Venezuela and the United States sign a forced and unequal peace two months after Maduro's capture
Chavismo liberalizes the economy under Washington's tutelage and breaks ties with Cuba
BarcelonaSince Delcy Rodríguez announced a "cooperation agenda" with the White House Just over 24 hours after Nicolás Maduro's capture, Caracas has been forced to capitulate to Washington week after week. The United States governs Venezuela through the back door and has managed to get Chavismo to implement reforms to liberalize the economy, while the Trump administration has restored trade with the Latin American country in a highly restricted manner and under exceptional conditions. In the two and a half months since the attack, Venezuela has opened its doors to the US for its natural resources. Trump himself acknowledged this last weekend at the summit in Miami with Latin American leaders allied with the White House: "We are getting enormous amounts of oil out," he stated. On paper, Chavismo's opening to US investment began at the end of January. At that time, the National Assembly approved an amendment to the hydrocarbons law, confirming a pragmatic—and forced—shift by Chavismo in the face of US pressure. The Venezuelan Parliament approved a bill that reduces state controls over the industry and places fewer obstacles in the way of foreign private companies participating in oil exploration. Until now, they could only do so in joint ventures in which the state always held a majority stake, but the new legislation allows this to change. In the area of trade, the government of Delcy Rodríguez has also promoted a new mining law, approved in its first reading this week in the Venezuelan Parliament. Although the text may still undergo some modifications, the intention is to establish the legal framework to provide legal guarantees to companies, with the aim of generating confidence and attracting foreign private investment. In case of conflict, the law establishes mediation and arbitration mechanisms that should resolve disputes. the doubts that some major oil companies like Exxon expressed in their meeting with Trump in January, in which they called for reforms before investing in the country to avoid exposing themselves to asset seizure.
The legal changes in the country have also been accompanied by US actions. Washington and Caracas signed a "long-term productive partnership" in February, in Rodríguez's words, after meeting with US Energy Secretary Chris Wright in Caracas. Last week, another high-ranking official visited Venezuela: US Interior Secretary Doug Burgum traveled to the country, along with representatives from US mining companies. Following the visit, the US authorized specific operations by US companies to exploit Venezuelan gold.
The imposed tutelage of the United States
In a conventional situation, the reforms being implemented would allow Venezuela to generate new revenue from resource purchases. However, the United States is currently preventing Venezuelan institutions from deciding what to do with that money. Authorizations issued by Washington to exploit mineral resources are subject to two conditions. First, the extracted oil and gas cannot be sold in countries like Iran, Cuba, Russia, or China. Second, the Trump administration requires companies to deposit the proceeds of these transactions into an account controlled by the United States. "Although the money belongs to Venezuela, the United States decides when, how, and for what purpose it is sent to Caracas," explains Ana Ayuso, a researcher at CIDOB specializing in Latin America, who adds that "many of the money transfers from Washington to Caracas are conditional on the purchase of US services and products." "In the end, the money ends up in the United States," she emphasizes.
José Manuel Puente, a professor at the Institute of Advanced Studies in Administration (IESA) in Venezuela, emphasizes that "Donald Trump and the United States are the ones governing Venezuela," and that Rodríguez's administration "is just a facade." Regarding the motive for the attack, Puente points out that neither Secretary of State Marco Rubio nor Trump have taken any public steps to promote a political reform process in the country. Beyond the approval of the amnesty law For political prisoners, there has been no progress in this regard, and the professor warns that in Venezuela there is "concern" that Washington's actions will amount to nothing more than resource extraction.
In this way, it is evident through events that one of the premises used by part of the international community to justify the US attack on Venezuela is losing strength; namely, that the government of Nicolás Maduro was not a legitimate executive and that a transition had to be promoted. Far from it, Trump has "formally" recognized the government of Delcy Rodríguez. "We have legally recognized it," the US president stated last weekend from Miami. A few days later, this Thursday, the executive branch notified the New York court handling the case against Maduro of the decision, which will testify again on March 26.
Broken relations with Cuba
The debacle caused by the US attack has also completely changed the collaborative relationship between Venezuela and Cuba. In its attempt to further cripple the Castro regime, Washington has halted oil exports from Caracas to Havana. fundamental to the Cuban economy
Furthermore, from Venezuela, Delcy Rodríguez has severed decades of cooperation between the two countries on security matters. According to a Reuters investigation, several Cuban officials who were part of the Venezuelan government's security team left the country in February. Previously, during the US attack, 32 Cubans based in Venezuela who collaborated on security matters were killed.