US considers next steps on Venezuela crisis

A month after the US administration imposed sanctions on Venezuela's national oil company PdV, expectations for a quick power transition in Caracas have faded, leaving Washington to consider its next steps.

US sanctions have shut down PdV's access to its main oil market. But that economic pressure has not yet succeeded in forcing sitting president Nicolas Maduro to relinquish power in favor of National Assembly speaker Juan Guaidó, whom Washington and more than 50 other countries recognize as Venezuela's interim leader.

The US administration still hopes that humanitarian aid deliveries to Venezuela from neighboring states will sway the country's military forces to back Guaidó's interim authority, even though the first attempt on 23 February failed to introduce more than token amounts of aid and set off violent clashes inside the borders with Colombia and Brazil.

"We are hopeful that over the next couple weeks we can really begin to make a dent in that problem," US secretary of state Mike Pompeo said today. "We are working on plans to do that."

The administration, which typically disdains multilateral solutions and institutions, asked for a meeting of the UN Security Council to advance a resolution that would call on Maduro to step down, allowing Guaidó to take power and convene a new presidential election.

The resolution received nine votes out of 15, but as expected was vetoed by Russia and China. An alternative resolution advanced by Russia, backing Maduro, received just four votes.

"Regardless of the results of today's vote, this resolution shows that democracies around the world, and especially in Latin America, are mobilizing behind interim president Guaido," State Department special Venezuela envoy Elliott Abrams said. "The US will remain steadfast in our support for the legitimate Guaido government and the National Assembly."

Caracas says the failed attempt to deliver aid into Venezuela proves that Maduro is in control, and is calling for talks with the opposition and a meeting between Maduro and President Donald Trump.

"The coup has failed. And Saturday (23 February) was the last chapter of the coup that failed," Venezuelan foreign minister Jorge Arreaza said at the UN Security Council meeting earlier this week. "Now you have to sit down with the government. We hope the White House will give Guaidó authorization to sit down with the government."

The White House has rejected the offer of a meeting with Trump, saying "the only thing to discuss with Maduro at this point is the time and date for his departure."

Guaidó left Venezuela on 22 February for an aid concert that preceded the failed efforts to transport the food and medicine across the border the following day. He addressed a Lima Group meeting in Bogota on 25 February and traveled to Brazil, where he is meeting with President Jair Bolsonaro today. Guaidó says that the political transition is unstoppable, and is promising to return to Venezuela in a matter of days, perhaps from his next stop in the EU.

Being locked out of Venezuela would diminish Guaidó already tentative authority, and the US says its priority is to ensure his safe return. "We reiterate our concern about the safety and security of interim president Juan Guaidó when he returns to Venezuela, and we hope that all members of the UN Security Council will join us in doing so," Abrams said today.

Vice president Mike Pence and Pompeo have touted the prospect of additional sanctions on Venezuela. But the next significant escalation in sanctions would amount to targeting offtakers in India and China already affected by the US sanctions on Iran, possibly requiring Washington to reconsider its position of no new waivers for Iranian crude importers.

"We have been incredibly active to deprive the Maduro regime of resources to sustain itself," Treasury Department office of foreign assets control (OFAC) director Andrea Gacki said on 26 February. "Sanctions are just one foreign policy tool but right now we are using them as quickly and smartly as we can to enable that exit (by Maduro)."

The ultimate tool in the US arsenal — military intervention — is one the administration appears unwilling to use, despite hints and public assurances that "all options are on the table." Venezuela's neighbors in the Lima Group made clear that they do not support an armed approach to resolving the Venezuelan crisis.