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President Petro seeks rapprochement with Venezuela Colombia and Venezuela were once part of the same state, have shared a history since their creation, have the same colours on their flags and share a 2,219 km border. What happens on one side of the border affects the other. However, relations between the two sister nations have not always been friendly and have experienced some very critical moments. The inauguration of Gustavo Petro as Colombian president in August 2022 marked a turning point for the prospects of bilateral relations, especially politically, but also economically and socially.The story of a complicated relationshipDespite the traditionally close political, social and economic ties, bilateral relations have been fraught with tension in recent decades. For example, the armed conflict in Colombia led to considerable emigration of Colombians to Venezuela for many years from the second half of the 20th century. The inauguration of Hugo Chávez as President of Venezuela in the late 1990s marked another turning point in relations between the two countries. For more than a decade, bilateral relations were marked by profound differences between Chavez's leftist government and Colombia's conservative government. The panorama deteriorated further when Nicolás Maduro took office in 2013, following the death of Hugo Chávez. Relations between the two countries suffered from the complex humanitarian emergency in Venezuela and the start of mass migration to Colombia triggered by the "Operation to Liberate the People". This operation forced about 22,000 people, mostly Colombians, to leave Venezuela in 2015. According to unofficial data, this number could be as high as 32,000. Ten years later, according to the R4V Coordination Platform for Migration from Venezuela, more than 7 million people have left Venezuela, of which about 2.5 million have resettled in Colombia. While relations were already going through a phase of erosion after the last presidential summit between Juan Manuel Santos and Nicolás Maduro in 2016 and the border closures pushed by Maduro, the discourse against the Venezuelan regime intensified when Iván Duque took office as Colombian president. Bilateral relations were de facto severed in 2019 after Colombia recognised Juan Guaidó as Venezuela's interim president and attempted to force the Maduro regime to allow humanitarian aid into the country with a concert at the border. In February 2019, Maduro decided to sever diplomatic and consular relations with Colombia and gave all Colombian diplomatic personnel 24 hours to leave Venezuela. The common border has been closed three times in the last seven years. The longest period, during the Duque government, was from March 2020 to October 2021 (570 days). This was the longest border closure in the history of both countries. While foreign policy towards Venezuela was at an impasse due to broken relations as well as the recognition of oppositionist Juan Guaidóas a legitimate president, former President Duque focused on measures to protect and integrate Venezuelan migrants at home. The most important of these is the "Temporary Protection Statute for Venezuelan Migrants" (ETPV), a complementary procedure to the international protection system for refugees that allows Venezuelan migrants to move from temporary protection status to normal migration status within a period of 10 years. Today, around 1.5 million migrants already have the Temporary Protection Permit (PPT) and thus a secure, 10-year legal residence status. The Duque government's innovative and generous migration policy has been recognised worldwide. Restarting relations under President PetroSince the Petro government took office on 7 August 2022, circumstances have changed. For the first time in many years, the presidents of both countries are supposedly on the same side of the political spectrum. Already during the election campaign, Gustavo Petro had announced the resumption and normalisation of relations with Venezuela in case of his election victory. In the meantime, Petro has already paid several visits to Venezuela, as have the First Lady, Verónica Alcocer, the Foreign Minister, Álvaro Leyva, and the Minister of Trade, Industry and Tourism, Germán Umaña. In his seven months in office, Petro has already travelled to Venezuela four times to meet with President Maduro. Critics, however, criticise the lack of institutionalisation and intransparency of these meetings. So far, no bilateral thematic agenda has been revealed to flesh out the political declarations of intent to normalise relations. There is a lack of transparency and information and there are no joint statements on the content of the meetings. In recent months, ambassadors Armando Benedetti (Colombia) and Félix Plasencia, who was later replaced by Carlos Martínez (Venezuela), were appointed. On 26 September 2022, the border reopened at the Simón Bolívar Bridge. Subsequently, the Atanasio Girardot Bridge was inaugurated and the "Agreement on the Promotion and Mutual Protection of Investments" and the "Recast of the Partial Scope Agreement No. 28", which had governed trade relations between the two countries since 2011, were signed. President Petro places the expansion of trade relations at the centre of his Venezuela policy. German Umaña, current trade minister and former director of the Colombian-Venezuelan Chamber of Commerce, is considered an expert on Venezuela. According to the Táchira Chamber of Commerce, trade with Colombia reached USD 600 million in 2022, twice as much as in the previous year, but much less than expected by the authorities.  