Nicolás Maduro held an “illegitimate presidential inauguration in Venezuela in a desperate attempt to seize power,” U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated on Friday, as the Venezuelan leader began his third term amid contested elections.
“The Venezuelan people and world know the truth—Maduro clearly lost the 2024 presidential election and has no right to claim the presidency,” Blinken stated. “The United States rejects the National Electoral Council’s fraudulent announcement that Maduro won the presidential election and does not recognize Nicolás Maduro as the president of Venezuela.”
Instead, according to the U.S. State Department, Edmundo González Urrutia should have been sworn in as the Venezuelan president, “and the democratic transition should begin.”
The U.S. government announced on Friday that it is offering up to $25 million each for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Maduro or Diosdado Cabello, the leader’s interior minister. Washington also announced a reward up to $15 million for Vladimir Padrino López, Maduro’s defense minister.
On Thursday, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) reintroduced a bill setting a $100 million maximum reward—up from a $15 million one—for the arrest of Maduro. The Venezuelan people “want a new day of freedom and democracy,” Scott stated. “The time of Maduro’s oppressive dictatorship is over.”
Foggy Bottom also imposed new visa restrictions on “nearly 2,000” people aligned with Maduro “for their roles in undermining the electoral process or in acts of repression in Venezuela,” the State Department stated on Friday.
The U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned eight Venezuelan officials on Friday who lead “key economic and security agencies enabling Nicolás Maduro’s repression and subversion of democracy in Venezuela.”
The department’s “designations demonstrate a message of solidarity with the Venezuelan people and further elevate international efforts to maintain pressure on Maduro and his representatives,” it added.
Washington also sanctioned 187 people, who it said were currently or formerly aligned with Maduro, “for repressing and intimidating the democratic opposition in a desperate and illegitimate attempt to take power by force.” And the U.S. Department of Homeland Security today announced that it is extending Venezuela’s “temporary protected status” designation in 2023 “based on the severe humanitarian emergency the country continues to face due to political and economic crises under the inhumane Maduro regime.”
Gideon Sa’ar, the Israeli foreign minister, stated that the Jewish state “expresses concern over the political persecution and arbitrary arrests by the regime and joins the call of many in the international community to restore freedom and democracy in Venezuela.”
“Today, Jan. 10, Edmundo González Urrutia, the elected president of Venezuela, who won the presidential elections by a significant majority, was supposed to be inaugurated,” Sa’ar stated. “However, the election results are not being respected, and his inauguration is not taking place. The ruler, Nicolás Maduro, an ally of Iran, must honor the will of the people in his country.”
‘The days of appeasement are over’
The Venezuelan strongman detained opposition leader María Corina Machado after the latter led a protest in Caracas on Thursday.
America stands with Machado, “as she leads millions of Venezuelans in protest against the brutal, Chavista regime of Nicolás Maduro,” Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.), the chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in a joint statement on Thursday with Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), chair of the panel’s subcommittee on the Western Hemisphere.
“As Edmundo González prepares to return to Venezuela, we warn Maduro and his thugs the United States is watching and, like Venezuela, it will be under new and stronger leadership soon,” the duo added. “When President Trump takes office, the days of appeasement are over.”
A resource-rich nation, Venezuela has descended into chaos during Maduro’s reign, which began in 2013. The authoritarian has also been a frequent critic of the Jewish state, including blaming “international Zionism” for wide-scale protests in Venezuela after the contested July election results.
The U.S. State Department’s 2023 International Religious Freedom Report, which cited the National Interest, stated that the Venezuelan state-owned channel Telesur TV “described Israel ‘as a modern-day genocidal Nazi regime backed by Jewish media.’”
The Confederation of Jewish Associations of Venezuela estimates that there are 10,000 Jews in Caracas—a significant drop from 1999, when there were 30,000, per the State Department report.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump, who is slated to assume office in 10 days, wrote on Thursday that Machado and González “should not be harmed and must stay safe and alive.”