MIAMI — Seven months after American forces removed Nicolás Maduro from power, his government and a faction of Venezuela's opposition are finally sitting across the same table, trying to plot a route back to elections. The negotiation, which launched Aug. 6 at the La Carlota air base in Caracas and runs in continuous session through Aug. 12, is the ninth attempt at dialogue between chavismo and its opponents in roughly a decade — yet the first carried out with Washington's open, active backing. For the hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who rebuilt their lives across South Florida, what happens inside that closed-door room matters well beyond Caracas: it could decide whether relatives left behind finally get a genuine vote, and it's already reshaping how Washington treats Venezuelans on U.S. soil.
Washington's Hand Behind the Table
Leading the government side is Jorge Rodríguez, president of the sitting National Assembly and brother of Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president who stepped in after Maduro's removal. Across from him sits Dinorah Figuera, a surgeon by training who has presided over Venezuela's 2015 National Assembly — the last legislature Washington still treats as legitimately elected — largely while exiled in Spain. She flew back into Caracas last week to lead the opposition's side, and the State Department publicly welcomed her arrival for the start of in-person negotiations, calling the moment "a unique opportunity." Separately, Figuera's June return to Venezuelan soil was coordinated with U.S. officials, according to regional reporting on her arrival at the time. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has framed the process as the second stage of a three-part American strategy for Venezuela — stabilize the country, rebuild its economy, then open a path to political transition — a plan that began with the Jan. 3 military operation in which U.S. forces seized Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and flew them to New York to face narco-trafficking charges.
Opening the first session, Figuera posted on X: "Today we launch the process that will chart Venezuela's path back to democracy." The State Department's own statement struck a similarly hopeful note, calling the negotiations a chance to "advance a more stable, prosperous" future for Venezuelans.
A Ninth Try, With a New American Wrinkle
Analysts say what's genuinely different this time isn't the act of talking — it's who's standing behind the table. Imdat Oner, a former Turkish diplomat now a senior fellow at Florida International University's Gordon Institute, told Miami's WLRN that "Venezuela is the only foreign policy success story for the Trump administration so far," a dynamic he said gives Washington reason to let the process play out slowly rather than force it and risk collapse. Eight prior rounds of talks — stretching back to a 2014 effort backed by the Vatican and UNASUR, through Norwegian-brokered sessions in 2019 and the Mexico City/Barbados process of 2021–2023 — all ended without a lasting democratic opening.
Earthquake Recovery Leads the Agenda, and the Death Toll Keeps Climbing
Negotiators put the response to the twin June 24 earthquakes first on their three-item agenda, ahead of institutional reform and civil-rights guarantees. The quakes — magnitude 7.2 and 7.5, striking just 39 seconds apart with an epicenter near Yumare in Yaracuy state — devastated the neighboring coastal state of La Guaira, where roughly four in five buildings were damaged or destroyed, and rattled Caracas itself.
The human toll has climbed sharply and repeatedly since the disaster. Venezuelan officials counted 188 dead within the first 24 hours; that figure passed 2,000 by July 1, topped 3,500 by July 7, and crossed 5,000 by late July, according to wire counts cited by WLRN's Americas desk. By the time delegations sat down in Caracas this month, Venezuela's own tally had climbed further still — past 6,100 dead, with roughly 16,700 injured, close to 18,000 left without housing, and tens of thousands still unaccounted for. The World Bank has pegged direct physical damage from the quakes at $19.6 billion.
Figuera has laid out a rough institutional timeline for the talks: reinstating credible political and civil-rights protections by October, reconstituting the Supreme Court by November, and rebuilding the National Electoral Council by December — with a full public accounting of the process due by year's end, according to her own comments after the opening session.
Machado Stays Out, and the Opposition Splits Its Bets
The opposition figure with the largest following, Nobel Peace Prize laureate María Corina Machado, is deliberately sitting this one out. Machado and her running mate, Edmundo González Urrutia — who both insist González actually won Venezuela's disputed 2024 presidential election — say they won't join the table or stand in its way, leaving the negotiating seat to Figuera's smaller, Washington-favored delegation. Their broader coalition, the Plataforma Unitaria Democrática, issued its own statement this week: "Our commitment is to any effort producing concrete results for Venezuela's democratic transition," the coalition said, while demanding the release of political prisoners as a non-negotiable condition. Even so, some coalition parties — including Voluntad Popular and Primero Justicia — are quietly backing Figuera's effort from the sidelines. On the chavista side, hardline factions have staged street protests in Caracas branding the whole process a foreign-imposed sellout.
What It Means for Miami — and a Reopened Sky Bridge
South Florida holds one of the largest Venezuelan communities anywhere outside the country itself, and WLRN's Americas coverage suggests much of that diaspora expects these talks to crawl rather than sprint, testing the patience of families who've waited years for real political change. The dialogue also lands months after direct commercial air travel between Miami and Caracas resumed for the first time since 2019: Envoy, American Airlines' regional carrier, began daily nonstop Miami–Caracas service on April 30, a relaunch CBS Miami covered as part of the broader normalization that followed Maduro's capture. County officials at the time described the route's return in deeply personal terms — a chance, finally, for separated parents, children and grandparents to see each other again.
TPS Remains Unresolved for Venezuelans Already Here
Even as Washington brokers a political opening in Caracas, the legal footing of Venezuelans already living in the U.S. hasn't budged. The Department of Homeland Security moved in 2025 to strip Temporary Protected Status from hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans, a decision the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals found likely exceeded the agency's authority — though a standing Supreme Court stay has let the terminations proceed regardless while the underlying case continues. As of early July, the Trump administration was pressing the Supreme Court to send the case back to the Ninth Circuit so it can reconsider its Venezuela ruling in light of a separate high-court decision allowing TPS terminations for Haiti and Syria. In practical terms, most Venezuelan TPS holders remain unprotected today — even as the same administration holds up Venezuela's political opening as a marquee foreign-policy win.
What Comes Next
Negotiators are set to decide after Aug. 12 whether — and how — to extend the talks, with the full, formal results not expected until December. Both delegations have pledged ongoing public updates, even though the sessions themselves remain closed to reporters. From federal detention in Brooklyn, where he's awaiting a trial date set for June 2027, Maduro himself weighed in this week, saying he backs "any path of dialogue that helps consolidate peace and reconciliation among Venezuelans." Given how fast the story — and the earthquake casualty count alone — has moved in just the past ten days, key figures and negotiating positions should be re-checked against the latest wire reports before this runs.