Trade relations are (still) a long way from earlier times, when Venezuela was Colombia's second-largest trading partner. Another important issue in the normalisation of relations is the restoration of consular relations. So far, however, progress on this issue has been slow. The opening of the first Venezuelan consulate in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta was announced only a few days ago. Moreover, the facilities are not yet fully functional. Expectations for the normalisation of relations are high, especially in the border region. In addition to a functioning consular operation in both countries, the regulation of public transport and the re-establishment of air connections as well as a stronger reactivation of trade are needed. It remains to be seen how long it will take for trust to be restored with Venezuelan partners and for economic and social relations to return to the level of earlier times. Parallel to the rebuilding of bilateral relations, a change in the discourse on the migration of Venezuelans to Colombia can be observed in the Colombian government. This important issue does not seem to be on the bilateral agenda - notwithstanding projections that the numbers of migrants to Colombia will continue to increase, reaching almost three million people by 2023, according to R4V projections. At the national level, President Petro seems to want to shift the focus on the migration issue, seeking to extend the legalisation of immigrants under the ETPV to other nationalities and dismantling part of the institutional framework. The most drastic decision in this regard was the abolition of the Office for the Care and Socioeconomic Integration of Venezuelan Migrants. The office, created in 2018, was previously considered a key instrument for effective implementation of migration and integration policies, as well as for coordination between local and regional governments and the national government. When President Petro took office, the migration issue was transferred to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; however, many processes and responsibilities remain unclear, as experts criticise. Critics suspect that the Maduro regime may be pushing to exclude the uncomfortable migration issue from the political and public discussion in order to make progress on other issues in return. Despite the symbolically important resumption of relations and progress in some aspects, major challenges remain in political, economic, migration and security terms. Representatives of civil society and the private sector are calling for a concrete bilateral working agenda as well as more transparency and participation beyond the symbolic politics visible so far.Energy transition and "complete peace"Gustavo Petro came to government with the promise of profound change. The revival of relations with Venezuela is part of this domestic and foreign policy paradigm shift because it is central to the planned energy transition and the "complete peace" propagated by Petro. Thus, gas imports from Venezuela are to support Colombia's exit from coal and oil production. And in the negotiations with the ELN guerrillas, the regime of Nicolás Maduro sits at the table as a guarantor state. The proposal to rely on gas imports from Venezuela in the future has met with criticism from the opposition and experts, as it would put Colombia's currently self-sufficient energy supply at risk and place it in a relationship of dependency with Venezuela.  Although Colombia has proven gas reserves for eight years and sufficient capacity not to depend on other countries for its desired energy transition, the government is considering the possibility of not signing any more contracts for the exploration and exploitation of oil and gas. Instead, gas imports from Venezuela are to fill the expected energy gap. The debate is taking place in the context of Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine, which is not only driving up international energy prices, but also highlights the risks of making one's sovereignty dependent on other countries for energy supplies. According to the Colombian Natural Gas Association (Naturgas), importing gas would increase the price for Colombian households by about five times. President Petro, on the other hand, publicly stated that Colombia was already importing gas from other countries. While gas prices were rising, private actors were enriching themselves, the president said. Experts question whether Venezuela will really be able to supply gas in the quantities needed, given the state of its current infrastructure.  