The West must handle Venezuela’s election carefully
Kamala Harris may not have ascended to the Presidency just yet, but her team took their first major foreign policy decision in the aftermath of Venezuela’s election on Sunday.
While some of the international community is doubtful about the victory to the incumbent President Nicolás Maduro, Harris took a conciliatory line.
In a post to X, the Vice President committed the United States to ‘work toward a more democratic, prosperous, and secure future for the people of Venezuela’ following the election, while noting that the will of the Venezuelan people must be respected.
This statement is indicative of the Biden administration’s careful handling of its relations with Venezuela, unwilling to condemn the South American state to another decade of isolation. The US also wants to retain access to Venezuela’s prodigious reserves of oil and gas.
Yet perhaps the most pressing objective of the US, the UK, and the EU will be to prevent civil unrest in Venezuela, which could threaten the country’s economic recovery and the improved performance of its hydrocarbons industry.
Sunday’s result was always going to prove contentious and indeed it has. Early on Monday morning, Maduro was declared the victor with 51% of the vote, ahead of the opposition Unitary Platform’s candidate, Edmundo González Urrutia, on 44%.
The EU and the UK government released statements hinting at electoral improprieties while the Biden administration, as mentioned, and the French foreign ministry, took a more neutral stance. Maduro’s closest allies were quick to congratulate him on his victory, not least China, Qatar, Bolivia, and Cuba.
Geopolitical powerplays aside, the international community as a whole should be concerned that the protests that have broken out following the election don’t descend into violent civil unrest.
To that end, the Biden administration should maintain its policy of pushing the opposition bloc if not towards reconciliation with Maduro, then at least to a degree of cooperation.
The current US sanctions on the Venezuelan economy will prove to be a useful tool in this regard. Sunday’s election itself was the result of fruitful negotiations with Maduro in October of last year. These resulted in the so-called Barbados Agreement which lifted sanctions on Venezuela’s energy sector in return for guarantees that Maduro would hold an election.
This was announced in early March, although the Biden administration let sanctions relief lapse in April, unhappy with the pace of reform in Venezuela.
Following the same logic as Barbados, Biden and Harris seem likely return to the playbook of using sanctions relief as an incentive to Maduro to pursue a more participative government.
The opposition, in turn, will recognise that one positive election result was never going to be sufficient to overturn twenty-five years of socialist government overnight. When the anger subsides, figures like González will ultimately have to negotiate with Maduro.
If these implacable opponents can cooperate in the interest of Venezuela’s economic recovery, then the US is far more likely to reinitiate sanctions relief. Neither a Biden, Harris, nor Trump administration will have any incentive to do so if chaos reigns on the streets of Caracas and elsewhere.
Positively, even after sanctions relief lapsed in April, Western energy firms have continued to operate in Venezuela – in coordination with the Maduro government and under special licenses provided by the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC).
Firms such as Chevron, Maurel & Prom, and ENI have proven integral to Venezuela’s export-led return to growth, which has had a positive effect on living standards. Their leaderships will be insisting to the US, the UK, and the EU that political stability is central to their recent success.
The alternative – an export crunch restoking inflation and recession – will only intensify social unrest. This makes it incumbent on the US and its allies to use the economic tools at their disposal to incentivise political cooperation.
Peter Burdin is the BBC's former World Assignments Editor.
