
US President-elect Donald Trump making a boxing gesture at the CPAC in Florida in 2022. Photo: AP.
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From Venezuela and made by Venezuelan Chavistas
US President-elect Donald Trump making a boxing gesture at the CPAC in Florida in 2022. Photo: AP.
By Misión Verdad – Jan 10, 2025
One of the main objectives of María Corina Machado’s psychological operation of her false flag “kidnapping” was to draw Donald Trump’s attention to Venezuela. It partially succeeded, as Trump published a statement on his digital network Truth Social: “Venezuelan democracy activist Maria Corina Machado and President-elect González are peacefully expressing the voices and the WILL of the Venezuelan people with hundreds of thousands of people demonstrating against the regime. The great Venezuelan American community in the United States overwhelmingly support a free Venezuela, and strongly supported me. These freedom fighters should not be harmed, and MUST stay SAFE and ALIVE!”
Despite the gesture, this does not satisfy the purposes of the Venezuelan far-right opposition, as we will see below.
No specific policy about Venezuela
Although the Republican magnate took the bait, mentioning the Machado event and calling Edmundo González “president-elect,” he kept the Venezuelan issue low profile before the other topics of the Great Game in other geopolitical and geoeconomic scenarios, regarding which he has already announced defined policies:
These have been the major themes of the next US president’s discourse for his next administration. This does not mean that they are immovable policies, that they will not undergo transformations in the course of his administration, but they are the fundamental issues for which his administration will take proactive measures to try to counteract and reverse the decline of Washington’s hegemony.
With the international compass set in advance, Trump and his strategic team have to take into account a board with much greater interests where Venezuela is not exactly at the altar of their attention. Proof of this is the fact that, since Trump’s electoral victory last November, both the Venezuelan government and Machado and González have featured little in his statements, speeches, and interviews, except for side mentions by Republicans close to his political circle, such as Bernie Moreno.
In this scenario, the message on Truth Social was meant to be a gesture of solidarity, without implying the outlining of a specific policy, the assumption of a strategic commitment, or any significant escalation of the “Venezuela issue” in Trump’s foreign policy priorities.
The mention of “Venezuelan-Americans” confirms that it was a publication addressed to his supportive South Florida political representatives, who held a meeting with González during the ex-diplomat’s visit to Washington, among them María Elvira Salazar, Carlos Giménez, Mario Díaz-Balart, and Mike Waltz, with the latter named as Trump’s next National Security advisor.
This sector, supported politically and economically by hard-line groups of Cuban and Venezuelan descent against their countries, has been a pillar in Trump’s electoral constitution since his first administration. The appointment of Senator Marco Rubio as the next Secretary of State is an indication that the strategy of maximum pressure would gain traction in Trump’s second administration, a desire of this extremist clique.
Democrats press but do not squeeze
In the transition period between Trump’s November 5, 2024, election victory and the presidential inauguration on January 20, 2025, the Democrat administration of Joe Biden has taken it upon itself to accelerate some significant international moves to engage the incoming administration in geopolitical quagmires that Trump wishes to neutralize in favor of his own agenda, according to his own words:
Venezuela is part of the same picture, although with much less intensity. President Nicolás Maduro was sworn in before the National Assembly on January 10, in accordance with the constitutional mandate, for the period 2025-2031: a picture that clearly contrasts with the narrative spread during the last few weeks about the alleged presidential ascension of Edmundo González and his possible arrival in Caracas. Once again, the extremist sector of the opposition failed to impose regime change, even though it has the support of the Biden administration.
At the time of writing this analysis, the Biden administration has not adopted any measure of greater force and pressure against Venezuela, as the group advocating maximum pressure would like, such as the termination of licenses to the country’s energy sectors. However, they did take measures that are in line with possible intentions to reissue a mercenary operation, as suggested by Erik Prince and Iván Simonovis from the United States.
A new round of individual sanctions against Venezuelan officials was issued, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced via a press release that in support of the “return to democracy in Venezuela,” the bounty on the heads of President Maduro and Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello were raised to $25 million, plus $15 million for Defense Minister General Vladimir Padrino López.
It is along these lines that the Biden administration has decided to accelerate its steps regarding Venezuela, but without achieving the configuration of a scenario that would force Trump—for now—to continue with the same strategy. In fact, everything remains to be seen regarding the agenda of Trump and the decision-makers around him regarding Venezuela.
For the time being, Machado’s psy-op made Trump show the cards he held in his hand on Venezuela. The gesture is not enough to give more oxygen to the opposition extremism, which is betting on imposing the typical hard line against what Senator Bernie Moreno proposed: a Trump-Maduro negotiation based on the return of Venezuelan immigrants residing in the US and the continuation of the energy policy between the two countries, an economic and geopolitical necessity in which both parties win.
The central objectives of Machado and González’s current actions are to avoid at all costs the emergence of these trends and interests after Trump takes office, and to quickly force through a hardening of sanctions against Venezuela. It was with this purpose that María Corina Machado deployed her latest false flag operation, but it has gone out of hand and has turned against her, generating pessimism and confusion among those who support her.
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/SC/SF
Misión Verdad is a Venezuelan investigative journalism website with a socialist perspective in defense of the Bolivarian Revolution