Whether the early phase-out of fossil energy production and the massive expansion of renewable energies propagated by President Petro in the election campaign will really be supported by gas imports from Venezuela is currently still an open question. Beyond the government's political rhetoric, there are increasing signs that state revenues from oil and gas production will be necessary in the medium term to finance a sustainable energy transition. Besides the energy transition, Venezuela is also an important actor for the Colombian peace process. The Petro government's decision to make Venezuela the guarantor of the negotiation process with the National Liberation Army (ELN) was therefore not unexpected. As a binational guerrilla active on both sides of the border, negotiations with the ELN are hardly realistic without Venezuela's participation. According to information from InSight Crime, the ELN has a permanent presence in eight states of the neighbouring country; at least five members of the central command have their permanent residence in Venezuela. Nevertheless, critics accused the president of unnecessarily legitimising Nicolás Maduro's regime internationally through this mediating role. Security experts consider it paradoxical to appoint Nicolás Maduro as guarantor of the process, as there is evidence of cooperation between Venezuelan security forces and the ELN. It is therefore uncertain which interests the Maduro regime represents in accompanying the negotiations.President Petro in the mediating roleWhereas under its predecessor governments, Colombia was recognised internationally as an actor that clearly criticised the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, the humanitarian crisis of the Venezuelan people and the resulting refugee migration flows to other countries, the discourse has now changed. Petro sees himself more in the role of mediator to alleviate Venezuela's isolation and to support dialogue on democratic elections in the neighbouring country. The issue of Venezuela played an important role during his state visit to the US. In talks with the US government, he advocated an easing of sanctions against Venezuela if Maduro was willing to make concessions in return. In his speech to the Permanent Council of the Organisation of American States (OAS), he proposed rewriting the democratic charter to put Venezuela and even Cuba back on the path to democracy. Another example of Colombia's new mediating role was the International Conference on Venezuela in Bogotá on 25 April, to which the Petro government invited representatives from more than 20 countries. The initiative was endorsed by the Maduro regime, the United States and part of the Venezuelan opposition. According to Colombian Foreign Minister Álvaro Leyva, the aim of the conference was to unblock negotiations between Maduro and the Venezuelan opposition in Mexico in order to hold democratic elections in Venezuela and, in turn, to persuade the international community to end economic sanctions. Attention was drawn to the expulsion of Juan Guaidó, who entered the country illegally and was immediately put on a scheduled flight to Miami by the Petro government. The conference did not lead to concrete results; even a joint final declaration was missing. Afterwards, participants described the conclusions of the Colombian government as one-sided. Whether the Petro government's continued rapprochement with Venezuela can also convince the international community to ease sanctions will largely depend on the progress of negotiations on democratic elections between Maduro and the opposition.ConclusionDespite some important steps such as the opening of the border and the resumption of diplomatic relations, it is still too early to make a conclusive assessment of the prospects for Colombian-Venezuelan relations. Political rhetoric and symbolic politics are contrasted by a bilateral thematic agenda that is still barely discernible. The ultimately unsuccessful political approach of the previous Duque government, which was characterised by non-recognition and the goal of replacing Maduro's regime, has given way under President Petro to an open attitude that is willing to engage in dialogue. Critics accuse President Petro of not taking sufficient account of the authoritarian character of the Venezuelan government in the course of the rapprochement and of strengthening the Maduro regime in its self-chosen role as international mediator and advocate for the easing of sanctions. While the tone and interpersonal relationship between political leaders on both sides of the borders has visibly eased, structural challenges and clashes of interests - migration to Colombia, the role of the ELN, economic interests, security and drug trafficking - remain and require complex and institutional approaches. While the Maduro regime can play for time in negotiations with the opposition to secure its own hold on power, President Petro has only one term in office to implement his ambitious domestic and foreign policy agenda. Venezuela is an important player and possible partner in this, especially with regard to the peace process and the desired energy transition. President Petro still has more than three years left in his term to prove that his détente course towards Venezuela is the better policy approach to strengthen democracy, security and development in the region.

