January 26, 2025
Richard Grenell before being appointed acting director of national intelligence in 2020. photo: Bernd von Jutrczenka, AFP
The new US administration is still calibrating its foreign policy approach towards Venezuela. At least, that is the impression that has been settled upon this week.
Since Donald Trump announced that Richard Grenell was going to be the “presidential envoy for special missions” last December, little has been discussed about the nature of his work in, according to the Republican president, “the most critical spots around the world, including Venezuela and North Korea.”
This is due to the historic cruelty of Marco Rubio, the new administration’s Secretary of State, who, until taking office, had proposed returning to the campaign of “maximum pressure” on Caracas.
In the ecosystem of opposition journalists and analysts in Venezuela, this was the most obvious option since the Republican tycoon seemed to return to the White House with a thirst for revenge, in a hurry to re-establish illegal sanctions and repeat the path of the failed Guaidó project.
Grenell could represent a counterweight to the attempts to impose an agenda of drastic and destructive measures. He stated in a message issued on Monday, January 20, after the swearing-in of the 47th US president, that he had contacted officials of the Venezuelan government and announced that “diplomacy is back.”
In the Republican diplomatic services
Grenell has made a career in the State Department and its foreign service during the Republican administrations of the 21st century, including that of George W. Bush.
He served as the Trump administration’s ambassador to Germany from May 2018 to June 2020. In the interim, he served as Special Presidential Envoy for the Serbia-Kosovo peace negotiations from October 2019 to January 2021 and as Acting Director of National Intelligence from February to May 2020.
During his stay in Germany, he was a critical spokesperson of Chancellor Angela Merkel, whom he blames for the escalation of war in Gaza and Ukraine. He also accused the Germans of making a small financial contribution to NATO compared to the United States and even criticized Berlin’s bilateral trade with Tehran.
According to US media, he is part of Trump’s political circle of trust, mimicking the MAGA line, and described by the Republican president as “a reliable and aggressive leader.” This, obviously, is to his personal liking. In Germany, they have confirmed his loyalty to Trump.
Bloomberg foreign policy columnist Andreas Kluth calls Grenell “a MAGA sycophant who is courting strongmen and populists around the world for Donald Trump.”
Following the November 5, 2024 election, he was one of the leading contenders for Secretary of State, a position that ended up going, as we know, to Rubio.
He was also considered for special envoy for the war in Ukraine and Donbas, a position that ended up being given to retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.
With a history before Venezuela
Despite the criminal sanctions imposed during the first Trump administration, he attempted to negotiate a “way out” with the government of President Nicolás Maduro behind the scenes and without the knowledge of foreign policymakers, using Mexico as the backdrop.
The special envoy appointed by Trump in September 2020 to secretly hold talks with Venezuelan officials was Richard Grenell himself.
There was no success for the US side.
The peculiar thing about the matter is that “Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and the rest of the State Department were not informed about the trip in advance,” nor about the meetings he held with Venezuelan authorities in Mexico City, according to information handled by Bloomberg.
“The US ambassador to Mexico, Christopher Landau, was also not informed in advance of the trip,” the report said.
The fact that Trump 1.0 had chosen to establish direct channels with Caracas behind the backs of the main officials in charge of Washington’s diplomacy is a sign that the new government can carry out negotiations with Venezuela without Rubio’s knowledge or consent.
It should be remembered that Rubio is not exactly a sympathetic figure for Trump; the public insults during the 2016 presidential primaries, including mockery of his physical appearance, still resonate. His approach to foreign policy differed greatly from that of the former senator from Florida, especially due to his constant traditional interventionist position as a Latin hawk, in contrast to Trump’s contrary position, at least in words.
While nothing is certain about the strategy, the precedent would indicate that the Republican president will use Grenell’s services in critical matters or complicated scenarios for official diplomacy—such as the “Venezuela case”—while Rubio would be in charge of addressing the official diplomatic agenda.
Given his closeness and dogmatic reproduction of the central key elements of the MAGA agenda, Grenell could be expected to comply with Trump’s particular designs, not overcome by shyness in creating alternative and direct channels that favor his foreign policy agenda. It would be a way of shielding his position against the swindles he experienced during his first term and, currently, against Marco Rubio, who will want to prioritize his ideological crusade against Caracas, which could distort the immediate interests of the White House tenant.
Along these lines, Grenell’s announced work is far from Rubio’s confrontational approach. Therefore, this dialectic would be expected to define contacts with Venezuela and Washington’s general approach.
To what extent? It all remains to be seen.
However, Grenell enjoys Trump’s trust and affection, not Rubio, who will be forced to move cautiously.
Source: Misión Verdad translation, Orinoco Tribune