Breathe
By Sofia Guadarrama
During the 2024 presidential campaign, Donald Trump promised Venezuelans living in the United States a policy of "maximum pressure" against the regime of Nicolás Maduro. Ninety percent of Venezuelans believed he would finally put an end to Nicolás Maduro's totalitarian regime and voted for him.
Shortly after the presidential elections in Venezuela, Donald Trump publicly recognized the victory of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez.
However, it should be noted that Trump never says anything lightly. And in these moments his objective was to launch a threat to the spurious Nicolás Maduro.
Immediately after taking office as President of the United States, Donald sent Richard Grenell to establish a "zero agenda" to negotiate three major issues with Nicolás Maduro; the release of six Americans imprisoned in Venezuela, the renewal of Chevron's license to operate in Venezuela, the repatriation of Venezuelan migrants and the revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for 350,000 exiled Venezuelans, which is set to expire on April 7.
According to Bloomberg, Chevrones is the only oil company operating in Venezuela and produces 20% of Venezuelan oil.
"I spent a day in Caracas, I met Maduro, one on one, [...] We are very clear about the Venezuelan government and Maduro. Donald Trump is someone who does not want to do regime change. [...] There is a reason why Donald Trump's ambassadors are able to do these things. It's because of Donald Trump. He has a credible threat [...] Joe Biden had little credible threat," Grenell said in an interview.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a critic of Maduro and dictatorships in Latin America seems to have no say in the matter.
In short, Donald Trump does not care about authoritarian policies in South American countries, as long as there are multi-million dollar benefits such as oil contracts with Venezuela and they accept the immediate repatriation of deportees from the United States.
Now, for the Donald Trump administration, in the words of Secretary Kristi Noem, there are remarkable improvements in Venezuela's economy, health care and security, so it is safe for migrants to return to their country.
However, this is not the first time that the United States has carried out this type of negotiations. For example, in 2020, Alex Saab was arrested while his plane was making a technical stopover en route from Venezuela to Iran, and accused of bribery, money laundering and the theft of $350 million from Venezuela. Saab described his arrest as a "kidnapping". He was extradited to the United States in 2021 and charged with money laundering conspiracy. In December 2023, Alex Saab was released as part of a prisoner exchange between the United States and Venezuela.
Mexico's current government will also have to negotiate with Trump for the repatriation of Ismael "El Mayo" Zambada. In the last six years, they negotiated the release of General Salvador Cienfuegos, but did not fulfill their promise to prosecute him. There he is, free and more powerful than ever.
In 1989, Rubén Zuno Arce, brother-in-law of former President Luis Echeverría, was arrested in Texas for links to drug trafficking and the murder of DEA agent Enrique Camarena Salazar. Mexico never managed to repatriate Zuno Arce and he died in a US prison in 2012.
Carlos Salinas de Gortari and Ernesto Zedillo did not belong to Luis Echeverría's current -as Andrés Manuel López Obrador and Claudia Sheinbaum do-, and therefore did not make an effort to repatriate Zuno Arce.
But Mayo Zambada is the kingpin of kingpins. And as he wrote in his letter, "there will be collapse. His case is a matter of national security. He has a lot of valuable information. It is the encyclopedia of the financing of all the political campaigns that have taken place in the last 50 years.