The war in Ukraine accelerated a global energy crisis just as the world was beginning to recover from the Covid-19 pandemic. Venezuela has the largest crude oil and the eighth largest gas reserves in the world and can therefore offer an alternative for Europe to replace its fossil fuels imports from Russia. The problem is, of course, that EU–Venezuela relations have been in a sorry state since the EU denounced President Nicolás Maduro’s re-election in 2018 as neither free nor fair. Since then, the EU has adopted targeted sanctions against the Venezuelan government, thus adding to the maximum economic pressure that former US President Donald Trump imposed on Caracas in an attempt to fatally weaken Maduro. This approach has yielded no result in that respect, and the war in Ukraine, and its energy security implications for the EU, creates the occasion for a revision of EU and US strategies. The hope is that a “more carrots, less sticks” approach could convince Maduro to engage in meaningful dialogue with the opposition. The EU must seize this opportunity of rapprochement and readiness and push forward the recommendations put forth in its electoral observation mission’s report of 2021, reconcile internal disputes to focus on the big picture, give momentum to dialogue efforts, consolidate support among regional allies and rekindle its efforts towards humanitarian relief.A failed pressure strategyVenezuela used to be among the most prosperous countries in Latin America, but is now home to one of the largest external displacement crises in the world next to Syria and Ukraine, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. When he came into power in 2013, President Maduro inherited from his predecessor Hugo Chávez a country in economic turmoil, high in debt and on an increasingly authoritarian track. The slump in oil prices in 2014 added fuel to the fire, prompting a wave of unrest to which Maduro responded with repression. He then tried to replace the democratically elected National Assembly, which had an opposition majority, with a loyalist Constituent Assembly in 2017. But it was after the 2018 presidential election, when Maduro secured a second term in what are widely considered rigged elections, that Venezuela descended into a full-blown political crisis. Juan Guaidó, speaker of the National Assembly, used a constitutional clause to declare himself interim president until new elections could be held, backed by more than 60 countries worldwide. In the following years, various negotiations attempts between Maduro and the opposition failed to solve the country’s political dispute, prompting fatigue in the opposition ranks while eventually consolidating Maduro’s authoritarian grip. As the political crisis unfolded, the EU and the United States responded with sanctions against the Maduro regime, although with different goals. The Trump administration pursued regime change through a maximum pressure strategy. Instead, the EU combined targeted restrictive measures with humanitarian aid and support for dialogue and mediation efforts. EU efforts have been hampered by: internal divergences, especially on the recognition of Guaidó as interim president; multipolar competition and the perceived excessive proximity with the United States; and regional fragmentation and polarisation. Sanctions have failed to produce substantial change as Russia and China, and to some degree Iran and Turkey, have continued trade (including in oil) and strengthened economic ties with the Maduro regimeHow has the EU mitigated constraining factors on its policy?There have been two issues over which the EU struggled, even failed, to reach consensus. The first was the recognition of Guaidó as interim president. While most member states eventually did so, Italy and Cyprus dragged their feet, until the issue became irrelevant in early 2021 when the term of the National Assembly of which Guaidó was speaker expired. EU divergences stemmed from the political composition of member state governments and their view of the EU’s role in the world. Left-leaning governments in the EU tended to frame the recognition of Guaidó as a US-led, “interventionist” initiative, while right-leaning governments advocated a confrontational approach to Maduro, including through the recognition of Guaidó. It was a missed opportunity to show EU unity and put the spotlight on the EU’s difficulty to reach agreement over its foreign policy. Second, internal disagreements within EU institutions and member states revolved around the opportunity to send an electoral observation mission to local and regional elections in November 2021, out of fear that this could whitewash the Maduro regime. The mission eventually garnered enough support to be deployed and was later largely perceived as a success by EU member states. The EU electoral observation mission (EOM) produced a report with recommendations that have become the benchmark for the conditions for a free