He is widely believed to have won Venezuela’s presidential election, and by a landslide. But on Monday, instead of making preparations for his swearing-in at the palm-lined palace in Caracas, Edmundo González was at the White House meeting with President Biden.
The encounter, a first for the two men, signals Mr. Biden’s desire to present a broad coalition of support for Mr. González, who met with the right-wing president of Argentina, Javier Milei, over the weekend, and will meet with other regional presidents in the coming days.
It is part of an effort by Mr. Biden, in the final days of his administration, to further isolate Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s longtime autocratic leader, who claims he won the country’s July election.
“We had a long, fruitful and cordial conversation with President Biden and his team,” Mr. González said at a news conference outside the White House, but he did not provide any details about the topics they discussed.
The Biden administration did not comment immediately.
Pedro Mario Burelli, a veteran Venezuelan political operative and an opponent of Mr. Maduro’s movement, called the visit part of an effort to “freak him out” — to scare Mr. Maduro into believing that the global political tide is increasingly turning against him.
Yet the meeting is unlikely to change the narrative inside Venezuela: Mr. González, 75, was forced to flee the country shortly after millions of Venezuelans voted for him, and he is now living in exile in Spain. Over the weekend, he promised once again that he would return to his country to be sworn in on Friday.
“By any means, I will be there,” Mr. González told reporters during his visit to Argentina, where he and President Milei appeared together on the balcony of presidential palace, clasping hands. Mr. Milei offered his full support for Mr. González.
But many Venezuelans are skeptical that Mr. González will return to his country anytime soon — the government has placed a $100,000 bounty on his head, and he faces likely arrest if he returns.
Mr. González’s most important political backer, María Corina Machado, a conservative former lawmaker who threw her weight behind him after she was barred from running in the presidential election in July, has been in hiding in Venezuela for months. In a recent video message, she continued to encourage the armed forces to defect to her side. That also has not happened.
Instead, Mr. Maduro is expected to be sworn in for another six-year term on Friday, and the real question hanging over the nation is how a second Trump administration, set to take office on Jan. 20, will approach Mr. Maduro.
Mr. Trump’s picks for foreign policy positions — Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, his choice for secretary of state; Representative Mike Waltz of Florida; and Mauricio Claver-Carone among them — have a history of taking a hard line against Mr. Maduro. They favor harsh economic sanctions meant to squeeze the Venezuelan leader economically rather than negotiating with him.
Yet others wonder if Mr. Trump, who has a penchant for deal-making, will instead engage in dialogue with Mr. Maduro. The U.S. president-elect is eager to reduce migration and to push one of Venezuela’s important allies, China, out of the region.
In an effort to gain leverage over Mr. Trump, Mr. Maduro has spent the last few months detaining foreigners inside Venezuela, including several U.S. citizens who are now in his government’s custody.
Such a dialogue could involve a deal in which Mr. Maduro accepts returned migrants — and releases U.S. citizens — in exchange for the United States’ easing up on sanctions that have hobbled his economic power.
Some U.S. oil executives, eager to do business in Venezuela, have been lobbying for that approach.
But Ms. Machado, in a recent interview with The New York Times, argued that Mr. Trump should take the sanctions route, revoking Biden-era licenses that have allow some oil companies to work in Venezuela. Mr. González has been less vocal about what approach he would like the Trump administration to take.
Luz Mely Reyes, a prominent Venezuelan journalist, said that while Mr. Biden’s meeting with Mr. González marked an important moment, “Biden is leaving soon, and we have to see how the government of Donald Trump will act.”
So far, just one Republican official, Senator Rick Scott of Florida, has announced plans to meet with Mr. González during his visit to the United States.
Representatives for Mr. Trump’s transition team did not respond to a request for comment.
Laura Dib, a Venezuela analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights advocacy group, said Mr. González needed a stronger show of support from Republicans.
“I am hoping for Rubio to meet with him,” she said.
On Monday Mr. González was also to appear at the Organization of American States in Washington.
Ms. Machado has called for Venezuelans to head to the streets on Thursday to show their support for Mr. González.
And, despite the Maduro government’s threat to arrest her, she has promised to appear in public that day. “The hour has come to act,” she wrote on X on Saturday. “We’ll see each other in the streets.”
Genevieve Glatskycontributed reporting.
