If the U.S. elections were today, Joe Biden would win them. It is what the polls unanimously confirm. And while we read this data, some Venezuelans harbor concerns about the consequences that Trump’s departure from the White House will have for the Venezuelan democracy cause.
All fear is understandable, given the anguish in which we Venezuelans live. But no one should be misled: the line of action for the return to democracy in Venezuela has been bipartisan since 2014, something exceptional in these days of polarization in Washington. In effect, the policy of individual sanctions against military officials who violated Human Rights began in March 2015 with Barack Obama. Remember Nicolás Maduro trying to collect signatures throughout the country against what his regime defined as “Barack Obama’s interference in Venezuela’s sovereignty.”
Let’s go to the facts. In early 2014, protests broke out in Venezuela, and Maduro accelerated his transit through authoritarian drift, openly violating Human Rights. The U.S. Congress then passed the so-called Menéndez-Rubio law (Democrat and Republican, respectively); to promote the defense of Human Rights in Venezuela. Simultaneously, President Obama sent messages to Latin American leaders through then-Vice President Joe Biden, expressing his condemnation toward what was happening.
In January 2015, at the inauguration of Dilma Rousseff, Maduro asked Biden for a dialogue with Obama to agree on the price of oil. The wildness of the request made Biden smile. At this moment, they were photographed, and the image has been taken out of context to distort Biden’s perspective on Venezuela. Here is what Biden responded, diplomatically and firmly: “The people you should dialogue (without delay tactics) and reach agreements with are your people—with the opposition in your country. Take the path of respect for democracy and human rights; free the political prisoners and avoid the country’s economic collapse.”
As is known, Maduro did not heed that warning. Thus, in March 2015, Obama established the first sanctions. Under this same executive authority, the Department of Justice initiated investigations to fight corruption, money laundering, and drug trafficking. The results we have seen emerge in the past two years from those investigations and processes have fallen on emblematic actors of the Venezuelan regime.
In 2017 and 2018, under Trump’s presidency, two new events occurred: Maduro overstepped the legitimacy of the National Assembly elected in 2015 by irritatingly calling for a constituent assembly, and imposed a fraudulent presidential election in May 2018. This new reality transpired in a scenario in which governments friendly to Chavismo (or neutral against the regime) no longer controlled the OAS. It offered a medium to exert continental pressure that was not available during the Obama presidency, and outsiders to U.S. politics.
Throughout this process, the Democratic Party has given a legal floor to the evolution of sanctions, which reached a platform with the VERDAD Act, prepared by Democratic senator Bob Menéndez. This law included providing humanitarian aid for the massive Venezuelan migration, under the initiative of the Democrat congresswoman Debbie Mucarsel-Powell, from Florida. Moreover, it also contained the proposals of the Law for Research on the Relations of the Russian Government and the Venezuelan Regime in CITGO (drafted by another Democrat congresswoman, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz), which later facilitated the interim government of Juan Guaidó to recover of that company. Likewise, the legislative initiative of the Democrat congresswoman Donna Shalala was collected there, prohibiting all forms of military trade with the Maduro regime. Trump is, therefore, the executor of a legislative framework that is a bipartisan expression.
Let’s be clear: sanctions are a legal instrument for international politics, not an end in themselves. Managing them, articulating their instrumentation with incentives for the regime to abandon power or to promote fractures within the Chavista structure, is an art. The effectiveness of sanctions depends on their strategic and multilateral coordination and the adequate stimulus for international actors with interests related to the Chavista regime to refrain from being an obstacle to the desired changes.
When evaluating Trump’s management, one must ask, in the face of the horrible crisis in Venezuela, is Maduro closer to leaving power, or has he strengthened relatively in the face of the opposition? Are we closer or further from free, fair, and credible elections? But you also have to ask yourself, does Trump’s policy take care of Venezuelans? For example, Florida Democratic congressman Darren Soto managed to pass the law for TPS —Temporary Protected Status—for Venezuelans with the majority of his party in the House, despite facing Republican rejection. Trump could extend TPS for Venezuelans by decree. Still, he refuses and, together with his party, blocks this fundamental and humanitarian initiative to protect 150 thousand Venezuelans seeking refuge in the United States. More than 2,000 deportation processes—and growing—affect Venezuelans, including 600 who remain in custody and are exposed to contagion by COVID-19.
As Andrés Oppenheimer has well said, Trump weakens the international coalition essential for a positive outcome in Venezuela with his rhetoric, unilateralism, and lack of commitment to the great global democratic causes. Here is a differentiating point between Biden and Trump, which adds to our conviction that Biden would be the best option to achieve change in Venezuela. Biden has the necessary credibility in Europe and Latin America to spin effectively in solving the problem. On the other hand, he has no personal debts with Vladimir Putin, who speaks into Trump’s ear (as Bolton, his former National Security adviser denounced), even to sow distrust of the leadership of Juan Guaidó and the Venezuelan opposition. This is a central point. In addition to maintaining bad relations with Europe and Latin America, Trump has weakened the coalition by not focusing on multilateral pressure and incentives. Biden will make his decisions based on principles and intelligence, not on positions of mere electoral calculation like Trump’s rhetoric about Venezuela.
Joe Biden believes that “Nicolás Maduro is a dictator, plain and simple.” He was the first Democrat to recognize Juan Guiadó as Interim President and condemned “vigorously the violent takeover of the National Assembly,” the only democratic institution remaining in the country. Biden has also stated categorically that “the primary objective of the United States should be to push for a democratic solution in Venezuela, through free and fair elections, and to help the Venezuelan people to rebuild their lives and their country.”
Finally, Biden has pledged to grant TPS to Venezuelans and influence the international community to recover every penny looted from the Venezuelan state and return those resources to the Venezuelan people. In contrast, it deserves to underline that the Trump administration has transferred the resources recovered from actors of corruption in Venezuela to a discretionary fund of the Treasury Secretariat that has spent $600 million on the construction of the wall with Mexico.