By any honest assessment, the Biden administration’s Venezuela policy has failed, and predictably so. Barely three months after unilaterally removing sanctions on the Maduro regime in October, the results are painfully clear.

Rather than entice Caracas toward a democratic opening, Biden’s attempted rapprochement has only emboldened Maduro to crack down on opposition leadership and even inch toward an armed invasion of neighboring Guyana.

It is time to align U.S.-Venezuela policy with reality. The Maduro regime is a criminal dictatorship concerned only with its own survival. Rather than recognize this, however, the Biden administration has desperately sought to salvage its ill-fated Venezuela strategy, and appears poised to accommodate the Maduro regime’s efforts to hold sham elections this year in which the regime hand-selects its opponent.

Washington’s main defense of its move to remove key sanctions on a variety of industries—from state run oil company PDVSA to the gold industry, which relies on illegal mining, widespread environmental destruction, and transnational crime—has been that this will incentivize the Maduro regime to conduct free and fair elections in 2024.

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The effect, of course, has been the opposite. Since the removal of sanctions, the Maduro regime has worked to overturn the results of the opposition party’s primary, in which over one million Venezuelans selected Maria Corina Machado as leader of the opposition. Not only has Maduro barred Machado from the ballot, but he has also launched a new wave of political repression against her team and others, ordering the arrest of more than a dozen of Machado’s closest advisors and also jailing prominent human rights defender Rocio San Miguel.

Emboldened by Biden, the Maduro regime is even laying the ground for the annexation of neighboring Guyana’s oil-rich Essequibo territory. While this may be bluster and purposeful distraction, the potential of an invasion should not be dismissed. It reveals again the destructive nature of the Maduro regime.

So far, the Biden administration’s response has been to blur its own stated redlines and demands in order to avoid fully reinstating sanctions.  

This shouldn’t come as a surprise. Almost immediately after taking office—well before the major shifts on sanctions announced in October—Biden had taken his foot off the sanctions pedal, pausing new targeted sanctions in Venezuela and reversing many of the restrictions imposed under the Trump administration.

For example, over a year before the general and unilateral removal of oil and gold sector sanctions, Biden had already been steadily removing restrictions on Venezuela’s oil sector, even giving Chevron permission to resume oil extraction in late 2022. Then, as now, Washington’s actions emboldened Venezuela’s dictatorship. The Maduro regime responded to the removal of those restrictions by walking away from mediated negotiations with the opposition in Mexico City.

Unfortunately, Biden didn’t learn anything from this. What we have seen in Venezuela since October is simply the acceleration of Biden administration’s previous failed policy approach. This time, though, the Maduro regime’s actions were so blatant that Biden was forced to set a new redline in Venezuela and warn that sanctions will be reimposed in April without “progress” on free and fair elections.

Maduro seems ready to call Biden’s bluff. His bet has a firm logical basis. After all, the new April sanctions deadline actually replaces an identical November deadline the U.S. set and ignored last year. Worse still, the Biden administration and its allies now seem to be working with Maduro to sideline Maria Corina Machado in the 2024 elections. Indeed, the administration’s public statements and engagements with the Maduro regime have notably omitted reference to Machado, despite her overwhelming victory in last year’s opposition primary. The same goes for Biden’s allies in Congress. During a recent Foreign Affairs Committee public roundtable with Machado, for instance, Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) echoed the talking point that negotiations with Maduro and the opposition are “not about one person, but a process.”

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But no amount of spin can change the fact that the criminal Maduro regime remains the single greatest threat to stability in the Western Hemisphere. Through its material support for transnational drug trafficking organizations, its weaponization of migration to the U.S., its bolstering of the presence of Iran, China, and Russia in the Americas, and its belligerent actions toward its neighbors, the criminal regime in Caracas has proven itself utterly incompatible with regional peace and prosperity.

It doesn’t have to be this way. Biden can change everything if he drops his appeasement policy and recognizes that a socialist narco-dictator like Maduro will never willingly open a path for his own electoral ouster. Biden could change course and apply pressure through reimposed sanctions, targeting Venezuela’s international criminal support structure, and staunchly bolster true pro-democracy leaders.

Moreover, the U.S. and the international community could stand clearly and unequivocally with Maria Corina Machado, supporting her invaluable efforts to pressure Maduro’s dictatorship from within Venezuela by making demands for her guaranteed safety and for her ability to participate in internationally observed elections.

If Biden refuses to change course, Congress must act and hold the administration accountable for its failure, forcing it to honor its commitment to reimpose sanctions.