For Uruguay's Blancos, Lacalle Pou's return on Venezuela 'fills a vacuum' left by the country in foreign policy

A 100-year agreement giving a private company control over 17 Venezuelan oil fields has prompted renewed questions about political legitimacy in a country still without elections, eight months after Nicolás Maduro's capture. The deal, reached between the Venezuelan government and the United States, covers fields representing 20% of Venezuela's crude reserves, or 65 billion barrels, according to the article.

The agreement triggered criticism from Corina Machado, the main opponent of the Chavista regime. She argued that strategic partnerships of this scale should be negotiated with a government elected by popular vote, following the electoral fraud denounced by the international community in 2024. “Venezuelans know that no development is possible without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote. That is the only true guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment,” Machado said.

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Venezuelans know that no development is possible without strong institutions and a government elected by popular vote. That is the only true guarantee of success and stability for any large-scale investment.

The debate also brought Luis Lacalle Pou back into Uruguay's foreign-policy discussion. After Donald Trump said Venezuela was not “ready to hold elections,” the former Uruguayan president used the political moment surrounding President Yamandú Orsi's meetings with opposition leaders to restate his position and rally National Party figures behind a demand for democratic change in Venezuela.

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Democracy. Institutions functioning. Leaders legitimately elected by the citizens. Sovereignty. A real transition. Neither business nor exploitation. That is what it is about, and that is why we have always raised our voices.

“Democracy. Institutions functioning. Leaders legitimately elected by the citizens. Sovereignty. A real transition. Neither business nor exploitation. That is what it is about, and that is why we have always raised our voices,” Lacalle Pou wrote. He also recalled a January 3, 2025 statement in which he called Maduro a dictator, criticized the international community's failure to protect human rights and rejected armed intervention while asking how long Venezuela's dictatorship and the persecution and imprisonment of its people would continue.

National Party senators Martín Lema and Javier García praised what they described as Lacalle Pou's consistency. García called it “a very National Party position” and said it reflected a vision of Uruguay's international role, including a tradition associated with Luis Alberto de Herrera. In his view, Lacalle Pou's reappearance “fills a space that Uruguay had left empty in international politics.”

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A very National Party position. The vision of the best Uruguay internationally, an imprint also inherited from the historic positions of Luis Alberto de Herrera. It fills a space that Uruguay had left empty in international politics.