Donald Trump, US President. Photo: AFP.
By Ricardo Vaz – Feb 3, 2025
The Trump White House will weigh different approaches in its unchanging regime-change efforts against the Caribbean nation.
Donald Trump’s return to the White House generated a lot of speculation about US foreign policy. In Venezuela, the memory of the “maximum pressure” regime-change campaign is very fresh. Plenty of wounds are still open.
The new administration has not been short on US exceptionalist bluster and came out guns blazing with anti-migration policies. Trump’s special envoy Richard Grenell held a highly publicized meeting with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro which, according to reports, was centered on ensuring Caracas would accept migrant deportation flights.
But beyond immediate heavy-handed actions against the US migrant population, what arrows is Washington pulling out of its imperialist quiver against Venezuela? What does it plan to do about the hardline opposition? And what are the sanctions policy options?
The parallel government conundrum
One of the key early decisions for the Trump administration is deciding whether to go down the parallel administration route once more. In other words, a “Guaidó 2.0” scenario. Beyond giving away prime seats for the “State of the Union” address or private White House tours, this is a decision with several ramifications.
The first one has to do with the money. As of now, Washington recognizes a defunct parliament whose term expired four years ago as the “legitimate government” of Venezuela. This pretend National Assembly is made up of dozens of irrelevant former politicians who no longer even bother with appearances.
But still, this placeholder is a known quantity. Corrupt and mediocre, but known nonetheless. Officially recognizing former candidate Edmundo González would mean having to deal with and of course finance an entirely new bureaucratic apparatus. US officials would lose margin of action by having to heed to someone their government regards as the true leader of Venezuela, even if he has no power whatsoever inside the country.
A changing of the guard could also cause disruption in ongoing legal proceedings, chief among them the Delaware court-ordered auction of PDVSA’s US-based subsidiary, CITGO.
All of this could explain why so far the new White House has only ramped up the rhetoric, taking González from “president-elect” to “rightful president.” Additionally, fulfilling Trump’s anti-migrant promises requires engagement with the Maduro administration, an early priority for special envoy Grenell.
Migrant crackdown priority
The new White House tenant surfed back into office on a wave of racism and xenophobia that saw him scapegoat migrants with ever more absurd, and false, stories. Ironically, much of the migration, particularly of Venezuelans, is directly tied to the first Trump term policies, specifically his “maximum pressure” sanctions largely retained by the Biden administration.
However, the migrant bogeyman narrative has little basis in reality, and none of the actions taken address the root causes of the phenomenon. As such, Trump is merely looking to sell something that looks like a victory.
That is why the early step has been to deal directly with the Maduro government, and it is reasonable to expect a number of deportation flights in the immediate future. Caracas also scores a PR victory by demonstrating that the US recognizes who is in charge and can incorporate the returned nationals into its “Return to the Homeland” program.
Additionally, it is not far-fetched to expect that the Venezuelan government at least sought assurances that the sanctions policy is not tightening in the coming months. Some analysts had even ventured that Venezuela’s cooperation in migration issues could be bargained for limited oil export licenses.
But at the end of the day, regime change in Caracas will remain the ultimate goal for the US, and that is chiefly pursued through economic warfare.
Unlicensing Chevron
Between Venezuelan opposition extremists and US foreign policy hawks, there is a chorus clamoring for a hardening of the sanctions policy against the Caribbean country. The newly inaugurated president himself floated the possibility of the US “no longer buying oil” from Venezuela.
Should the Trump administration go down this route, the place to start is Chevron’s license. The oil giant received a waiver in late 2022 to restart crude drilling and sales operations in its Venezuela joint ventures. Currently, the four projects in which Chevron holds (minority) stakes are responsible for about 25 percent of Venezuela’s total output.
The Chevron question was on the table before. In 2020, the first Trump administration ordered the company to wind down its Venezuela activities. The reasoning at the time was that the corporation should face some short-term sacrifices, and after regime change succeeded, it would return to a rewarding bonanza. But Guaidó only got around 5 millimeters closer to the presidential palace than he started, so Chevron might ask why it should go through this again. But at the end of the day, the decision is out of its hands.
An eventual removal of Chevron’s license would be an immediate blow to Venezuela’s oil output, with downstream repercussions in areas like fuel production and access to US dollars. However, it would not plunge the industry anywhere near the historic output lows of mid-2020.
Policymakers in Washington DC lose no sleep over the suffering of ordinary Venezuelans, but they will wonder if removing Chevron from the equation actually makes regime change any more likely.
Opposition Economist: Venezuelan Oil Becomes More Competitive Thanks to Trump’s Tariffs (+Chevron)
Maximizing maximum pressure
Beyond withdrawing Chevron’s waiver, and also eventually driving away European companies that play much smaller roles, there are no other major headline-grabbing measures available for the US Treasury Department right now.
What it can do, nevertheless, is take further steps to tighten enforcement. In other words, go after the intermediaries who lift and re-sell Venezuelan crude as well as those who help Caracas skirt sanctions to collect the earnings from oil exports.
This is akin to a game of whack-a-mole, shutting down one route only to see another one pop up. It requires a lot of manpower and resources, and it will not deliver a knockout blow that Trump can show off as a major victory.
Washington cannot really stop Venezuelan crude from going out, unless it imposes a naval blockade. But ramping up enforcement and secondary sanctions would drive up the “cost of doing business” with Venezuela given the added risk. Put differently, the Maduro government would have to levy even bigger discounts to export crude.
The art of the deal
Apart from the foreign policy hardliners, oil lobbyists and MAGA think tanks are likewise whispering in the administration’s ear. Less wedded to the more traditional US exceptionalist “freedom and democracy” propaganda, they would rather see Trump leverage the present conditions to favor US interests.
One policy paper outlined what an “America-first sanctions policy” would look like. It would mean paving the way for US corporations to get Chevron-type deals, taking advantage of Venezuela’s economic struggles to secure favorable terms at the expense of the country’s sovereignty. For the Maduro government, it would be a familiar choice of “bad deal or no deal,” and it might be tempted to accept in order to secure more revenue.
According to the author, Florida International University’s Brian Fonseca, the bargaining in favor of US firms would come hand in hand with unleashing secondary sanctions against all other actors. The expressed goal is to re-establish US influence over the Venezuelan oil sector, even with a view toward future privatizations that would have oil executives drooling.
This approach would run contrary to the short-sighted attacks of the first Trump administration, instead looking to erode Venezuelan sovereignty little by little.
Big decisions
For a self-proclaimed successful businessman like Trump, the “America First” sanctions approach might make the most sense. If successful, and that is a big if, he could brag about driving out China from Venezuela and restoring the US’ past influence over the Venezuelan oil industry.
But it would mean leaving the Maduro government alone, and that could be a dealbreaker for the likes of Rubio. It would require a lot of rhetorical gymnastics to herd US companies into the Venezuelan oil sector while claiming to be doing everything to implement regime change. At some point, something will have to give.
Needless to say, Venezuela is not a passive actor in this multi-layered chessboard, and its efforts to build resistance against sanctions and drive regional integration efforts also determine its enemy’s strategy. The only permanent assumption, paraphrasing Che Guevara, is that imperialism is never to be trusted.
Ricardo Vaz
Ricardo Vaz is a political analyst and editor at Venezuelanalysis.com