and fair election in the agenda of the Mexico-based talks between the government and the opposition. The region’s fragmented and polarised approach to the Venezuelan crisis has been another factor hampering EU efforts. Trump’s push for regime change, embraced by most Latin American countries led by right-wing governments in 2019–20 (crystallised by the creation of the so-called Lima Group) exacerbated geopolitical tensions in the region. The EU-backed creation of the International Contact Group (ICG) in 2019, which aimed to promote dialogue but did not bear fruit because it coincided with the recognition of Guaidó and the EU's rapprochement with the Lima Group. Regional polarisation was epitomised by the appointment of a Guaidó representative in the Organization of American States, despite Maduro’s decision to withdraw from the pan-American body, and the prolonged stalemate in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean states (CELAC). The EU was dragged into a polarisation spiral where its policies were associated with those of the Trump administration, even though they had different objectives. Besides, Trump’s policy of maximum pressure as an instrument for democratisation proven ineffective in a context of geopolitical competition with China and Russia. Their support for the Maduro regime allowed it to survive, even though at the cost of the country’s descent into economic disaster. Russia in particular also invested political capital by participating in the Mexico talks as the government’s accompanying country.A changed scenario, a new strategy?President Biden’s election and Latin America’s shift towards the left created openings for a more constructive international engagement with Venezuela, which have further widened after the outbreak of the Ukraine war, providing the EU with a new set of foreign policy options. The EU and the US, together with Canada and the United Kingdom, have signalled a willingness to agree to conditional sanctions relief. The Biden administration has permitted American oil company Chevron to resume limited oil operations in Venezuela in exchange for an agreement by Maduro and the opposition to continue dialogue after a year of stalemate. The talks have made no progress other than an agreement to turn up to 3 billion US dollars of frozen government fund into aid to be distributed by the UN and the International Red Cross to alleviate the domestic humanitarian predicament. Although a more concessions-based foreign policy towards Venezuela may not lead to the regime change some have hoped for, it could still make Maduro willing to allow for fairly free and democratic elections in 2024, when his second term comes to an end. However, it is clear that the humanitarian crisis will not be over shortly, and the implementation of the 2022 agreement between government and opposition is proceeding slowly. Increased EU humanitarian aid could help promote goodwill in Venezuela and in the region, and thus is not solely to be considered an altruistic gift, but an important part of the EU’s foreign policy arsenal. Finally, Venezuela and the broader region of Latin America and the Caribbean is not only important due to its natural resources, but an important political partner for the EU in its bid to defend a rule-based global order. This has become ever more evident since the war on Ukraine, which has seen some Latin American countries refusing to pick sides. Over the last few years the political landscape in Latin America changed with the election of leftist presidents in almost all countries in the region, with interest in seeking a negotiated response to the crisis in Venezuela. The International Conference on Venezuela convened by Colombian President Gustavo Petro in Bogotá in April 2023 is an illustration of the region’s renewed engagement on the issue. The upcoming EU–CELAC summit in July, the first in eight years, is an opportunity to engage with regional partners to foster political cooperation on global and regional issues, including Venezuela. The EU’s pragmatic rapprochement with Venezuela offers the prospect for some progress in the negotiations between government and opposition, but it should not be perceived as a relegation of EU’s commitment to democratic norms. The EU should not waste the opportunity to step up its diplomatic engagement with the region and coordination with the US and like-minded countries to ensure that Maduro concedes a real level playing field for the 2024 elections while at the same time pursuing its strategic goal of diversifying energy supplies. This article is brief published under JOINT, a project which has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 959143.

