Venezuela’s exiled leader asks Trump not to cut deportation deal with Maduro

Edmundo González, recognized by the United States as Venezuela’s president-elect, is cautioning the Trump administration against carrying out a deportation deal with the country’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro.

Negotiating directly with Maduro would allow the autocrat to “use returning Venezuelans to his political advantage,” González said. Instead, he and his team have urged U.S. officials to send Venezuelan deportees to a third country.

The exiled opposition leader, who spoke to The Washington Post during his second visit to Washington this month, stressed that he doesn’t want to interfere in “sensitive and delicate” U.S. domestic affairs, in which immigration has emerged as a key priority for the new Trump administration. But González said he sees an opportunity for a mutually beneficial outcome.

“It’s in the United States’ best interest to follow a strategy that helps ensure Nicolás Maduro is no longer in power,” González told The Post. “Once that happens, hundreds of Venezuelans will return to our country.”

Trump has threatened a “massive deportation” of migrants, but repatriating Venezuelan nationals — who have fled in droves amid the economic, political and humanitarian turmoil of Maduro’s regime — would require cooperation from Maduro, who has refused to take them back. With some Latin American governments raising questions about the treatment of deportees, the Trump administration faces limited options for third countries that could receive Venezuelan deportees.

Maduro has signaled a willingness to allow deportation flights in exchange for the preservation of oil licenses and increases in crude exports, The Post has previously reported. But opposition leaders argue that such a deal could give Maduro legitimacy.

An opposition leader said González’s team has not discussed specific third countries where the Trump administration could consider sending deportees.

“Negotiating with the regime could be interpreted as normalizing it,” said the opposition leader, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive issue. “We cannot and should not normalize it.”

Maduro was sworn into office this month after claiming an electoral victory without providing any evidence. Precinct-level tally sheets obtained by the opposition, and verified by The Post and independent election observers, showed a landslide victory for Gónzalez, who fled the country in September under threat of imminent arrest.

Now, Venezuela’s fate is being shaped not just in Caracas but in Washington, where González and Maduro are each vying for the ear of the new Trump administration.

González, who met with President Joe Biden early this month, was among the few Latin American political leaders invited to attend Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 presidential inauguration. And shortly after being sworn in Tuesday, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has called for tougher measures against Maduro, jumped on a call with González and opposition leader María Corina Machado.

“As I recently told Secretary of State Marco Rubio: We are counting on you to help us solve our problems, knowing that the problem is ultimately Venezuela’s and that we, the Venezuelans, will resolve it,” González said in the interview. “But for that to happen, we need the support of our international allies.”

González’s goal is to ensure that the U.S. response to Venezuela remains a bipartisan issue. For months, his Washington-based team of advisers and supporters has dedicated itself to maintaining conversations with politicians across the political spectrum, González said.

In his first term, Trump pursued maximum-pressure sanctions against Venezuela’s oil industry in an unsuccessful attempt to pressure Maduro to leave. It remains unclear whether his administration will pursue a similar approach this time. Trump administration officials, at least for now, have shown a willingness to speak directly with Caracas.

On the day of Trump’s inauguration, his envoy for special missions, Richard Grenell, said he had spoken with multiple officials in Venezuela and would begin meetings early the next day.

“Diplomacy is back,” Grenell wrote on X. “Talking is a tactic.”

Venezuela’s political turmoil and economic instability have fueled one of largest displacement crises in the world, with nearly 8 million Venezuelans — over a quarter of the nation’s population — having fled. Hundreds of thousands of them have ventured to the United States.

Venezuelans now seek asylum in the United States in higher numbers than any other nationality. The federal government had deemed them eligible for temporary immigration programs that shield them from deportation, such as Temporary Protection Status and a humanitarian parole called CHNV. Trump decried both as “illegal” before issuing an executive order on his first day in office that ended the Biden-era parole program and suspended the use of a phone application known as CBP One.

Trump has also said one of his goals is to eliminate Tren de Aragua, a feared Venezuelan gang that has taken advantage of the immigration crisis to spread its tentacles across Latin America and, now, the United States. Last week, Chilean prosecutors accused Maduro’s government of orchestrating the killing of a dissident former Venezuelan soldier, allegedly by members of the gang in Chile.

“That is a very serious matter — that a high-ranking member of the government is involved in a political assassination like that one,” González said. “And here in the United States authorities have arrested members of that group. This just underscores why Venezuela’s transition to democracy is a national security issue for the region.”

Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington, said Trump will have to contend with a Venezuelan government that has survived some of the harshest sanctions in U.S. history, imposed during Trump’s first term, as well as outmaneuvered Biden’s attempt to negotiate a democratic turnover.

“I think the challenge for U.S. policymakers is how to realistically advance the transition, given how entrenched the regime is in Caracas,” Ramsey added. “Maximum pressure, sanctions, threats of military intervention, negotiations have all failed. So I think to a degree, the United States is back to the drawing board on Venezuela.”

For Ramsey, Grenell’s announcement signaled that the Trump camp is not going to let up the pressure on Caracas and, instead, is seeking a political solution that combines pressure with incentives.

Sitting in a quiet Washington hotel, González spoke calmly, but his words carried a sense of urgency. Despite the daunting challenges ahead, he said he believed he and his team had made a compelling case for the United States to play a pivotal role in Venezuela’s transition to democracy. After all, both Trump and Rubio had publicly acknowledged him as Venezuela’s president-elect and Venezuela’s legitimate leader.

“It’s a message and very poignant and clear signal that the government is saying: ‘Here is the person whom we are ready to engage with, someone we are determined to work with, and with whom we will begin policies for the benefit of all,’” González said.

Some experts predict that Maduro’s grip on power — and the brutal wave of repression he has unleashed — could set off a renewed flood of Venezuelan migrants across the Western Hemisphere.

That, González said, can be prevented through the restoration of Venezuela’s democracy.

He spoke of the millions of Venezuelans who, like him, had been forced to flee their homeland. He has encountered many of them during his time traveling the region. On Friday morning, a chorus of “Edmundo! Edmundo!” broke out at American University in Northwest Washington when a group of Venezuelan food delivery drivers spotted González on a visit to his alma mater.

“Prepare to return to Venezuela sooner rather than later,” González said in the interview, speaking to fellow Venezuelans abroad. “We need you to return because the experience you’ve gained abroad will be necessary for Venezuela’s economic recovery.”

Across from the hotel, a Venezuelan food delivery driver, Winston Brito, 21, said he was ready to heed that call.

“Díos mío — my God — if Maduro leaves and Edmundo is president, I’ll leave the next day,” said Brito, who was delivering a Chipotle order. “I’m so grateful to this country for welcoming me in. But can you imagine? Going back home and seeing my mom? Trump won’t have to deport me — I’ll go willingly on the first flight out.”