Forced exile of Edmundo González raises questions about Biden’s approach to Venezuela

The forced exile to Spain of Edmundo González, the opposition candidate who won the recent presidential election in Venezuela, has raised new questions about how the Biden administration has handled one of the worst political crises in the Western Hemisphere and the limited foreign policy tools available to the U.S. and international partners to counter authoritarian governments.

González left for Spain on Sunday after officials loyal to Nicolás Maduro, the country’s strongman who was declared the winner of the election by the electoral council without proof, ordered his arrest. His exit diminishes hopes of a democratic transition in the country.

Led by conservative leader María Corina Machado, the opposition delivered chavismo’s most significant defeat in the July 28 election, in which González won by a landslide, according to tally receipts from more than 80% of the voting machines that the opposition published online and were verified by the Carter Center.

U.S. officials have taken credit for the fact the elections took place at all, following secret negotiations with Maduro. Still, questions linger about how well prepared they were for a scenario, forewarned by many, in which the Venezuelan ruler stole the election.

“We got an election but is that the endgame?” asked Eric Farnsworth, vice president of the Americas Society and Council of the Americas in Washington. “The opposition has done everything and finds itself exposed to repression and a radicalized government, but the U.S. won’t even acknowledge González as president-elect.”

Farnsworth said he was “disappointed” that the administration did not have “an entire menu of options” ready to put into action, beginning with the July 28 election results and stretching all the way until González was to be sworn into office in January. “It’s basic statecraft,” he added.

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While the White House and the State Department have said González “won the majority of the vote” and have spoken of his “electoral victory,” the United States has not recognized him as president-elect, which some believe might have conferred additional protection to González and allowed him to remain in the country for longer.

“We are behind other countries in the region in calling him president-elect,” said Ryan Berg, the director of the Americas Program and head of the Future of Venezuela Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “We knew that they were going to try to forcibly exile him. It was not guaranteed but maybe it would have made the regime think twice about exiling someone called the president-elect.”

Two senior administration officials did not answer questions during a call with reporters Thursday about why the U.S. government has not recognized González as president-elect.

Likewise, a National Security Council spokesperson did not answer the same question when pressed by the Miami Herald, but said that the fact that he had to leave Venezuela resulted from the crackdown ordered by Maduro in the election aftermath.

“Let’s not forget, González Urrutia left Venezuela because of the anti-democratic measures that Nicolás Maduro unleashed on the Venezuelan people—nearly 2,000 have been arbitrarily detained—and his indiscriminate political prosecution of Maduro’s opposition, including González Urrutia and other leaders,” Sean Savett said.

“Though the United States and the international community have been using various tools and diplomatic channels to try to convince Maduro to accept the July 28 results, the responsibility has always been on Maduro and his representatives to come clean about the elections and allow the people to peacefully exercise their freedoms,” he added. “This is solely on Maduro.”

Experts warned the administration precisely about this scenario. In an article in Foreign Policy magazine last week, former U.S. ambassador P. Michael McKinley had urged the administration to recognize González as such “ before it is too late ” amid a rapidly deteriorating situation.

Machado, the Venezuelan opposition leader who has remained in hiding in the country despite arrest threats, has also called on the administration to do more and urged governments to recognize Gonzalez as president-elect.

But the administration seemed to have been caught up in fears that doing so could unleash more repression against opposition leaders, break the international coalition built around the subject and end up in a situation similar to the short-lived interim presidency led by Juan Guaidó, the National Assembly leader who took the role to challenge Maduro in 2017 but had to flee the country last year.

Unlike Guaidó, who was not elected but invoked the Venezuelan constitution to fill the presidency, González was voted by a large majority of the Venezuelan population.

“You can’t run a policy like that if a dictator can basically hold you hostage,” Berg said.

More sanctions on Venezuelan officials

Some foreign policy experts have publicly and privately expressed frustration that the administration has not been quicker in sending a stronger message to Maduro, cutting oil revenues and seeking accountability from officials who helped him cling to power. They also want the administration to send a clear warning about the consequences if Machado is arrested.

On Thursday, the Department of the Treasury sanctioned 16 Venezuelan officials in the National Electoral Council and the Venezuelan Supreme Court who helped Maduro steal the election . The list was significantly reduced from the reported 60 individuals considered for sanctions . According to the State Department, an unknown number of Venezuelan officials were also hit with visa restrictions.

But months before a tight presidential election in November, Biden officials have yet to revoke special authorizations (called licenses) issued to U.S. company Chevron and other foreign companies to extract oil from Venezuela.

In April, the administration reimposed sanctions on PDVSA, the Venezuelan state oil company, that had been lifted as part of a secret agreement reached with Maduro in Qatar last year. Still, the licenses to individual companies have allowed PDVSA to increase oil production to its highest level in the past four years, according to August numbers reported by Reuters.

In the Thursday call with reporters, the officials declined to say if the administration was considering revoking such licenses.

The Qatar deal paved the way for the Barbados agreement between Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition, in which he agreed to hold what looked like—at least on paper—free and fair elections.

In the process, the U.S. temporarily lifted sanctions against PDVSA and Venezuela’s Central Bank, let Chevron and other international companies extract oil from Venezuela and returned to Venezuela two of Maduro’s wife’s nephews imprisoned for narcotrafficking as well as his front man, Alex Saab, held in the U.S. for money laundering.

Critics of President Biden’s policy on Venezuela, including several Florida Republicans, have questioned the effectiveness of the strategy and have called for more sanctions. And members of the Democratic Party in Congress seem to agree.

This week, Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin introduced a bill terminating all oil trade between the United States and Venezuela until “the legitimate results of the July 28, 2024 election are respected.”

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“The entrenched regime clings to power using oil revenues dependent on U.S. involvement. Under my bill, that will end, and so will Maduro’s financial strength. It’s really that simple,” said Durbin.

But some observers point out that Maduro has already survived sanctions before, under the maximum pressure campaign imposed by the Trump administration, with help from allies like Russia, China and Turkey. And that short of military action, which no administration has wanted to pursued in the region for several decades, the carrot and stick U.S. approach have limits.

Javier Corrales, a professor of Political Science at Amherst College who is an expert in authoritarianism, sees similarities between what’s happening in Venezuela and Fidel Castro’s use of terror to consolidate power and eliminate the opposition in Cuba in the early years of the revolution, all while actively promoting a massive exodus.

As the chances for democratization shrink, he said, the United States should pursue a “smart strategy,” trying to exploit cracks in chavismo and remain a strong partner of the opposition forces, ensuring they survive.

Ultimately, the Venezuelan crisis laid bare the challenge of overthrowing a regime accused of imprisoning and torturing opponents to remain in power.

“One could argue that everything has been tried with Venezuela,” Corrales said. “When governments decide that they’re going to radicalize like this, they have already discounted the potential consequences from the international community and especially the United States, so they are prepared to absorb the cost of whatever may come.”