To analyse

2022, the year of Venezuela's strong comeback in the regional game?

Meeting between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro (right) and Colombian Ambassador to Caracas Armando Benedetti, August 29, 2022. AP - Ariana Cubillos

Text by: Marie Normand Follow

3 mins

Long considered a "pariah", Venezuela and its president Nicolas Maduro seem to be finding favor in the eyes of part of the international community.

Colombia has made a spectacular rapprochement with its neighbor and the United States would also consider easing the sanctions imposed on Caracas.

For Christophe Ventura, research director at IRIS, the balance of power has changed considerably.

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RFI: Why such a rapprochement between Colombia and Venezuela?

Christophe Ventura:

This rapprochement was guided by the impetus that the new left-wing Colombian president Gustavo Petro wanted to give to his foreign policy.

He announced it during his election campaign.

Its objective is to normalize relations with this historical neighbor, after seven years of interruption of commercial exchanges at the border and the rupture of diplomatic relations under the previous right-wing government of Ivan Duque.

Bogota was very actively involved in the Latin American and American front against the recognition of the legitimacy of Nicolas Maduro at the head of Venezuela, and in favor of Juan Guaido, the former president of the National Assembly .

Gustavo Petro's objective is commercial above all else, commercial relations are in the DNA of the economic schemes of these two countries.

The Colombian president also wants to try to go through Venezuela to

.

Finally, the 2,200 km border between the two countries is the focus of all smuggling and trafficking.

For Nicolas Maduro, is this a winning strategy?

This imposes him as the Venezuelan head of state whereas, until the arrival of Gustavo Petro, Colombia no longer recognized him as legitimate president.

It is a strategic reversal on the part of Gustavo Petro, which gives Nicolas Maduro the legitimacy he wishes to have and which he believes he has never lost.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken was in Colombia recently.

Venezuela was surely also discussed during this visit.

Could the United States review its sanctions policy towards Caracas?

It was not at all anticipated and anticipated, but one of the geopolitical impacts of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict is that the United States tries, in a very pragmatic way, to close the gaps in its oil imports "by reopening the tap” of Venezuela.

Historically, Venezuela's entire oil industry has been pegged to American oil production and value chains.

► To read also: Venezuela wants to regain its role as an oil power

Doing so would require massive investment in Venezuelan infrastructure, after years of crisis and deterioration linked to the economic situation and the sanctions imposed by Washington.

The Americans can perhaps put these investments in the balance.

In any case, this allows Nicolas Maduro to play a diplomatic and strategic sequence to his advantage.

What is happening to the Venezuelan opposition and its leader Juan Guaido, recognized by Bogota and Washington?

Juan Guaido is more than ever in a bad position.

The chapter of his legitimacy and power in Venezuela seems behind us.

An example that sums it all up: last week, within the Organization of American States (OAS) headquartered in Washington, a motion was put to the vote to exclude the representative of Juan Guaido as official representative of Venezuela .

The United States and its allies, in order not to lose face, prevented this resolution from obtaining a two-thirds majority.

But the majority of member countries, including Colombia, voted for this resolution.

This shows how the balance of power has changed.

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