Washington’s Ultimatum: Caracas Braces as U.S. Hints at Troop Pressure

The Night the Phones Wouldn’t Stop

It was just past midnight when the encrypted calls began ricocheting between Caracas, Bogotá and Washington. Inside the yellow-walled Miraflores Palace, aides to Nicolás Maduro stared at a single-sheet printout: a list of five non-negotiable demands, delivered by the State Department only hours earlier and first revealed to El País by a senior Western diplomat.

What the U.S. Wants—and What It’s Willing to Risk

• Immediate release of all Americans detained in Venezuela since 2017.
• Restoration of the opposition-majority National Assembly dissolved in 2020.
• Independent audit of the 2024 presidential vote, supervised by the Carter Center and the EU.
• Safe passage for opposition candidates barred from running.
• A six-month timeline for free elections, monitored by the UN.

Failure to comply, the document warns, could trigger “a recalibrated U.S. military posture in the region,” a phrase Pentagon officials privately interpret as stepped-up naval patrols and pre-positioning of Special Forces in Colombia and Curaçao—moves that would place American troops less than 30 minutes’ flight time from Caracas.

“We are not talking about an invasion scenario,” a senior Defense official told me over coffee in Arlington. “But we want Maduro’s circle to understand the window for negotiations is narrowing—fast.”

Inside the Palace: Panic, Then a Plan

By dawn, Vice-President Delcy Rodríguez had convened a war-room of lawyers, generals and oil executives. Their counter-play, drafted in bullet-point haste, proposes:

• Limited prisoner swaps, but only if Washington eases oil sanctions first.
• A referendum on electoral reforms—under government, not foreign, supervision.
• Opening direct talks with opposition envoy María Corina Machado, though Maduro himself would stay above the fray.

Whether that olive branch is enough to keep U.S. forces at bay remains an open question. In the barrios of Petare, where blackouts outnumber meals, the topic is debated in hushed tones. “We’ve seen this movie before,” says Yuleima Pérez, a street vendor whose brother was killed in 2019 protests. “Promises, troops offshore, more promises. Nothing changes.”

Why the Stakes Just Got Higher

Venezuela’s crude production has flat-lined at 700,000 barrels a day—one-fifth of 1998 levels—and every week of delay costs the treasury an estimated $60 million in lost revenue. Meanwhile, Russia’s war in Ukraine has tightened global energy markets, giving Washington rare leverage: threaten military pressure, unlock sanctions, and watch Caracas scramble.

Back in D.C., the calculus is colder still. “We don’t need boots on the ground,” says a Senate foreign-policy staffer. “We just need Maduro to believe we might put them there.”

Belief, however, is a fragile currency in a country where rumor and reality have long been interchangeable. As Caracas wakes to another day of empty store shelves and flickering streetlights, the only certainty is that the phones inside Miraflores will start ringing again—long before the sun goes down.