If the Global Gateway is to compete with the Belt and Road Initiative, it must go big, green, digital, and ethical. And it can prove it in Latin America  The European Union launched its Global Gateway initiative in December 2021, but its results have not yet matched the expectations it raised. If it is to compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Gateway must be bold, green, digital, and ethical. The digital alliance that the EU is setting up in Latin America and the Caribbean provides an opportunity for the EU to put its money where its mouth is.  On 14 March, the executive vice-president of the European Commission, Margrethe Vestager, and several ICT ministers from Latin America and the Caribbean established the EU – Latin America and Caribbean (EU-LAC) Digital Alliance – one of the European Commission’s initiatives launched in the framework of the Global Gateway programme. The alliance will focus on three pillars: investments in connectivity, aimed at closing the gap in internet access between the region and the EU, and within and between the countries of the region; cybersecurity, where despite the great progress made by the region, significant gaps remain that threaten citizens, businesses, and sovereign states alike; and digital rights, a field of enormous potential, as both regions share a human-centric approach to digital transformation. The project is of major strategic importance and potential for the EU. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has given new prominence to the EU’s relationship with Latin America and the Caribbean. The region comprises 33 countries which are key to sustaining a rules-based multilateral order and whose votes China and Russia have courted in the United Nations General Assembly. There are also massive investment opportunities in the green and digital sectors in Latin America and the Caribbean, making it an important region in the EU’s search for strategic autonomy. However, relations between the two regions have gone through numerous ups and downs since leaders first spoke of a “strategic association” at an EU-LAC summit in Rio in 1999. In recent years, the EU financial crisis, the United States’ lack of interest in the region, and the covid-19 pandemic have allowed China and, to a lesser extent, Russia to expand their presence in the region: while EU trade with the region doubled between 2008 and 2018, China’s trade multiplied tenfold thanks to its strategic approach through the BRI, which has added to China’s already significant foreign direct investment flows and loans to the region. The EU is seeking to revitalise this relationship. But for the EU-LAC partnership to be successful, it is essential that these political agreements and declarations are accompanied by a meaningful investment agenda and package, as well as a clear roadmap for implementation. So far, the EU’s approach to the region has focused on programmes such as the Bella submarine cable connecting Europe and the region and the Copernicus Earth observation satellite system, which lack the scale to change perceptions of the EU. For its part, the Global Gateway programme is far from mobilising the €300 billion in investments initially announced, and the €3.5 billion  earmarked for investment in Latin America is insufficient to alter the strategic balance in a region where the required investment just for connectivity is estimated at $51 billion. The digital transition that the EU and the countries of the region want to promote could be the catalyst for a change of step in relations The digital transition that the EU and the countries of the region want to promote could be the catalyst for a change of step in relations. But for this to be feasible, certain conditions must be met. Firstly, if the Global Gateway is to be attractive for the region and effectively compete with the BRI, it must rebalance its geographical focus to pay more attention to the region. At present, 60 per cent of projects are focused on sub-Saharan Africa, while only 20 per cent are devoted to Latin America, and another 20 per cent to Asia. It should then focus more efforts on digital initiatives: currently, energy and green transition initiatives make up 80 per cent of projects, while digital initiatives account for 15 per cent and social initiatives for 5 per cent. The projects identified in the digital field are almost exclusively focused on connectivity issues, such as financing fibre, cable, satellite, and 5G investments. Closing connectivity gaps is urgent. Currently, over 35 per cent of Latin Americans still do not have access to a fixed broadband internet connection, and 20 per cent do not have mobile broadband access  – twice the average for OECD countries – concentrated in the lowest income quintile and rural and remote areas. However, the digital agenda in 2023 must be one of transformation, not just connectivity. It should therefore include issues such as cybersecurity, the digitisation of public administrations and services (including health, migration, justice, and taxation), training and education in key skills, the regulation of artificial intelligence, and data governance. Alongside the deployment of 5G and investment in digital, technical, and soft skills, this would bring the financing requirements for the region closer to $300 billion, which is 3 per cent of regional GDP. To address these geographical and thematic imbalances, the region therefore requires a more intensive European investment plan. The Global Gateway envisages mobilising private financial resources by setting up co-financing mechanisms from development banks, in particular the European Investment Bank, the CAF bank, Central American Bank for Economic Integration, and the Inter-American Development Bank. Despite the current meagre projections, it should be possible to mobilise the funding. After all, the EU is the leading foreign direct investor in Latin America, its telecom companies are global players, it plays a pioneering role in digitalisation in banking, insurance, infrastructure, energy, public services, industry, agriculture, and mining, and it holds first-class cybersecurity and hybrid threats capabilities. The launch of the digital alliance is expected to be accompanied by a business meeting of key Euro-Latin American companies, which, if confirmed at high-level, is a promising sign.   