Trump should invite Venezuela’s Gonzalez Urrutia to his inauguration — today

Andres Oppenheimer

President-elect Donald Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration guest list includes several foreign dignitaries, but there is one political leader who is not known to have been invited yet — Venezuela’s Edmundo Gonzalez Urrutia. He should be invited immediately.

Gonzalez Urrutia is the pro-democracy leader who, according to credible voting records released by the Venezuelan opposition, won his country’s July 28 elections by a landslide. The outgoing Biden administration officially recognized him as Venezuela’s “president elect” last month.

Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro, who has fraudulently proclaimed himself the election’s winner despite failing to show voting records to support his claim, plans to be sworn in for a third consecutive term on Jan. 10. Gonzalez Urrutia, who is exiled in Spain, has vowed to return to Venezuela to take office on that same date.

Venezuelan opposition leaders tell me that it’s imperative for Trump to invite Gonzalez Urrutia to his inauguration, or to make a visit before, to send a powerful signal of support for Venezuela’s pro-democracy forces.

When I recently asked Venezuela’s opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, whether Trump should invite Gonzalez Urrutia to his Jan. 20 inauguration, she told me, “Yes, and hopefully even before that date,” so he could also meet with outgoing President Biden.

“It would be important, because we all know the message that such meetings would send to the diplomatic world, and most importantly to the Venezuelan people,” Machado told me. “It would be a signal that we are not alone, that we have the support of democratic governments around the world.”

It would also send a powerful message to the Venezuelan military and Maduro’s business cronies, some of whom believe that the United States will ultimately strike a deal with the Venezuelan dictator to reduce migration and increase oil exports, Machado told me.

According to a Nov. 28 report in The Wall Street Journal, American oil executives and bond investors close to Trump are urging him to abandon his first-term policy of “maximum pressure” on Maduro. Instead, they are trying to convince Trump to strike a deal whereby Venezuela would stop the flow of migrants in exchange for more U.S. oil imports, the article said.

The lobbying effort includes billionaire Republican donor Harry Sargeant III, who is known to play golf at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club. Trump’s secretary of state designate, Marco Rubio, and other Trump appointees are staunch supporters of increased pressure on the Maduro regime, but the talk of a possible Trump-Maduro deal has given the Venezuelan dictator political oxygen within Venezuela’s ruling elite.

The mere announcement of Gonzalez Urrutia meetings with Biden and Trump would help convince some Maduro cronies that there is a strong bipartisan support for Venezuela’s opposition in the United States, Machado told me.

At the time of this writing, Trump has reportedly invited, among others, China’s leader Xi Jinping, who has declined to attend; Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky; Italian President Giorgia Meloni; Argentina’s President Javier Milei and Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele.

But people close to Gonzalez Urrutia tell me he has not yet received an invitation from the Trump camp for the U.S. inaugural ceremony. There are ongoing efforts to convene a meeting of presidents with Gonzalez Urrutia ahead of Trump’s inauguration in the United States, Panama or another country in the region, but no concrete meeting has yet been set, they tell me.

In addition to sending a strong message of support for Venezuela’s opposition, inviting Gonzalez Urrutia for presidential meetings in the United States for Trump’s inauguration would be consistent with past U.S. policy on Venezuela.

In 2019, then President Trump recognized Venezuela’s National Assembly President Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s interim president after Maduro rigged the 2018 elections. This time, giving a red carpet official welcome to Gonzalez Urrutia would be even more justified, because he was elected as his country’s leader.

The bottom line is that the Venezuelan opposition urgently needs a strong signal of U.S. and international support to convince Venezuela’s armed forces that things will only get worse if Maduro stays in power. Trump should send an official invitation to his inauguration to Gonzalez Urrutia, and he should do it today.