Joe Biden and Nicolas Maduro.
Photographer: Bloomberg
Advisers to President-elect Joe Biden are preparing to negotiate with Nicolas Maduro’s regime in Venezuela in an effort to end the worst economic and humanitarian crisis in the Western Hemisphere, three people familiar with the case said.
The Biden government plans to promote free and fair elections and provide sanctions in return, the people said, asking for anonymity as the new team is forming. Unlike the Trump administration, which insisted it would only negotiate the terms of Maduro’s surrender, Biden’s advisers do not make that a condition and are open to direct talks.
The president-elect’s team will review existing sanctions to determine where restrictions can be expanded with the help of international allies and what measures can be lifted if Maduro moves toward the democratic goal, the people said. Maduro’s foreign lenders, including Russia, China and Iran, are expected to play a role, as is Cuba, which is eager to improve relations with the US.
Read more: Biden plotting Cuba again in rebuke of Trump’s sanctions
Biden’s advisers have called the Venezuela crisis the greatest diplomatic challenge he will face in the Western Hemisphere. More than 5 million people have fled the South American country in recent years, escaping sustained economic spasms punctuated by gang violence, power cuts, widespread food shortages and the left-wing government’s hostility to dissent.
Economic toll
Maduro has expressed interest in improving relationships when Biden takes office, to express his demands that the new government ease sanctions that have crushed the nation’s oil revenues. According to Ecoanalitica, based in Caracas, the Venezuelan economy is expected to shrink by a third by 2020.
Domestically, Biden will fulfill his promise of temporary protected status, allowing Venezuelans who have fled to the US to stay, the people said.
A spokesman for the transition between Biden and Harris declined to comment.
One of the thorniest issues for Biden is how he will address opposition leader Juan Guaido’s claim to the presidency. The US and more than 50 countries recognized Guaido as an interim leader in early 2019, when he took over the helm of the National Assembly and claimed a vacancy in the office of the presidency after Maduro faked the May 2018 election.
Despite presiding over the oil-rich country’s steep decline since the succession of the late President Hugo Chavez in 2013 and years of trying to get him out, Maduro remains defiantly in control. Earlier this month, his loyalists arrived won control of parliament after a boycott of the opposition. Canada, Colombia, Brazil and the US were among the first to reject the results.
Agenda of the opposition
In theory, Guaido will lose his seat as head of the Venezuelan National Assembly on January 5. Biden takes office in Washington just two weeks later.
Since late November, the opposition leader’s team has been trying to arrange a phone call with Biden, so far without success, say three people familiar with the effort. Guaido and his allies plan to lead a dueling meeting, citing their constitutional mandate to remain in office until free and fair elections. Many of them have gone into hiding or are being held in exile because their personal safety is threatened.
Guaido’s office declined to comment on the matter.
The Biden government plans to base itself on Venezuela’s opposition and what appears to be the national consensus, the people knowledgeable about the strategy said.
That may take a while to figure out. Guaido’s support has waned with the failed attempts to remove Maduro. Even some Guaido allies are reluctant to support an indefinite interim presidency. At the same time, former presidential candidate Henrique Capriles has criticized 37-year-old Guaido by saying the anti-Maduro movement does not have an effective leader, while Henri Falcon, who stood up against Maduro in 2018, denounced the boycott of the opposition.
Previously: Maduro is putting pressure on Venezuelan human rights organizations
As Guaido fights to stay relevant in Washington, some of his advisers have put forward the lofty goal of next year’s “mega-elections” – provided the conditions are met to protect the process – that would vote in a new president and parliament, as well as hold the governmental races already planned, according to four people familiar with the discussions.
Negotiated solution
Previous negotiations between the Maduro regime and opponents of the government have often backfired on the nation’s opposition, granting none of their requests and leading to reluctance to participate in future talks.
To complicate matters, Trump also warned against a “military option, ”although advisers did not embrace it. In March, the State Department summoned both Maduro and Guaido step aside and let a transitional government take over the power to convene elections. That proposal could not break the deadlock either.
In his pursuit of sanction relief, Maduro has an unlikely ally in corporate America. A group of Venezuelan creditors lobbied the Treasury Department to lift the country’s restrictions on bond trading, causing the value of the notes to plummet. Other executives have their eyes on licenses that allow them to gain a foothold in the world’s largest proven oil reserves.
A more immediate concern is how to facilitate the dispatch of humanitarian aid to address a growing hunger crisis. Maduro has blocked a deal to let the United Nations Food Agency into the country because he insisted on controlling distribution. The incoming US administration has committed to working with multilateral organizations on humanitarian issues, but it is unclear what it takes to break the deadlock.