good strategy for the U.S. to continue to follow.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Ryan, do you agree with that?
Ryan C. Berg:
I certainly agree that we’ve been trying really hard to get Lula to say something about Venezuela. We’ve been trying really hard to get Petro to say more about Venezuela, and recently they’ve finally opened up about Maduro and the nature of the election, but it took a lot of effort. And the idea is that these are individuals that Maduro expects to provide him with cover, should he steal the election. And so the importance of getting statements out there about the anti-democratic maneuvers and the human rights abuses that we’ve seen thus far is to put him on warning that he’s not going to have that cover thus far. He’s not going to have that cover should he steal the election. We’ve finally gotten to a situation where I think both leaders are annoyed enough with Maduro that they’re pushing back. The key question for me is, will they maintain that position after the election if he in fact rigs it or steals it? Will there be consequences or will they lapse back into the relationship that they had with Venezuela prior and thus not really impose any consequences on Maduro? I think that’s one of the key questions now that we’ve finally gotten both governments to start issuing statements on Venezuela. It took a long time to get them to say stuff.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
So, we’re already basically out of time here. So I wanted just perhaps to conclude, to ask you to do something that’s very dangerous for a career in Washington, which is to prognosticate a little bit about where we might be in, say, a year or two, where you can even pick your timeframe. But, tell us what’s a positive future for U.S.-Venezuela relations look like? Ryan, let me start with you.
Ryan C. Berg:
I’m going to do my best here, Chris, to not project hope as analysis, because I think that’s a real danger here. My hope is, of course, for Venezuela to have a democratic flourish.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Of course, but what’s a realistic but hopeful scenario?
Ryan C. Berg:
But a realistic, but hopeful scenario I think is if in fact Maduro steals the election, as I fear, we are rumbling towards another rigged election, that the opposition does in fact so well, that Venezuelans, as Carolina said, are so enthusiastic about voting. They love María Corina Machado. They’ll vote for anyone who she designates or endorses as a replacement and so on, that there’s an outpouring of support that the regime gets caught stealing brazenly an election. And then we have probably a crisis generated within the ruling elite where some individuals, who are otherwise comfortable with Maduro, start to say, "Maybe my future isn’t with this guy. And 2030 is a long time, 2024 to 2030 is a long time. Perhaps we should think about a leadership change," or, "Perhaps we should think about some behavior change to get some of these sanctions lifted, or to get a little bit more of an invite to some of these events in the international community, to be welcomed back to some of these fora."
I think that would be a positive start for change. And by the way, there are other elections in 2025. I do agree with Carolina that we’ve rarely seen an opportunity like this. And in fact, the last piece that I published at CSIS says, this could be the last opportunity for a democracy in Venezuela. And part of it I think is because María Corina Machado is just a generational figure. She’s very unique. She’s managed to hold together a coalition that is notoriously fragmented in a way that... I don’t know how she does it, but all of the usual criticisms of the Venezuelan opposition in this electoral cycle do not seem to apply. And that’s why I agree with Carolina that this is really an important opportunity. And I would hope that for Venezuela, that momentum, even if they lose the election, even if the election is rigged, carries over into national assembly elections anticipated in 2025, and the opposition can continue to build momentum towards that long-term change that I was talking about. If political change isn’t possible immediately in the moment, you need to build the foundations for it in the future.
Christopher S. Chivvis:
Carolina, what’s your vision for-
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
I’ll describe two potential scenarios very quickly. First scenario, 2024, Maduro wins the elections or is re-elected. In Venezuela, presidential terms are six years. So that implies Nicolás Maduro stays in power until 2030. Now, in 2009, Hugo Chavez reformed the Constitution to allow for indefinite re-election. In 2030, Nicolás Maduro will be 67. That’s three years younger than Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the current President of Mexico. So in 2030, he could run again, because the Constitution allows for it, and then be in power until 2036. And I could continue doing this, because as I said, that’s what authoritarians want at the very end, to remain in power. So that is a scenario.
Then it’s the second scenario, the scenario of what political scientists call stunning elections, elections that surprise, elections that, as the term says, stun you, make you feel that something incredible happened. And that will only occur if Venezuelans go to the polls in massive numbers with a unified candidate, with the support of the international community. So for the next six years, instead of thinking whether or not Maduro will run for elections in 2030 again, the Venezuelan people, the Venezuelan government, together with the international community will be rebuilding democracy in Venezuela.
Christopher S. Chivvis: Well, this has been a really fascinating conversation for me. Obviously, the issues are very complex and the administration has got a really tough decision to make about whether or not to reimpose sanctions or to continue down the path that they started last fall. But perhaps after we know, we can reconvene at some point in a few months and continue it. I appreciate both of you doing this for us here at Statecraft program, at the Carnegie Endowment. So thank you.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Thank you, Chris.
Ryan C. Berg:
Thanks very much, Chris. Thanks Carolina.
Carolina Jiménez Sandoval:
Thank you, Ryan. Thank you.