When it comes to undeniable foreign policy blunders, it hardly matters who occupies the White House: Venezuela remains an endless source of embarrassment. From the Bush administration’s policy of pretending that Hugo Chávez doesn’t exist, to Obama’s handshake with Chávez in Trinidad, to Donald Trump’s “all options are on the table” mantra and the sanctions regime that Biden has maintained, chavismo continues to have the last laugh. It’s not that the State Department, Treasury, Justice, NSA, and others lack an understanding of the Venezuelan problem; rather, it’s how clearly chavismo—across its two iterations—has managed to read U.S. presidents and survive every onslaught.
The latest proposal could be Biden’s plan to tackle corruption (“U.S. STRATEGY TO COUNTER CORRUPTION”). What sounds impressive is “establishing the fight against corruption as a core national security interest of the United States.” It has five pillars, including “stopping illicit finance,” focusing on facilitators. When we see the U.S. Government take legal action against David Boies, Baker Hostetler, Rudy Giuliani, or Adam Kaufmann, for example, we will consider Biden’s project sincere; otherwise, insert your favorite laughing emoji here.
Corruption is, in fact, the ROOT of many problems plaguing democracies worldwide. Let’s use Venezuela as a case study. Billions of misappropriated dollars in Venezuela flow freely, without any impediments, into the U.S. commercial stream. Not all of this has gone to acquiring real estate, investments, and jewelry. Not everything has passed through U.S. banks to fill accounts held in offshore jurisdictions, or maintained at JP Morgan, Bank of America, Citibank, etc. U.S. actors, media, wealth managers, bankers, and politicians have profited from corruption over the last 20 years.
The existing policy of “all options are on the table” involves all the finest and most corrupt specimens from Venezuela. USAID funds—read U.S. taxpayer dollars—have been stolen by the State Department’s partners in the fight against Maduro (Freddy Superlano). Venezuelan assets located on U.S. soil, whose control has been seized from chavista hands by the Treasury Department (CITGO), are now the financial resources utilized by an army of utterly corrupt Venezuelan politicians to maintain lavish lifestyles.
The famous American saying about unpleasant characters, “He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch,” could not be more fitting to describe Leopoldo López, the State’s choice to lead the effort to overthrow Nicolás Maduro through proxy Juan Guaidó. López is accountable to no one, just like Maduro. However, López is only one in a class of thugs who have been cultivating relationships with the State, Congress, and Senate of the U.S. since Chávez was on the scene. Victimhood is the chosen card for all interactions with U.S. officials, who continue to embrace and support these characters without probing into their connections, loyalties, and backgrounds.
What is evident—to those of us who have studied Venezuelan politics—continues to be overlooked in Washington. A notable case is Leopoldo Martínez Nucete, Joe Biden’s candidate for the Inter-American Development Bank. Martínez Nucete fits the Biden plan’s focus on facilitators: “…financial facilitators have exploited vulnerabilities in U.S. and international financial systems to launder their assets and obscure the proceeds of crime.” Martínez Nucete is known to be linked to David Osio, one of the most corrupt bankers in Venezuela, yet Biden and his team are happy to vouch for him.
During Trump’s push of “all options are on the table” to install Guaidó and company, the involvement of Raúl Gorrín and Alejandro Betancourt was allowed. While Gorrín aimed to win over Maikel Moreno (Chief Justice of Venezuela) and General Vladimir Padrino López (Maduro’s Minister of Defense), Betancourt served as a financial backer of Guaidó. All of the above devised a plan to “oust Maduro.” This did not happen without the knowledge of Senator Marco Rubio and Mauricio Claver Carone, the latter being a Special Assistant to Trump and Senior Director for Western Hemisphere Affairs at the National Security Council. Quite the opposite: the plan had the blessing of the NSA.
When this charade was aimed at freeing Venezuela from Maduro, both Gorrín and Betancourt were already under the scrutiny of the Justice Department due to their involvement in multimillion-dollar corruption schemes. The criminal behavior of Gorrín and Betancourt was not a secret, but the dictates of foreign policy decisively undermined—and continue to undermine—the Justice Department’s law enforcement actions.
Maduro has known all along, of course. Every last conversation with Jimmy Story or Elliot Abrams, every state visit, every coffee with Treasury officials or U.S. Congressmembers/Senators, is duly reported back home by Julio Borges, Carlos Vecchio, César Omaña, Jorge Betancourt, and other members of “the opposition” with connections that are impossible to explain to the Venezuelan boliburguesía. The reports from this incestuous group strengthen Maduro’s position, as the information is shared with Russia, China, Turkey, Cuba, Iran, and other partners in Latin America. This is why this site has maintained that Lavrov has a much clearer understanding of what’s really happening in Venezuela than Pompeo or his successor ever will.
It truly doesn’t matter what new foreign policy formulation the White House comes up with, whether Republicans or Democrats control Congress and the Senate. With such companions on this journey, it’s simply impossible to expect any outcome other than the continuation of chavismo. It would be wise to talk to those who actually hold the control while using existing tools to sideline the facilitators.
In the latest rounds of the “elections” held in November, chavismo took the lion’s share. Some State Department partners like Manuel Rosales were allowed a symbolic victory. Others, like Freddy Superlano, were disqualified by Moreno, an NSA partner, *after* the results were announced. The fact that Superlano, who became infamous after a drug-fueled incident with prostitutes in Cúcuta funded by misappropriated U.S. funds, was cleared by Guaidó and López to run exposes the pure rot of the “opposition.” If that weren’t enough, Henrique Capriles and Julio Borges are openly attacking the corruption of Guaidó’s presidency, despite being major figures on Guaidó’s team. In fact, Borges and Capriles have taken their pound of flesh by placing appointed individuals in CITGO and Monomeros. López, Guaidó, and Rosales also ensured that their key people were positioned close to the money. The recent “resignation” of Borges as Guaidó’s Secretary of Foreign Affairs has reached unprecedented levels of hypocrisy.
The entire structure is corrupt. There is no distinction between chavismo and “opposition”; there is only one class of Venezuelan politicians, all eager and desperate to engage in the looting. The U.S. government is the last remaining country still supporting Guaidó, even as his own lieutenants call for his blood. It is an absurd and unsustainable position.