In Secret Talks, U.S. Offers Amnesty to Venezuela’s Maduro for Ceding Power
BOGOTA—The U.S. is pursuing a long-shot bid to push Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to give up power in exchange for amnesty as overwhelming evidence emerges that the strongman lost last month’s election, people familiar with the matter said.
The U.S. has discussed pardons for Maduro and top lieutenants of his who face Justice Department indictments, said three people familiar with the Biden administration deliberation. One of the people said the U.S. has put “everything on the table” to persuade Maduro to leave before his term ends in January.
Another person familiar with the talks said the U.S. would be open to providing guarantees not to pursue those regime figures for extradition. The U.S. in 2020 placed a $15 million bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest on charges of conspiring with his allies to flood the U.S. with cocaine.
The talks represent a flicker of hope for a Venezuelan political opposition that meticulously collected voter tallies showing its candidate, little-known former diplomat Edmundo González, defeated Maduro in a landslide in the July 28 election. Over the past two weeks, Maduro has jailed thousands of dissidents, maintained the military’s loyalty and tasked the Supreme Court, stacked with his handpicked allies, with resolving the election impasse, buying him time.
International action may be the only avenue to force out Maduro, who over 11 years of authoritarian rule has overseen an economic implosion, diplomatic isolation and the exodus of nearly eight million Venezuelans—more than war-torn Syria and Ukraine. Maduro has given transnational gangs a safe haven, U.S. and Colombian officials say, and allowed Russia, China and other U.S. rivals to gain a foothold in the Western Hemisphere.
Maduro’s total grip on power stacks the odds against the Biden administration. The U.S. had made an amnesty offer to Maduro during secret talks in Doha last year, but the strongman declined to discuss arrangements where he would have to leave office, said people familiar with the matter. One person close to the regime said Maduro’s position hasn’t changed, for now.
Maduro has said that he’s open to talks as long as Washington shows him respect. At other times, he tells the U.S. to mind its own business. “Don’t mess with Venezuela’s internal affairs, that’s all I ask for,” Maduro said in a news conference Friday.
Latin America’s three most populous countries—Brazil, Mexico and Colombia—are also involved in trying to resolve the standoff. U.S. officials want these countries—run by leftist leaders sympathetic to Maduro—to take a tougher stance than their current position of pressuring him to present evidence he won.
The U.S. has five months before Venezuela’s presidential inauguration to pull off a deal, and much depends on the outcome of the presidential election in November.
A Donald Trump victory could squelch the talks if the former president revives his previous aggressive policies toward Maduro that began in 2019, when his administration leveled oil sanctions and supported a shadow Venezuelan government to topple the regime.
Still Maduro mistrusts Washington, no matter who inhabits the White House, said people familiar with the sentiment in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas. This includes the Biden administration, even though it had lifted most economic sanctions in the hope of fostering a free and fair July election.
So far, the talks have taken place virtually between Jorge Rodríguez, president of Venezuela’s congress and a Maduro confidant, and Daniel P. Erikson, who directs policy toward Venezuela at the White House National Security Council. U.S. officials have signaled that they won’t force Western oil companies to leave Venezuela.
An NSC spokeswoman declined to comment on diplomatic engagements with Caracas. The U.S., she said, supports international efforts to demand transparency over the vote result and “will determine next steps based on our national interests and take action at the time of our choosing.”
The Biden administration “is focusing on carrots, like offering to lift the indictments in exchange for transition talks, rather than sticks like sanctions,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Atlantic Council, the Washington think tank.
Ramsey said Republicans could use the engagement with Maduro to attack the Democrats in an election year, which could be damaging if the U.S.’s efforts fall through.
The U.S. attempt to offer Maduro a face-saving option dovetails with the opposition’s strategy, which favors negotiations that would include guarantees for regime leaders and a transition to a González government.
