The Venezuelan Defense Ministry under now-ousted leader Nicolás Maduro in 2020 allocated funds to purchase a ballistic missile system from Iran valued at more than $400 million, according to two people familiar with internal administrative documents authorizing the transaction.
Allegations of discussions between Iran and Venezuela over ballistic missiles capable of reaching American soil were widely reported during the first Trump administration. Venezuela backed down from those efforts under pressure from the U.S. and ultimately did not end up receiving any such weapons systems from Tehran, said Elliott Abrams, who served as President Donald Trump’s special representative for Iran and Venezuela at the time.
Still, a memo from within the Venezuelan Defense Ministry dated Jan. 17, 2020, described in detail to POLITICO by the two people, reveals that talks on the transfer of such missiles from Iran to Venezuela — which multiple administrations have viewed as a potential national security threat — was more extensive and progressed further than previously reported.
The memo — which outlined how the transaction would work and was approved by the country’s then-defense minister — provides tangible evidence Venezuela made moves to acquire a ballistic missile system. It specified how the Venezuelan government planned to funnel money through state-owned companies to make the purchase a reality. It also explained that the system would be operated from platforms on Venezuelan naval vessels.
The two people were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive Venezuelan government information.
It’s not clear that Caracas would have followed through on the purchase, given the high risk of antagonizing the U.S. and the difficulty of coming up with funds in Venezuela’s battered economy.
The Trump administration was “aware” of conversations happening between Caracas and Tehran at the time about acquiring a ballistic missile system, Abrams said. But the U.S. “conveyed that that was not acceptable” and Venezuela’s efforts eventually stopped, he added. Abrams said he was not aware of the document detailing a purchase plan.
The White House and State Department declined to comment on whether the administration was aware of the January 2020 document under the first Trump administration.
In August 2020, seven months after the date on the memo, Maduro said in a televised broadcast that buying missiles from Iran “had not occurred to us” but that it was “a good idea.”
Venezuela has maintained warm ties with Iran for decades, given the two countries’ cooperation through the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. But relations between the two countries only emerged as a cause for concern over the last two decades after Venezuela’s late left-wing populist leader Hugo Chávez moved to strengthen ties with U.S. adversaries. Under Chávez and his successor Maduro, the countries inked dozens of cooperation agreements and defended each other against U.S. criticism and sanctions.
There’s no indication that the Trump administration was considering the influence of Iran in Venezuela when it captured and removed Maduro in January, but U.S. officials have since invoked the Venezuela-Iran relationship as part of its justification for why the president ordered military action to remove him from power. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in January that Maduro’s capture would mean Venezuela could “no longer cozy up to Hezbollah and Iran in our own hemisphere” and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum argued in March that Venezuela posed a direct threat to the U.S. because of its military ties with Iran.
Iran has previously supplied Venezuela with weaponry, including drone systems.
Venezuela’s government, via its missions to the United Nations in New York and Geneva, did not respond to requests for comment. Its embassy in Washington and foreign ministry could not be directly reached for comment.
The degree to which Iran’s influence in Venezuela has posed a threat to the United States is far from a point of consensus. Some analysts argue that while linkages clearly exist between Iran-backed proxies, including Hezbollah, and Venezuela, claims about deep military ties between the two countries may be overblown and Venezuela understood even then that it could not cross certain lines in the eyes of the United States.
“The idea that Venezuela is a forward operating base for Iranian attacks in the Western Hemisphere gets more play than it should,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela analyst and fellow at the Atlantic Council think tank in Washington. “It’s not to say that Venezuela and Iran aren’t cooperating. They are. But even Maduro understood that cozying up to Iran was the fastest way to get on the chopping block.”
There were also doubts that Venezuela even had the funds to make military acquisitions, given the toll sanctions were taking on the petrostate’s economy at the time. Caracas, iced out of much of the global oil market, was running out of money to provide basic products to its people, provoking a major humanitarian crisis.
A State Department spokesperson flagged Rubio’s January remarks to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in which he said Venezuela was “for Iran, their primary spot of operation in the Western Hemisphere.”
Since Maduro’s removal, the U.S. has established a certain amount of control over the Venezuelan government through acting President Delcy Rodríguez, making ongoing ties with Iran less likely.
The 2020 Venezuela government memo was submitted to Vladimir Padrino López, the country’s defense minister at the time, who approved the measure. Rodriguez dismissed Padrino López from government on March 18. Padrino Lopez could not be reached for comment.
And with Iran fighting a war with the U.S. and Israel, it's unlikely Tehran would have weapons to supply if the possibility were to be raised again.
But some analysts argue that there’s a risk of ongoing ties between Venezuelan officials and the Iranian regime.
Carrie Filipetti, who served as deputy special representative for Venezuela at the State Department in the first Trump administration, is not convinced Rodríguez being in power is a sure-fire way to remove ties with Iran and other national security concerns for the U.S., because she’s just “Maduro in a dress” and there was evidence she “warmly embraced the ambassadors of China, Venezuela, China, Russia and Iran.”
Abrams said there are questions about whether the Cubans and Iranians who were in Venezuela before Maduro’s capture have gone home, and whether the intelligence presence is “diminished” or "eliminated."
As for the possibility of ongoing military threats from Venezuela, the White House pointed to a statement made by Trump on Truth Social saying, “Delcy Rodríguez is doing a great job, and working with U.S. Representatives very well. The Oil is beginning to flow, and the professionalism and dedication between both Countries is a very nice thing to see!”
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