The EU’s digital agenda is attractive to third parties compared to China’s BRI because it includes green, social, and ethical components, making it an ally of the green transition, not a competitor. Many of its initiatives contribute to both digital and green goals, including the development of the ‘internet of things’ for the design of smart cities, the use of big data and cloud data to monitor the temperature of the oceans, and artificial intelligence applied to the protection of biodiversity. Europe’s rights-based, human-centric approach to digitalisation should also appeal to Latin America and the Caribbean. The region is seeking to align its approach with that of the EU, with a special focus on social, gender, and territorial inequalities and inclusiveness, which are not Chinese priorities. The cost of these inequalities is huge: achieving full gender parity in Latin America would expand the region’s GDP by $2.6 trillion – the equivalent of Brazil’s economy. Closing the internet access gap and investing in skills will help reduce these inequalities in the region, especially among women and in rural areas, and help younger generations. The Global Gateway has been criticised for over-promising and under-delivering. The EU-LAC Digital Alliance offers an opportunity for the EU to show the worth of the Global Gateway and demonstrate that it can offer an alternative to the Chinese Digital Silk Road.

Imagine a future in which countries desperate for investment give up a patch of their territory and subcontract governance to a board chosen by a foreign corporation. Sound like the East India Company of the past? Until the 2021 election of Honduran president Xiomara Castro, the past was now—Zones for Employment and Economic Development (Zonas de Empleo y Desarrollo Económico in Spanish, or ZEDEs) had been permitted to establish their own near-tax-free paradises in company-governed territorial fiefdoms. The investor-governed territories include one that accepts its own cryptocurrency and allegedly tramples rights of indigenous and Afro-Caribbean populations, another where small farmers were forced to sell their land—all were criticized by the United Nations as threatening basic human rights and criticized by Honduran civil society for worsening problems of tax evasion and narcotrafficking. What is clear is that they violated basic democratic principles of representative government and undermined national sovereignty, including denying the validity of international labor and environmental treaty obligations agreed by the Honduran state.   It all began when a 2009 Honduran military coup ousted a democratically elected president. The next Honduran president and the Congress passed a law to cede portions of its territory to corporate investors as “charter cities” but were blocked by the Supreme Court. In response, Congress impeached the judges, packed the court, and engineered a new law to create ZEDEs. According to a study published in Central American Journals Online, ZEDEs are comparable to the Spanish colonial model, creating foreign-controlled economic zones on Honduran territory. The president of the Congress, Juan Orlando Hernández, went on to be the next president, governing two terms after his handpicked Supreme Court-sanctioned reelection. Eight years later, Hernández now sits in a U.S. jail awaiting trial for narco-trafficking, the same charges on which his brother was sentenced to life in a U.S. prison. Last year, the first opposition government elected since the coup made doing away with ZEDEs part of its electoral campaign, and among the first laws passed by the new Congress was ZEDEs elimination. The law passed unanimously, including votes from the very party that had put the ZEDEs in place. The reversal was the culmination of a broad civil society movement that brought together women, indigenous, Afro-Honduran, labor, and local business interests. Predictably, only the foreign investors want the paradises to remain. It is worthwhile to look at the record of the ZEDEs. They found resonance among conservative Honduran economists and were championed by Paul Romer, an economist who extrapolated from the experience of places like Singapore and Hong Kong to presume that cities could carve out independent regulatory regimes to promote development in the midst of poorly governed areas. Originally part of an oversight board