DISTRUST has long overshadowed diplomacy in relations between the United States and Venezuela.
What began as political disagreement gradually escalated into confrontation, shaped by oil interests, ideological rivalry, and competing visions of sovereignty. Over time, pressure replaced persuasion, turning a complex bilateral relationship into a cautionary example of how coercive foreign policy can deepen crises rather than resolve them.
Venezuela’s importance to Washington has never been primarily moral or ideological; it has been strategic. Home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves and located within what the United States has historically viewed as its sphere of influence, Venezuela occupies an uncomfortable position—economically significant yet politically defiant. This contradiction has defined US engagement for decades.
The decisive rupture came in 1998 with the election of Hugo Chávez. Rising amid public disillusionment with Venezuela’s political elite, Chávez promised redistribution, social inclusion, and national control over natural resources. His message resonated deeply with a society scarred by inequality and austerity. After Chávez’s death in 2013, Nicolás Maduro inherited a fragile system dependent on oil rents and personalist authority. Lacking Chávez’s charisma and legitimacy, Maduro confronted economic collapse with repression rather than reform. Elections grew increasingly contested, opposition leaders were sidelined, and institutions lost credibility. As Venezuela’s internal legitimacy eroded, US policy hardened.
Sanctions became Washington’s primary tool, evolving from targeted measures against corruption and human rights abuses into a broad economic regime. Intended to pressure political elites, they instead deepened economic decline, worsened humanitarian conditions, and strengthened the government’s siege narrative, while ordinary citizens bore the cost. At the same time, U.S. policy—framed in the language of democracy and accountability—lost credibility due to its selective application, reinforcing regional perceptions that Venezuela was punished less for repression than for defiance.
Oil remained central beneath the moral rhetoric. Even at moments of maximum pressure, US engagement shifted in response to global energy markets. Sanctions were tightened or relaxed according to oil needs, revealing a transactional core that treated Venezuela less as a society in crisis and more as a geopolitical and energy variable. This trajectory culminated in a dramatic escalation: a US military operation that resulted in the capture of President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. According to US accounts, the overnight operation involved special forces, air strikes on military installations, and the temporary shutdown of power in Caracas. Maduro was flown to the United States and charged with drug- and weapons-related offenses. Venezuelan officials claimed civilian and military casualties, while international criticism followed swiftly. Whether seen as enforcement or overreach, the operation marked the logical endpoint of a long strategy of pressure.
Venezuela’s crisis is not solely the product of US policy, nor can Washington resolve it alone. Yet the past twenty-five years demonstrate the limits of coercion without credible diplomacy. Power may compel behavior, but it cannot manufacture consent or rebuild trust. The US–Venezuela relationship stands as a lesson in restraint: when foreign policy prioritizes punishment over politics, crises harden, societies fracture, and resolution moves further out of reach.
—The writer is a columnist, based in Karachi.
