Some major changes are looming for Venezuela: A law passed Thursday opens mining to foreign investors — a priority of the Trump administration. The U.S. government recently recognized the regime of acting President Delcy Rodriguez and removed long-standing sanctions against Rodriguez herself. The message is clear: The priority is economic recovery.
So the question must be asked: What are the people of Venezuela getting out of all this, and what is the Trump administration getting for its concessions? As things stand, the U.S. risks frittering away the leverage it holds over Venezuela’s recovery.
What are the people of Venezuela getting out of all this, and what is the Trump administration getting for its concessions?
President Donald Trump implemented sanctions against Rodriguez and other key regime figures during his first term. The designation drew a moral line. Rodriguez, then Venezuela’s executive vice president, was accused of participating in the dismantling of Venezuela’s democratic institutions and undermining the lawfully elected National Assembly in order to maintain Nicolás Maduro’s control of the country. By directly sanctioning her and others in 2018, the Trump administration, which had sanctioned Maduro the year before, signaled that it considered their actions so egregious that these individuals should not retain access to their assets in the U.S., engage with U.S. business interests or travel to the U.S. They were cut off from the U.S. financial system, with a goal of isolating them internationally.
At the time, the Trump administration also recognized the National Assembly’s president, Juan Guaido, as the interim president of Venezuela, according to the Venezuelan Constitution. I was the top U.S. diplomat on the ground then and helped lead these efforts. This policy delineated bad actors from the good, even if it did not deliver the democratic transition the Venezuelan people clamored for.
Fast-forward to today: In the wake of ousting Maduro from power, President Trump calls Rodriguez the “President-elect” even though the Maduro regime stole the July 2024 presidential election and Rodriguez herself was not directly elected. The focus on supporting stability over democratic rights in Venezuela makes me think the administration has forgotten Benjamin Franklin’s warning: “Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
The Trump administration’s logic appears to be: If you want to stabilize an imploding petro‑state, manage migration and keep global oil markets calm, you deal with the person who commands the bureaucracy and security forces — not a president in exile (such as Edmundo Gonzalez) nor the popular opposition leader (Maria Corina Machado).
It cannot be forgotten that Venezuela’s stability is merely a continuation of the same regime under new management.
Here’s the problem with that approach: Between Trump’s focus on Iran and the sanctions relief his administration has approved for the Venezuelan regime members still in office, the power calculus for Venezuela is being fundamentally altered. No longer a pariah in the U.S. system, Rodriguez can travel, sign deals and invite foreign capital without putting counterparties in legal jeopardy. Energy majors, bondholders and multilateral lenders have cover to at least begin to discuss debt restructuring, oil‑sector rehabilitation and other economic projects. And a president who can pay civil servants, restore some basic services and stabilize the nation’s currency gains political capital and breathing room.
It cannot be forgotten that Venezuela’s stability is merely a continuation of the same regime under new management. How else should the Venezuelan people understand statements such as this from Trump: “The relationship with Venezuela, the leaders, has been fantastic. And I think we’re going to have a long-term, very good relationship. And it may be beyond long term, you understand.”
By normalizing ties before ensuring there is a binding road map on elections, power‑sharing or judicial reform, Washington has surrendered significant leverage without securing commensurate concessions. The message to Chavista elites, long conditioned to see sanctions as the price of authoritarian behavior, is that change in personalities, not in institutions, may suffice to regain international legitimacy. That is a dangerous precedent in a system where the legislature remains dominated by loyalists, the courts are deeply politicized and the security services have never been held to account.
Take, for example, Gustavo Enrique González López. He is serving as defense minister and effectively heading the military. He has been on the U.S. Treasury’s list of sanctioned foreign officials since 2015 for his direct actions attacking the democratic opposition and undermining the rights of Venezuelans as the head of SEBIN, the repressive intelligence apparatus that terrorized ordinary Venezuelans and oversaw some of the country’s worst human rights abuses. This abusive system led the International Criminal Court to begin an investigation in Venezuela for crimes against humanity. How can one see installing such a bad actor as head of the military as anything other than calcification of the Maduro regime?
The Trump administration’s logic appears to be: If you want to stabilize an imploding petro‑state, manage migration and keep global oil markets calm, you deal with the person who commands the bureaucracy and security forces.
For years, the U.S. conferred diplomatic recognition on actors who met minimal democratic criteria, regardless of whether they controlled the presidential palace. Today, by contrast, recognition is granted to those who effectively control state power, on the assumption that only they can deliver stability, migration management and cooperation on energy. While there is a theory to that logic, such an approach reduces the opposition’s bargaining power (which in Venezuela was already thin). It signals that international legitimacy no longer hinges on competitive elections or institutional pluralism.
It does not have to be this way. Sanctions relief and recognition can be powerful tools for democratization if they are deployed conditionally. The U.S. and its partners could and should make every tranche of economic normalization — whether oil licenses, access to multilateral financing or diplomatic rehabilitation — contingent on specific, verifiable steps: an agreed electoral calendar, an independent electoral authority, equal media access, the reinstatement of banned opposition figures and the full and unconditional release of political prisoners. Those commitments should be codified in public agreements and monitored by credible international observers, not left to private assurances and back‑channel understandings.
Whether Rodriguez is personally inclined toward liberalization — and there is no reason to think she is — is almost beside the point. What matters in the long run is whether her quest for economic normalization can be harnessed to secure institutional changes that outlast her tenure. Postponing the hard asks on democratizing Venezuela will not make them easier. If anything, as the U.S. becomes further embroiled in another Middle East conflict and as energy prices rise everywhere, Rodriguez’s leverage only increases. The midterms, too, are a factor, as her regime and everyone else watches to see whether control of the U.S. Congress changes hands. Not tying recognition and sanctions relief to democratic commitments undermines what leverage the U.S. still has.
James Story was U.S. ambassador to Venezuela from 2018 to 2023. A retired U.S. diplomat who has served in posts around the world, he is a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and founding partner of Global Frontier Advisors.