On Wednesday, the United States announced its support for the Venezuelan opposition leader, Juan Guaido, as interim president at the end of President Nicolas Maduro’s term. This means the U.S. has formally un-recognized Maduro’s disputed re-election last May — either a constitutional succession, or a regime change, take your pick.
In backing Guaido, the United States refused to rule out interventions, including from the military, to trigger a transition of power.
Although the impulse to remove an authoritarian leader starving his own people is clearly appealing, the U.S. must exercise caution. Venezuela is not merely a story of domestic economic problems, but of oil-drenched diplomatic entanglements.
Indeed, as Chinese and Russian statements rejecting U.S. involvement in the country make clear, there are other players that have a stake in the game. Russia, for example, has backed Maduro’s regime with billions of dollars in investment. On Friday, that backing was emphasized as military contractors linked to Moscow were on the ground in Venezuela to support Maduro.
China is even more deeply entrenched. Since 2001, Beijing has heavily invested in Venezuela, lending as much as $60 billion for various projects including infrastructure, manufacturing, and other industries. For China, a partnership with oil-rich Venezuela once seemed like a perfect solution. China would invest in projects, and Caracas would repay Beijing with oil. Everyone would get what they needed, and China would augment its influence in South America while gaining access to much-needed resources.
But things didn’t quite work out as planned. By 2013, the infrastructure projects were saddled with corruption, the health of Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, was failing, and Venezuelan oil production was collapsing.
Beijing stopped getting its agreed-upon shipments, and as less oil flowed from Venezuela, international prices rose, dealing yet another economic hit to China. In 2016, Beijing cut its losses by rolling back investments in Venezuela, but it has remained diplomatically supportive and tries to exert influence. Demonstrating their true concerns, however, Chinese officials have reportedly begun seeking out opposition leaders to secure agreement that about $20 billion in outstanding debt would eventually be paid back.
Russia and China both have solid economic and political investments in Venezuela. For the U.S., those relations exacerbate an already volatile situation.
When the U.S. declared support for Guaido, it was not only intervening in domestic issues but also potentially escalating international ones. China or Russia may well take U.S. support for the opposition leader as a foreign intervention undermining their existing deals with a sovereign country. As the United States should have learned from its adventurism in the Middle East, when Washington sticks its fingers into the affairs of other countries, things are often far more complex and with far greater consequences that first meets the eye — especially when oil is involved.
That’s not to say that the U.S. shouldn’t stand against Maduro, but merely that it should proceed with great caution.