to the charter cities, Romer resigned in response to Honduran government evasion of oversight processes and lack of “transparency.” Romer’s fears appear to have been well-founded, as the oversight board established for the ZEDEs is now a self-perpetuating body that even a think tank founded to support charter cities views skeptically for including "Ronald Reagan’s son (a conservative media personality), anti-tax activist Grover Norquist, and a member of the Habsburg dynasty.” It goes on to say that “the ZEDEs were clearly more of an ideological exercise than a practical exercise to generate development.” Romer may have gotten out just in time for additional reasons, as the record of the ZEDEs has been poor in terms of economic, environmental, and democratic impacts. Compared to what Honduras would have collected otherwise, even conservative estimates suggest the tax exemptions offered to the ZEDEs would cost equal to almost half of current sales taxes by 2025 and a value equal to all current import taxes by 2026. Worse, some of the ZEDEs build investor paradise workplaces and residences but appear to provide almost no public services, except their private police, even as they deny the Honduran state sufficient tax revenue to provide schools, health clinics, and courts. Pitched as model cities, ZEDEs are actually far from that, including one that offered preferential treatment for agricultural investments and mining concessions, evading existing environmental and other regulations on decidedly nonurban activities. In the face of social opposition to the ZEDEs, the Honduran Congress had toughened punishments for blocking property or businesses, making it easier for ZEDEs private security forces to repress protesters. Private security force and paramilitary violence against opponents of megaprojects like ZEDEs is common in Honduras—and in one case a lawyer representing indigenous communities opposed to the original charter cities law was murdered, sparking condemnation from the State Department, but impunity for the killers meant there was no proven link to his political work. In spite of this poor record, most of those who want to preserve the ZEDEs point to potential benefits without any evidence. Supporters claim ZEDEs will be a boon to employment, but rates of unemployment have remained unchanged since ZEDEs began, estimates of the actual number of ZEDEs jobs created hover around 15,000 in the eight years ZEDEs have been on the books, and ZEDEs undermine and evade existing labor legislation. Supporters present ZEDEs as complementary to U.S. nearshoring, but estimates of benefits to Honduras from nearshoring lag behind eight other Latin American countries, none of which have ZEDEs. Supporters argue ZEDEs will head off growing Chinese influence, but China is one of the countries interested in investing in ZEDEs. Supporters suggest ZEDEs will address problems of corruption, but the director of the ZEDE oversight board was secretary of the presidency to the jailed former president and has continued to draw a salary even after fleeing to neighboring Nicaragua to escape his own corruption and narcotrafficking investigations. Supporters argue ZEDEs will generate trade, investment, and growth, but since the ZEDEs law was passed in 2013, trade as a percentage of GDP dropped in five of eight years and is now lower than it was before, foreign direct investment decreased as a percentage of GDP every year except 2018, and GDP growth was below 4 percent in six of the eight years. Overblown aspirations have two main problems: first, they violate basic democratic principles of citizen representation, adherence to rule of law, and international treaty obligations; and second, in the eight years since ZEDEs were allowed, none of these promises have been fulfilled. Why the sudden kerfuffle about an obscure scheme abandoned by its founder, instituted by a corrupt politician now in jail in the United States, revoked by the country that adopted it, and that showed minimal actual impact? Perhaps because one ZEDE investor has provided grants to think tanks to start a dialogue on the issue, the results of which may have convinced some in the State Department, the U.S. Embassy in Honduras, and a few members of Congress, even threatening the newly elected Honduran government with reprisals such as withdrawal of aid, forced restitution payments, or limiting the Honduran share of the Partnership for Central America, the private sector investment plan led by Vice President Kamala Harris. For the richest country in the hemisphere to threaten to withhold or extract resources from the third-poorest country lends credence to the critiques of those who viewed the ZEDEs as colonial. Worse, withholding funds or forcing restitution would undermine the core intent of the Harris plan—invest in Honduras to stem outmigration, address low growth, and improve governance. Instead of listening to those who are advocating for a few private corporations’ desire to cash in on their fiefdoms, the United States should be supporting stronger Honduran institutions, starting with respecting the democratic will of the Honduran people.