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A lecturer at the University of Rouen Normandie and member of the Interdisciplinary Research Team on Cultural Areas (ÉRIAC), Thomas Posado analyses the political cycles that have marked Latin America, from the promises of progressive governments to the various crises. A specialist in Venezuela and Cuba, he is interested in the relationship between power, trade unions and civil society.
He obtained a PhD in political science from the University of Paris-8 with his thesis «Les reconfigurations du syndicalisme dans le Venezuela d'Hugo Chávez: une réincorporation ambiguë?» in 2015. In 2023, he published «Venezuela: de la révolution à l'effondrement - Le syndicalisme comme prisme de la crise politique (1999-2021)» with Presses universitaires du Midi.
In this interview with IHEDN, he analyses the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on 3 January in Caracas by the DEA, the US Department of Justice's anti-drug agency, and its possible consequences for Venezuela and the region.
TO WHAT EXTENT IS THE VENEZUELAN STATE LINKED TO DRUG TRAFFICKING?
The accusation of drug trafficking seems to me to be unfounded and disproportionate. There is drug trafficking in Venezuela, that much is certain: the country borders the world's leading cocaine producer, Colombia. But transit to Venezuela is secondary, accounting for around 8% of production, and has tended to decline in recent years in favour of the Pacific route, via Ecuador.
The reasons given by Donald Trump are largely spurious. When he says he wants to «save American lives», Venezuela has nothing to do with fentanyl, by far the most deadly drug in the United States. There are drugs in Venezuela, but they are not a major source of wealth for the state.
BUT THE GOVERNMENT IS ALLEGEDLY LINKED TO THE TREN DE ARAGUA GANG AND THE SUNS CARTEL, WHILE TWO OF MADURO'S NEPHEWS HAVE BEEN CONVICTED OF DRUG TRAFFICKING IN THE UNITED STATES...
The Tren de Aragua is in fact a criminal gang of Venezuelan origin, which has spread as Venezuelans have migrated, to their great misfortune: networks of smugglers, racketeering, forced prostitution... Drug trafficking is one of their activities, but it is not their speciality. And their link with the Maduro government is not structural. It is true that, like other criminal organisations, they benefit from accomplices within the Venezuelan state, but US intelligence services attest that there is no formal link, no command relationship, between the government and this gang.
The accusation of links with the Suns cartel stems from the involvement of senior security service officials in drug trafficking, with suns appearing on the stripes of Venezuelan generals. The term was coined by the Venezuelan press in 1993, when Maduro was a bus driver in Caracas and Hugo Chávez was not yet in power. But this term, a popular stigma for denouncing the corruption of officials by drug traffickers, does not correspond to a real organisation.
«THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION CAN RELEASE A POLITICAL FRIEND DESPITE EVIDENCE, AND IMPRISON A POLITICAL ENEMY WITHOUT EVIDENCE»
Yes, two nephews of Nicolás Maduro's wife, Cilia Flores, have been convicted of links to drug trafficking. So have prominent members of the Chavista party: Walid Makled, Hugo Carvajal... But it's a long way from talking about a system that structures the Venezuelan state. This accusation of drug trafficking is largely exploited politically. The charge concerning the Suns ’cartel’, classified as a terrorist organisation before Maduro's capture in order to legitimise the military intervention, was dropped by the US Department of Justice after his capture.
We can see, then, that the appreciation of drug trafficking varies according to political circumstances. Another event illustrates this: a month before Maduro's capture, President Trump pardoned Juan Orlando Hernández, the former president of Honduras sentenced to 45 years in prison by the US justice system for his role in smuggling over 400 tonnes of cocaine into the United States. When it comes to drug trafficking, the Trump administration can therefore release a political friend despite the evidence, while imprisoning a political enemy in the absence of evidence.
SO THE REAL REASON FOR MADURO'S CAPTURE IS VENEZUELAN OIL?
Oil seems to me to be a more credible objective. In his press conference following the capture, Donald Trump used the word «oil» 7 times and the word «democracy» not once. When the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, they gave justifications, terrorism, democracy... Trump is not into this kind of dressing up, he says openly what interests him: oil.
Venezuela has the world's largest proven reserves, at around 300 billion barrels. This oil is under-exploited: from 2.3 million barrels per day until 2015, it fell to 0.3 million barrels per day in 2020 before rising again to around 1 million barrels per day in recent months. This is due to poorly maintained infrastructure, but also to the sanctions imposed by Donald Trump during his first term in office.
