US raises pressure on Venezuela's Maduro as new term begins

Akayla Gardner, Bloomberg News on Jan 10, 2025

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The U.S. on Friday ramped up pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro and his regime, including raising a reward for his arrest on narcotics charges and new sanctions on officials in response to his contested election and crackdown on opposition.

The announcement, which includes sanctions on the head of the country’s state oil firm Petróleos de Venezuela, comes the same day Maduro is being sworn in for another six-year term in Caracas.

The reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, as well as Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello, on drug trafficking charges will be increased to $25 million, the U.S. Treasury Department said in a statement. A new reward for $15 million was issued for Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López.

“Since last year’s election, Maduro and his associates have continued their repressive actions in Venezuela,” Brad Smith, acting undersecretary of the Treasury for terrorism and financial intelligence, said in the statement. “The United States, together with our likeminded partners, stands in solidarity with the Venezuelan people’s vote for new leadership and rejects Maduro’s fraudulent claim of victory.”

Venezuela’s election authority declared Maduro the winner of the July 28 vote without presenting evidence, while his opponent Edmundo González, has been declared president-elect by both President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump. Gonzalez met with Biden in Washington on Monday.

The new actions signal a last-ditch attempt to hold Maduro accountable by the outgoing Biden administration, which has been criticized for earlier easing economic sanctions on Venezuela in the expectation that Maduro would hold free and fair elections.

The announcement Friday follows two previous rounds of individual sanctions, and comes a day after opposition leader María Corina Machado was detained for two hours during an anti-Maduro rally.

The U.S. is sanctioning eight officials, including PDVSA President Hector Obregon, Transportation Minister Ramon Velasquez and Douglas Rico, head of the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations unit, the country’s biggest police agency.

The Biden’s administration is also considering sending a set of recommendations to Trump’s incoming team on the status of future oil and gas licenses, depending on what unfolds in Venezuela in the coming days, a senior Biden administration official said Friday on a call with reporters. There are currently restrictions on certain energy transactions between the U.S. and Venezuela, along with a freeze on new licenses.

Separately, the UK also unveiled new sanctions on 15 individuals associated with Maduro, including judges, military officials and members of the security forces. They will be subject to travel bans and asset freezes and refused entry to the UK. The European Union also issued new sanctions.

“Nicolás Maduro’s claim to power is fraudulent,” UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy said in a statement. “The outcome of July’s elections was neither free nor fair and his regime does not represent the will of the Venezuelan people.”

The U.S. began calling González Venezuela’s President-elect in mid-November, which Trump did as well on Thursday in a social media post. González, who fled to Spain in September, has repeatedly said that he will go back to Venezuela for a swearing-in ceremony on Friday.

Protests against Maduro’s claim of victory swept the capital of Caracas and other cities in the days after the vote, with more than 2,400 Venezuelans arrested and 28 killed in the fiercest crackdown of his 11-year rule. By the end of December, the government had already released roughly 1,300 of the prisoners. In separate events, the Maduro government has also arrested several foreigners, including at least seven Americans, claiming they took part in conspiracies.

—With assistance from Ellen Milligan.