Venezuela’s socialist dictator, Nicolás Maduro, announced on Monday evening that his authoritarian regime will resume direct negotiations with the United States on Wednesday.
Maduro made the announcement during the latest broadcast of his weekly television show Con Maduro Más (“With Maduro Plus”). The dictator claimed he agreed to resume talks with the United States after receiving proposals from the Biden administration for the past two months.
The socialist dictator additionally said the United States “knows” that he is slated to win his own sham presidential election on July 28, which he claimed would “make it easy” for the U.S. for the upcoming talks.
“I want to overcome this brutal and sterile conflict with them. I have received the proposal, for two continuous months, to resume direct dialogue with the U.S. government,” Maduro said. “I have decided to restart talks with the U.S. government next Wednesday so that the Qatar agreements are fulfilled, that they are public dialogues and that it is not hidden.”
“They know who is going to win, and I am going to make it easy for them. I am a man of dialogue, and I want Venezuela, its democracy, its people to be respected through dialogue,” he continued. “I want to overcome this conflict of brutal and sterile confrontation with them, with the north, it is up to them to comply.”
The administration of President Joe Biden has engaged in negotiations with the Maduro regime that began as early as March 2022, seeking to entice the regime to allow the conditions for a “free and fair” election in Venezuela that could lead toward restoring democracy.
The negotiations resulted in the rogue socialists receiving large concessions from the Biden administration in return for vague, unfulfilled promises that have not moved the country any closer to holding an actual free election. The concessions included the release of Maduro’s convicted drug-trafficking nephews in 2022 and that of his alleged top money launderer and financial brain Alex Saab in 2023. Biden also granted Venezuela a generous six-month oil and gas sanctions relief package that temporarily restored the Maduro regime’s main source of revenue. The move led to a surge in Venezuela’s oil output; the signing of new oil agreements with China, India, and other countries; and a significant surge in Venezuela’s U.S.-bound oil exports.
In 2023, Biden’s former top Latin America adviser, Juan González, and the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly and Maduro’s top negotiator, Jorge Rodríguez, held a private meeting in Doha, Qatar, to establish communication channels with the regime.
Months later, the Biden administration acted as a mediator of the “Barbados agreement,” a document signed in October 2023 between members of the Maduro regime and representatives of the Venezuelan opposition that contained vague promises to hold a “free and fair” presidential election at some point during the second half of 2024. The Biden administration awarded the Maduro regime with the now-expired sanctions relief package for having signed the document.
Maduro did not fulfill the terms of the Barbados agreement, instead repeatedly violating it and doubling down on the repression of dissidents. Maduro ultimately discarded the deal altogether in favor of a new, tailor-made “agreement” drafted in Caracas by members of the socialist regime, members of the Venezuelan “opposition,” and other regime-affiliated groups that called for the July 28 sham presidential election.
That election will see Maduro “compete” against a group of pre-approved “opposition” rivals and Edmundo González Urrutia, a lesser-known 74-year-old diplomat and the only legitimate opposition position that the regime-controlled electoral authorities allowed on the ballot. The Maduro regime upheld a ban imposed on María Corina Machado, the opposition’s frontrunner candidate, preventing her from running in any public office election.
In May, Maduro claimed that his electoral “victory” will “birth the miracle of a direct dialogue with the United States” and prompt Biden to lift the sanctions that the United States, during the administration of former President Donald Trump, imposed.
The socialist dictator stated that Rodríguez will once again lead his regime’s delegation in the upcoming talks with the United States alongside the governor of the State of Miranda, Héctor Rodríguez (no relation).
“We are going to debate and seek new agreements so that what was signed in Qatar is fulfilled,” Maduro said. “I want dialogue, I want understanding, I want a future for our relations, I want changes. Of course, under the absolute sovereignty and independence of Venezuela.”
U.S. officials have previously stated that the Biden administration is willing to lift sanctions on the Maduro regime if it takes “meaningful steps” toward holding a “free and fair” election in Venezuela.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.