Depending on the political and legal situation in Venezuela over the next few months, production will tend towards the 2020 low or the 2015 high, subject to heavy investment.
But we shouldn't just focus on oil: beyond that, we need to see in this capture Trump's desire to restore Latin America as the United States' backyard. It is Trump's corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, The aim of the Donroe Doctrine is to drive China out of Latin American markets. Venezuela was a prime destination for Chinese funds, an oil trading partner and a weak state. What's more, more than in other countries in the region, removing an illegitimate dictator like Maduro from power is easier to defend in the eyes of US public opinion.
HOW LONG WILL THE UNITED STATES «RULE» VENEZUELA, AS DONALD TRUMP PUT IT?
The United States does not run Venezuela, even though it has a great deal of influence there and the balance of power is much more in its favour today than it was under Maduro, since it now has quite clear means of exerting pressure on interim president Delcy Rodríguez.
Armed gangs still control parts of the country. If the United States really wanted to run Venezuela, it would have to send troops there. Trump knows that this would be costly in men and money, and that it could turn into a quagmire like the interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As for rebuilding the oil industry, it could take ten years. But it seems difficult without the Venezuelans' agreement, and very uncertain. US companies do not seem prepared to take this risk, and the heads of the oil majors have calmed Donald Trump's ardour. The CEO of ExxonMobil, in particular, has called for stable political and legal conditions for investment.
Donald Trump therefore has very ambitious objectives, but few means of implementing them.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM THE GOVERNANCE OF DELCY RODRÍGUEZ? A BREAK WITH THE MADURO YEARS?
Her room for manoeuvre is extremely limited, and the contradictions in her actions should soon become apparent. Delcy Rodríguez is no stranger to the exercise of power: the daughter of a guerrilla killed by the army, she spent her entire political career under Chavez and then Maduro in key positions, as Minister of Foreign Relations, Minister of the Economy, Minister of Hydrocarbons and Executive Vice-President.
There is nothing in her trajectory to show that she is favourable to the geopolitical interests of the United States, but Donald Trump has explicitly promised to do «worse» to her than to Maduro if she does not obey him... There is therefore already a strong contradiction between her personal trajectory and these threats. All the more so as, within her own country, she is facing demands for both liberalisation and continuity. Diosdado Cabello, the Interior Minister, and Vladimir Padrino López, the Defence Minister, have important connections in the military, which is not going to subordinate itself to Trump overnight.
The Colombian guerrilla group ELN controls the Venezuelan side of the border. Elsewhere, there are armed gangs («colectivos») with whom the government used to get along. The scenario is therefore extremely uncertain, between a US protectorate or, on the contrary, insubordination, civil war or even a coup d'état against US influence. Everything depends on how the balance between the ruling elites is restored. In any case, the outlook is not very bright, and Trump's policies are likely to exacerbate the difficulties and feed the migratory axes he denounces.
President Trump's desire to put an end to this trajectory is quite clearly detailed, as we showed in the previous answer. He will do so by interfering in the domestic politics of European states. This situation is very worrying, as it traps Europe between two major powers – the United States and Russia – that threaten it.
Given President Trump's instability and his numerous about-turns, he could decide to withdraw American troops from the European continent altogether in order to exert pressure to get what he wants. He did not hesitate to deprive Ukraine of US intelligence in an attempt to force President Zelensky to make concessions. He could also decide to punish Europeans authoritatively if they do not bow to his will.
AND IN CUBA, IS THE REGIME «READY TO FALL» AS DONALD TRUMP HAS CLAIMED?
Although Trump often has maximalist expectations, they are not necessarily unfounded in this case. Even before Maduro's abduction, the economy was in a very poor state, and the country's energy supply is heavily dependent on Venezuela. The maritime blockade imposed by the United States is getting tougher, with 5 tankers loaded with Venezuelan crude oil having been seized since December. Every barrel of oil that fails to reach Cuba weakens the state, even though Mexico has just announced its intention to remain a major supplier to the island. And tourism, another important resource for Cuba, has not recovered to its pre-Covid level.
That said, to qualify Donald Trump's remarks, Cuba is used to these crises, as the country has been living through an economic crisis since the collapse of the USSR in the early 1990s. It is therefore showing a form of resilience, an adaptation in the face of this. What's more, it's a state that has a better grip on its society than Venezuela - for better, in terms of assistance to the population, and for worse, in terms of targeted repression.
If the blockade continues, if the difficulties increase, the risk could be that of a Haitian-style collapse of the state, with similar consequences in terms of migration and crime.
