Maduro still has a U.N. lifeline
Last month, the Trump administration joined dozens of other governments around the world to recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president. The move left the Venezuelan government led by Nicolás Maduro without official representation in the United States, its embassy in Georgetown mothballed.
But as embattled as Maduro is, he still has an important diplomatic lifeline to the United States and the wider world. The Venezuelan leader still holds onto a seat at the United Nations in New York. Even though it is President Donald Trump’s hometown, the U.S. government may ultimately find it easier to pressure Maduro out of power in Caracas than to boot his U.N. diplomats out of New York City.
Located on East 46th Street, the Venezuelan Mission to the United Nations sits just across from the U.N. General Assembly. The building, which was constructed in 1965, is likely to be worth tens of millions of dollars.
Photos of the buildings inside show a faded grandure.
“These were investments that were made a long time ago that have not been maintained in many years,” Isaias Medina, a former legal adviser to the mission who broke with the government in 2017, said of the buildings owned by Venezuela in the
United States. “Some of them are suffering infrastructurally,
but they’re very well located.” Though Washington no longer recognizes Maduro as the
legitimate leader of Venezuela, the United Nations still does.
This gives Maduro government
officials a vital diplomatic link to the wider world - and may also
allow them to continue their
talks with the Trump administration itself. “Right there they
have access to 193 countries in one place,” Medina said.
Jorge Arreaza, Venezuela’s foreign minister and a Maduro loyalist, traveled to New York City this week. While there, he greeted U.N. Secretary General António Guterres for his second meeting in a month. Arreaza later with diplomats from other nations, including U.S. foes North Korea and Iran, to announce joint opposition to “illegal, coercive unilateral measures.”
Maduro suggested in an interview this week that Arreaza has met with Trump’s Venezuela envoy, Elliott Abrams, twice in New York and asked the U.S.based representative to visit the country however he wished, “privately, publicly or secretly.”
Diplomats, including Samuel Moncada, Venezuela’s permanent representative to the United Nations, continue to work from the Venezuelan Mission in New York City. The presence of the U.N. headquarters on U.S. soil complicates any American attempts to diplomatically isolate states to which the United States is opposed.
“The U.S. accepts that it has a responsibility to accept whoever is recognized by the General Assembly as representing a given state,” Richard Gowan, a fellow at the Center for Policy Research at United Nations University, said in an email. “It’s part of the basic host nation agreement with the U.N.”