Joint effort is needed to help save Venezuela
On Sunday, Venezuela lurched forward in its shift toward full-blown autocracy with the election of 545 ruling-party members tasked with rewriting the constitution. The need for action has never been clearer, and the U.S. will certainly heed the call. But any effort must include strategic cooperation with the many countries increasingly willing to lay pressure on the Maduro government.
Beyond rewriting the nation’s charter, the constituent assembly will neuter what remaining sources of dissent still exist. President Nicolas Maduro has hinted at stripping the opposition-controlled congress of parliamentary immunity, the only thing standing between it and whatever false charges the administration can dream up. Indeed, his “victory” speech included a warning to the opposition that it “already has its prison cell waiting.”
In response to the vote, the U.S. Department of State promised “strong, swift actions against the architects of authoritarianism,” with administration officials suggesting that oil sector sanctions are now among the options on the table.
Until now, the lack of coordinated hemispheric action had bedeviled a regional response. The Organization of American States (OAS) has, under the leadership of Secretary-General Luis Almagro, made numerous attempts at getting countries to sign on to resolutions condemning the government-generated crisis in Venezuela. But Caracas’ oil patronage of Caribbean states has successfully blocked any such resolutions within the forum.
During a panel discussion at the Atlantic Council in July, Almagro himself, recognizing the constraints placed upon the OAS, acknowledged that sanctions may be a viable tool for exerting pressure.
But there’s a reason why sweeping oil sector sanctions have Almagro, analysts and the Venezuelan opposition itself worried. Petrodollars aren’t only propping up the regime. They’re also, regrettably, the last remaining lifeline of the Venezuelan people. What little food and medicine the population can get is paid for almost entirely by the government’s oil revenue.
This is why any potential economic sanctions must be targeted, to maximize impact on the officials robbing the country and not on the Venezuelans who are already hungry and in despair. This requires careful, nuanced planning with the possible outcomes carefully thought through.
A massive new round of targeted, individual sanctions has the potential to further isolate the corrupt government elite while minimizing the impact on everyday citizens. This approach enjoys broad support among the opposition and those familiar with internal dynamics in Venezuela. The Treasury Department has already hit a number of top government officials with sanctions and would do well to continue in this vein, but with two important considerations.
The first is that Venezuelan opposition leaders — the most authoritative voice on what needs to be done — are offering advice, and we need to be sure to take it. The second is that these sanctions must be implemented in tandem with other major governments.
Opposition strategist Carlos Vecchio, in a meeting with U.S. legislators last month, urged Washington to go beyond simply freezing the assets of corrupt Venezuelan officials. Publishing them in itemized form, he said, would greatly increase the repercussion of the sanctions by allowing Venezuelans — particularly those still in the government’s camp — to see for themselves where their robbed oil wealth has gone.
Easy to execute and with low political cost, this simple action would allow Washington to undercut the Venezuelan government narrative that the U.S. is the source of the country’s economic woes.
But even more impactful would be forging a united front. Shortly after Washington levied additional individual sanctions last week, Colombia and Mexico followed suit with similar sanctions on the same officials. There is little doubt that this was the result of a carefully coordinated diplomatic approach.
Doubling down on building a group of countries that takes concrete steps to apply substantive pressure on Maduro is our best bet moving forward. Episodes like Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s absence from a key OAS meeting in May are not to be repeated. Instead, Latin America as a whole needs to be made a priority — and quickly.
Venezuela is crumbling before our eyes, with humanitarian and security implications likely to reverberate throughout the hemisphere. There is strength in numbers, but we’ll only gain those numbers through concerted diplomatic effort.