On January 3, Venezuelans cheered when the United States removed their longtime dictator Nicolás Maduro, and seemed to open the door for a return to democracy. But since then, U.S. policy has been to keep that door shut.
Support for Maduro’s replacement and former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, has been firm despite her regime’s poor response to the devastating earthquakes that struck on June 24. And now the United States risks losing the goodwill it earned by removing Maduro six months ago. As The New York Times reported last week, Venezuelans are “turning their anger toward the Trump administration, which has. . . stood by the government’s management of the disaster.” This is not only a betrayal of America’s long-standing commitment to restoring democracy in Venezuela after 27 years of socialist authoritarianism. It’s also against America’s own interests and counterproductive to the Trump administration’s main priority: extracting Venezuelan oil and getting it to consumers.
I served as the special representative for Venezuela in Trump’s first term. The administration imposed sanctions on Venezuela and rejected the 2018 presidential election stolen by Nicolás Maduro. And we backed the president of the National Assembly, Juan Guaidó, as interim president, while demanding an end to the Maduro dictatorship. Then came January’s daring raid on Maduro’s home and what Venezuelans hoped was a new era of freedom and democracy.
