General Discussion

...but Trump is just trying to bait them into provoking the ships he sent into the region to give him pretext to attack them.

Too bad for him that his own intel agencies declined to cite any tie between Maduro and any narco terrorist gang.


Biden was using soft power: (which I support)

Secret deal: Biden offered normal relations with Venezuela if Maduro agreed to elections

The Biden administration had agreed to lift sanctions on Venezuela and promised the return of normal relations if the opposition could participate in competitive presidential elections, according to a deal secretly signed in Qatar last year that leader Nicolas Maduro made public on social media.

Maduro published the document Thursday, shortly before Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won the Venezuelan presidential elections Sunday, citing the vote tallies presented by the opposition. The government-controlled electoral council said Maduro won, providing what were widely seen as fraudulent numbers.

The Qatar document shows the Biden administration struck a deal with Maduro to lift sanctions on the country’s oil, banking and gold sectors if he committed to elections and allow the opposition to compete. And it added a significant incentive to Maduro: the lifting of most sanctions after the winner took office.

At that point, the U.S. government would restore full diplomatic relations and dismantle the sanctions regime against the country, the document says. This would include unblocking all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and lifting sanctions, including individual ones imposed under an executive order.

Early on, Biden’s team turned the page from the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” campaign policy and signaled it was willing to lift sanctions if Maduro allowed “free and fair elections.” In 2022, after intense lobbying, it authorized Chevron to expand its oil operations in the projects the company already had in Venezuela.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/venezuela/article290702924.html

__In January 2025, The Biden administration announced a slew of new sanctions against allies of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in opposition to his claim of election victory, calling his Friday inauguration “illegitimate” and a “desperate attempt to seize power.”

The U.S. is increasing its rewards for justice to $25 million for information leading to Maduro’s arrest or conviction and that of his minister of interior, Diosdado Cabello.

A $15 million reward is also being offered related to Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López, part of criminal narco trafficking indictments announced in March 2020.

The U.S. is also sanctioning eight Venezuelan officials leading key economic and security agencies; blacklisting high-level military and police officials involved in repression and human rights abuses against democratic actors; and imposing visa restrictions on “Maduro-aligned individuals” identified as undermining the electoral process or acts of repression in Venezuela.

“The Venezuelan people and world know the truth — Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

https://thehill.com/policy/international/5079514-biden-venezuela-sanctions-maduro-inauguration-trump-dhs-tps/