Socialist dictator of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro claimed on Monday that whoever wins the United States presidential election will have to engage in “good faith” dialogue with his authoritarian regime.
“In any case, whoever gets to the White House, be it Trump or Kamala, will have a Revolutionary Government in Venezuela, a Bolivarian Government, a Bolivarian people,” Maduro said, “with whom they will have to talk, dialogue and understand each other by the rules, always by the rules.”
“We will be here no matter. who wins up there. We do not interfere in the internal affairs of the United States. We simply observe, see, and maintain our path, which is to develop,” he added.
The Venezuelan dictator commented on the U.S. election during the latest episode of his weekly Monday evening television show With Maduro Plus. Maduro, who has repeatedly claimed that the United States seeks to overthrow his regime, said that he has been asked whether a Trump or Harris presidency would be the most convenient for Venezuela.
“What is convenient for Venezuela and Latin America is to maintain our own path, not to depend on anyone,” Maduro said, adding that he considers it invalid that “a Latin American leader calls to vote for a candidate in the United States or to get involved in the U.S. electoral process.”
The Venezuelan socialist regime, which maintains a strident anti-U.S. stance, is a key ally of China, Russia, and Iran in the region, in addition to other rogue regimes and terrorist organizations such as Hezbollah.
Maduro once again alleged, without presenting evidence, that the United States is involved in a coup plot to oust him with the intention of imposing a “fascist model” in the country.
“The model that the [United States] empire has for the world and that they intend to impose with a coup d’état in Venezuela and that they intend to impose with destabilization in Venezuela, let there be no doubt, is a fascist model,” Maduro said.
According to Maduro, the purported “fascist model” is similar to what Argentine President Javier Milei and Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa, both democratically chosen in uncontroversial elections, want to allegedly “impose” on their respective nations.
Following the collapse of socialism in Venezuela over the past decade, the Maduro regime has seen itself increase its dependence on anti-U.S. allies such as Iran, which has provided Venezuela assistance in repairing its derelict oil refineries, pushed to the brink of complete ruin as a result of more than two decades of socialist mismanagement.
Nicolás Maduro succeeded Hugo Chávez as Venezuela’s socialist dictator after Chávez died from an undisclosed type of cancer in March 2013. Since then, Maduro has held onto power through several fraudulent elections, with the latest taking place on July 28, 2024 — Hugo Chávez’s birthday — leading to a new round of international condemnation and an unprecedented brutal crackdown of dissidents, including children.
United States authorities have accused Maduro of being a leading figure of the Cartel of the Suns, an intercontinental cocaine trafficking operation run by high-ranking members of both the Venezuelan military and the socialist regime that seeks to “flood” the United States with cocaine and “inflict the drug’s harmful and addictive effects on users in this country.” Since 2020, the United States maintains an active $15 million bounty for any information that can lead to Maduro’s arrest and/or conviction.
The numerous human rights violations committed by the Maduro regime against its own people over the years prompted the United States, under the administration of former President Donald Trump, to impose several sanctions on Maduro, his top brass, and the state-owned PDVSA oil company — the socialist regime’s main source of revenue — in 2019,
The Maduro regime has repeatedly claimed that the Trump-era sanctions — which some of Maduro’s friends such as Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro falsely claim are a “blockade” — are the cause of the collapse of socialism in Venezuela and its migrant crisis. In reality, the collapse of the country began long before Trump was first elected president. Last year, the Maduro regime claimed it would arrest and “try” Trump for his alleged crimes against Venezuela.
The Biden-Harris administration has taken a much different stance towards Venezuela, gifting Maduro and his regime several concessions that have allowed the cash-starved socialists to establish new economic lifelines.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken spent several years promoting the idea of legitimizing the Maduro regime by having Maduro commit to a “free and fair” election, leading to several rounds of “negotiations” between U.S. officials and representatives of both the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan opposition.
The negotiations concluded in October 2023 with the “Barbados Agreement,” a document signed by the Maduro regime and the Venezuelan establishment opposition under the observation of Blinken and the Biden-Harris administration.
The agreement called for the Maduro regime to hold a “free and fair” election sometime in 2024. In return, U.S. President Joe Biden awarded Maduro with a broad six-month-long oil and gas sanctions relief package that allowed PDVSA to freely sell oil and gas in U.S. and international markets such as China and India.
Maduro failed to uphold his vague promises and instead launched a brutal repression of dissidents ahead of the election and held the fraudulent July 28 presidential election, proclaiming himself the “winner” without showing any voter data to substantiate his claims.
In December 2023 the Biden-Harris administration also released Alex Saab, Maduro’s top money launderer and his key financial operative. Saab was arrested by United States authorities in Cape Verde 2020 and was undergoing trial proceedings on charges of using the U.S. financial system to launder $350 million from Venezuela’s state coffers.
According to the White House, sending Saab back to Venezuela would allegedly help curb the large flow of Venezuelan migrants entering the United States by addressing the “root causes of migration.” As of October, Saab, a Colombian national, has been serving as Maduro’s new Industries Minister.
In 2022, the Biden-Harris administration released Efraín Antonio Campo Flores and Francisco Flores de Freitas, Maduro’s convicted drug-trafficking nephews more commonly known as the narcosobrinos (“narco-nephews”). The dictator’s nephews were arrested in November 2015 by DEA authorities in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on charges of attempting to transport 800 kilograms of cocaine into U.S. territory.
Other concessions granted by the Biden-Harris administration to the Maduro regime include easing oil sanctions with a still-active license for California-based Chevron in November 2022 that allows the company to resume oil production and exports from Venezuela to the United States and the removal of sanctions on Carlos Erik Malpica Flores, another of Maduro’s nephews.
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.