Obama now woos Venezuela
Bid is to limit Venezuela’s destabilisation of Latin America, writes Nicole Gaouette
THE Obama administration’s charm offensive against states that are unfriendly to the US has rolled through Myanmar, Iran and Cuba. The next stop: Venezuela.
THE Obama administration’s charm offensive with unfriendly states has rolled through Myanmar, Iran and Cuba. The next stop: Venezuela.
Just months after the administration declared Venezuela a threat to the US, it is working to improve relations, driven by concern that upheaval there could destabilise the region.
State department officers have been meeting quietly with officials in the leftist government of President Nicolas Maduro since April to develop what Secretary of State John Kerry has called “a normal relationship”.
Falling oil prices, plummeting foreign reserves, 68.5% inflation and growing political tensions are battering Venezuela. There is enough at stake for even a justice department probe into the alleged drug ties of the lead Venezuelan in the talks not being allowed to derail the diplomacy.
“The US has a broader goal here, no matter what they think about Venezuela’s government,” says Latin American studies professor Christopher Sabatini of Columbia University in New York. “The goal is to prevent a black hole that will suck in other Latin American economies.”
One critic of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy has cautious praise for the effort. “I’m very glad the administration is trying to deal with them” on political repression and staging fair elections in December, says Senator Bob Corker, a Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate foreign relations committee.
Mr Corker visited the capital Caracas last month and returned dismayed by the sight of Venezuelans queuing outside stores in the early morning hoping that toilet paper might be in stock.
“I don’t think I’ve been to a place that has more potential but is totally blowing it,” Mr Corker says. “It’s just sad.”
The country’s basket of crude oil and petroleum, a major source of national revenue, fell 4.2% last week to $45.87 per barrel, according to the oil ministry’s website. A year ago, a barrel of oil brought Venezuela about $96.
Venezuela and its state oil company have about $5bn in bond payments due in the last three months of this year and about $10bn next year, according to Bank of America estimates.
Harvard Professor Ricardo Hausmann says Venezuela will have to default on its debt next year amid shortages of staples such as medicine and milk.
“One of the fears is contagion,” says Carl Meacham, director of the Americas programme at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. With the world’s largest proven oil reserves, Venezuela has wielded regional clout by offering neighbours cheap energy and subsidies.
Now, with the country becoming “more and more a hub for international drug cartels”, Mr Meacham says the US effort is about preventing it from becoming a failed narcostate.
There are also strategic considerations. The US is Venezuela’s biggest trading partner, the country has a vote on the United Nations Security Council as one of 10 nonpermanent members, and it has allied itself with Cuba and other nations hostile to the US, sending oil to Syria’s regime despite sanctions in 2012 and last year agreeing to let Russia establish naval and military bases within its borders.
The US “wants Venezuela to relax its international positions on countries like Iran, Russia, Syria and Greece”, says Carlos Romero, an international relations professor at the Central University of Venezuela.
There is concern that tensions with Venezuela could damp efforts to improve relations with other Latin American nations.
In the past two years, both nations expelled diplomats from the other country, and the US has sanctioned Venezuelan officials for human rights abuses.
Mr Maduro, who embraces the socialist rhetoric of late predecessor Hugo Chavez, called the sanctions the “most aggressive, unjust and disgraceful” action yet taken against Venezuela.
In May, the US justice department launched its investigation into Diosdado Cabello, president of Venezuela’s National Assembly, for possible cocaine trafficking and money laundering.
By then, though, there already were signs of change. In March, officials say, Mr Maduro reached out to initiate talks.
“He was afraid of another round of sanctions, and he was afraid of losing support from the rest of Latin America,” says Mr Romero. “The majority of Latin American countries, including Ecuador and Bolivia, have been improving ties with the US, and Venezuela wants to be recognised as legitimate.”
Mr Maduro’s government is eager to reach some sort of ‘‘modus vivendi’’ with the US, Mr Romero says. Mr Maduro publicly voiced optimism for US-Venezuela relations after speaking with Mr Obama at the Summit of the Americas in Panama in April, an event where Mr Obama and Cuban leader Raul Castro shook hands as their countries moved towards normalisation.
So far, the talks have focused on regional issues such as the peace process in neighbouring Colombia and Haiti’s elections, and on domestic issues such as jailed opposition leaders and the need to hold credible elections in December. Immediate aims include finding “an exit to Venezuela’s political crisis” and preventing its “breakdown into lawlessness”, Prof Sabatini says.
Mr Meacham is among critics who question the effectiveness of the talks. Still, Mr Meacham says, if things go badly, it will help the US “predict and assess the scope of the damage for the region”.
The US effort is about preventing the country from becoming a narcostate