How was the Maduro-Trump relationship in the previous administration and what can we expect this time?

CNN Spanish
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Following the inauguration of Nicolás Maduro for a third term in a context plagued by controversy – due to the fact that the Government never presented the detailed records that support his electoral victory – the swearing-in of Donald Trump is now expected, who will assume the presidency of United States with a difference of just days, opening a new period in relations between both countries.

While some experts consider that Trump will maintain his policy of maximum pressure towards Venezuela, others expect a second term with a more pragmatic focus, in which some type of agreement will be sought with the Government of Venezuela.

Last week, faced with a call to demonstrate throughout Venezuela in protest of Maduro’s inauguration, Trump wrote a message in which he recognized the opponent Edmundo González Urrutia as “president-elect”, and asked for the safety of himself and María Corina. Machado.

Without Trump’s recognition of Maduro, then, uncertainty reigns over what the relationship between the two will be like, although the relations between the two have a direct antecedent that could offer some keys to what will happen in the next four years.

A first term marked by tensions

Trump’s first term as president of the United States (2017-2021) has been one of the low points between both countries, where the bad relationship that already existed between Washington and Caracas deepened.

Although the first sanctions on people from Venezuela date back to 2015 – under the administration of Barack Obama – in August 2017 the Trump Administration sought to add pressure on Venezuela through economic sanctions that prohibited US banks from buying US bonds. Venezuelan government and its state oil company, PDVSA. Trump’s order also limited transactions with existing bonds owned by the Venezuelan public sector.

But the biggest crisis came in 2019, after the widely questioned 2018 presidential elections, which were described as a “farce” by then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and whose results were not recognized by much of the international community.

In January 2019, Washington recognized Juan Guaidó as interim president of Venezuela, announced sanctions against PDVSA and, later, suspended all commercial flights between both countries. Maduro, for his part, decided to break diplomatic relations with the United States Government and gave US officials 72 hours to leave the country.

At that time, the United States suspended operations of its embassy in Caracas, although in August 2019, according to the State Department, it opened a Venezuelan Affairs Unit located at the United States Embassy in Bogotá, Colombia.

Trump, faced with the dilemma of what to do with Venezuela in his second term

When he takes office on January 20, Trump will assume the administration of a country that has already formally recognized the Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo González as president-elect of Venezuela, although that will not save him from facing a difficult dilemma: if he chooses to maintain a line tough as in his first term or if, instead, he chooses a more pragmatic approach.

Maduro, for his part, seems to want to establish some type of dialogue that will improve the relationship between both countries, or at least prevent it from getting worse. Thus, one day after the elections that resulted in a victory for Trump, Maduro raised the possibility of “a new beginning” in bilateral relations.

“This is a new beginning so that we bet on win-win and things go well for the United States, things go well for Venezuela and we always advocate for things to go well for Latin America and the Caribbean,” he said at that time during a special program on the state television station VTV.

Michael Shifter, former president of the Inter-American Dialogue and adjunct professor at Georgetown University, believes that there are elements to think that, this time, Trump will seek to reach some type of agreement with the Maduro government by applying a more transactional approach.

“The first point is that his hardline first-term policy was a failure and he doesn’t seem interested in denying it,” Shifter says. “Secondly, because I know that there are several Venezuelans here in Washington, linked to the opposition, who have contact with Trump’s team and who know that the incoming government is evaluating that option.”

According to Shifter, Trump is going to seek an agreement with Maduro while reinforcing harsh rhetoric against the Government. “For example, I could reach an agreement on migration, which allows the deportation of Venezuelans who are in the United States illegally, and present it to society as a great triumph. And Maduro could agree to this in exchange for a relaxation of sanctions or in exchange for investments.”

However, one of the signs that could indicate that Trump has contrary plans is the appointment of Marco Rubio, an outspoken critic of Venezuela and Maduro, as Secretary of State of the next administration.

In 2022, Rubio requested that Interpol be asked to issue a red alert for the search and capture of Maduro, after stating that the president should be brought to trial. “Maduro is a criminal accused of allying with terrorist organizations to use illegal drugs as weapons against the United States,” his Twitter account wrote then. In 2024, Rubio said that the July elections in Venezuela had been a “farce” and claimed that Maduro stole the election.

Shifter says Rubio could play a key role in the incoming administration’s anti-Chavista rhetoric but, as several have said, Trump is most likely “his own secretary of state.” This has been demonstrated this week with his statements about taking control of Greenland and the Panama Canal.

Beningo Alarcón, director of the Center for Political and Government Studies at the Andrés Bello Catholic University, believes that Trump has no choice but to continue his hard-line policy towards Venezuela.

“Based on his own statements, on his environment and on the position of personalities like Marco Rubio, it is difficult for me to imagine that Trump would seek to make peace with Maduro,” he told CNN.

And although he agrees with Shifter that it is possible that Trump does not have a positive assessment of what happened during his first term with respect to Venezuela, he does not believe that this is enough for a change in policy.

“I don’t think that Trump will now adopt a line that is inconsistent with his speech and his previous policy. “I see people like (Christopher) Landau, like (Mauricio) Claver-Carone, or like (Marco) Rubio, who were the authors of the 2019 policy of maximum pressure on Venezuela and who are back in the Government now,” said Alarcón. .

Finally, he also questions the convenience of a Trump-Maduro agreement: “The problem is that the root of the emigration of Venezuelans is Maduro himself, reinforcing him in office will not solve the issue.”

With days remaining until the inauguration in the United States, Trump may already have these alternatives—and their costs—on the table.