What does the exchange of prisoners between the US and Venezuela say about Trump's relationship with Maduro

10 Americans released in an exchange of prisoners with Venezuela pose with the US flag. — Photo foot, The US embassy in Venezuela published in X a photo of the 10 Americans released in a exchange of prisoners.

- Author, Gerardo Lissardy
- Author's title, BBC News World
July 19, 2025, 00:20 GMT

Updated 4 hours

The news was able to surprise someone off guard: the United States and Venezuela, two governments faced rhetorically and ideologically, prisoners exchanged this Friday.

The exchange implies the release of 10 Americans detained in Venezuela and the repatriation of 252 Venezuelan migrants who USA to El Salvador this year, authorities of these last two countries reported.

The US Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that the agreement also implies “the liberation of Venezuelan political prisoners”, without specifying how many.

But the exchange is also a confirmation of the ability of a pragmatic mutual treatment developed by the governments of Donald Trump and Nicolás Maduro, beyond their differences.

“This is exactly how diplomacy is supposed to work,” says Cynthia Arnson, an attached teacher at the International Relations School of the Johns Hopkins University in Washington, to BBC Mundo.

“We were enemies”

When Trump assumed his second mandate in January, many expected that the US policies to the socialist government of Venezuela.

These expectations arose in part of what happened in his first term (2017-2021), when Trump unsuccessfully sought the fall of Maduro through his diplomatic isolation, sanctions and statements about a “possible military option” for Venezuela.

“We were enemies with Venezuela,” Trump himself said in August, in full campaign to return to the White House, and described Maduro as “dictator.”

Trump speaks in 2019 against members of the community of Venezuela in Miami, with the flag of this country in front and behind him — Photo foot, Trump faced Maduro's government hard in his first term, without the bridges and agreements he has established now.

However, after his return to power, surprises began.

Richard Grenelll, a Trump envoy, traveled to Caracas on January 31, met with Maduro and returned to his country with six American prisoners released by his host.

He also said that Maduro's commitment to receive Venezuelans deported by Trump's government in his country, in exchange for the “huge gift” that supposed for him the “hope of a different future.”

In May it was learned that Venezuela had released another American who had a veteran of the Air Force of his country.

Then negotiation reports arose for an exchange of detainees such as the one that has just been completed this Friday.

The treatment came to stagnate for internal discrepancies in the US government, said the newspaper The New York Times Earlier this month.

And he said that these differences were due to Grenell negotiating a more attractive pact for Caracas than the one who sought in parallel the State Department, since he admitted that the oil company Chevron maintained operations in Venezuela.

Venezuelans who were arrested in El Salvador address a plane back to their country. — Photo foot, The Venezuelans who were arrested in El Salvador were sent by plane back to their country.

Chevron is a US company whose operations in Venezuela became a crucial source of income for Maduro's government, but Washington announced in May that it would expire the license for that.

It is not clear for now if the agreement for the exchange of detainees includes Chevron or other concessions.

“Both Rubio and Republicans in Congress do not seem willing to soften the oil or others to the Venezuelan regime, while Grenell and perhaps even President Trump seem more open to allow Chevron to serve oil from Venezuela,” Arnson explains.

While this analyst suspects that the US will maintain a hard line towards Venezuela, others believe that at least now the least ideological and more transactional wing was imposed within the government of Trump on a more rigid one that includes those who have links with the Cuban and Venezuelan communities in the US as a blond.

Adam Isacson, security and defense expert of the Washington Office for Latin America, a human rights organization known for its acronym in WOLA, points out that in the US “those who are willing to make a deal with the Venezuelan government and even give it a propaganda victory won” this Friday.

Among the governments of Trump and Maduro “there is no love, but there is certainly less tension than during the years of (the previous US president) Biden,” Isacson tells BBC Mundo.

“A different standard”

The idea of an exchange of prisoners between San Salvador and Caracas emerged in April, after Trump's government deported 252 Venezuelans to the Cecot megacárcel of the Central American country, known for accommodating Expandilleros.

Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele then said he was willing to send those detainees to Venezuela if the same amount of “political prisoners” were released by the Maduro government, who called Cínica the proposal.

Bukele and Trump shake hands in the White House — Photo foot, Bukele, who announced the repatriation of Venezuelans detained in his country for an agreement with the US is a Trump ally in the region.

But the concretion of an exchange that also involves Citizens of the United States question prior statements of the White House in the sense that it lacked power over the migrants that sent El Salvador in exchange for millionaire payments to the Bukele government.

“It is evident that El Salvador would not have done this without the participation and approval of US officials. So that contradicts what they were saying to court,” says Isacson.

Bukele, who has become a Trump key ally in the region and is accused of critics of violating democratic norms in his country, said that many of the Venezuelans who repatriated this Friday “face multiple positions of murder, robbery, rape and other serious crimes.”

A Venezuelan arrested gesture walking to address the flight to Venezuela as part of a detainee exchange agreement between Venezuela and the United States. — Photo foot, The return of Venezuelan migrants to your country questions according to experts the criminal records attributed to them by the Trump government.

Trump's government has assured on different occasions, without offering clear evidence, that Venezuelans who deported El Salvador skipping the usual legal processes belonged to the Aragua Train, a group that recently designated as “foreign terrorist organization.”

But that statement also seems in question now, by accepting Washington that those Venezuelans return to their country of origin, says Isacson.

“Do you imagine that the US accepts to send Al Qaeda members back to Pakistan, or members of Isis back to Syria?”

“It is a different standard of terrorism, in quotes, especially since we know for the news that most of these men had no links with the criminal group at all.”