Brazil billionaire flew to Venezuela to urge Maduro to step down

Joesley Batista, co-owner of a sprawling business empire led by the meat-processing giant JBS NV, is quietly positioning himself as a connector trying to defuse political tensions between the Trump administration and Venezuela’s ruling regime.

Batista traveled to Caracas last week in a bid to persuade President Nicolás Maduro to heed Trump’s call to step down and allow for a peaceful transition of power, according to people with knowledge of the trip. He met with Maduro on Nov. 23, days after U.S. President Donald Trump held a phone call with the country’s leader to urge him to leave Venezuela, according to the people, who asked not to be identified without permission to speak publicly.

Trump administration officials were aware of Batista’s plans to visit Caracas and reinforce the president’s message, but he went on his own initiative and wasn’t asked to go on behalf of the U.S., according to some of the people familiar with the trip.

“Joesley Batista is not a representative of any government,” said J&F SA, the Batista family’s holding company, in a statement. It offered no further comment.

The White House declined to comment. Neither Venezuela’s Information Ministry nor Vice President Delcy Rodriguez’s office responded to requests for comment about Batista’s visit.

The trip, which hasn’t been previously reported, marks the latest attempt to defuse tensions after Trump threatened land strikes in Venezuela following months of lethal attacks against alleged drug trafficking boats. The U.S. says the Maduro regime is illegitimate, a criminal group that stole an election last year and facilitates the export of cocaine from Colombia, resulting in American deaths.

Batista’s effort to mediate with Maduro followed the biggest U.S. military deployment in the waters around Latin America in decades, and more than 20 U.S. attacks on alleged drug-running boats near the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia that killed more than 80 people. Trump on Wednesday reiterated that assaults on land will start very soon.

“We know every route, we know every house, we know where they manufacture,” Trump said at a White House event.

Batista’s efforts to add to various attempts at dialogue, including by U.S. envoy Richard Grenell, Qatari diplomats, and financial and oil investors with interests in Venezuela. While the proposals vary regarding how long Maduro would remain in power and whether he would go into exile, they all aim to avoid an escalation of attacks that until now have been waged in international waters.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio in an interview broadcast this week cast doubt on the possibility that the U.S. could negotiate a deal with Maduro to get him to stop drug traffickers, saying the Venezuelan leader has repeatedly broken commitments over the years. Rubio said it’s still worth trying to reach an agreement.

In many ways, Batista has the perfect profile to bridge the divide with Maduro. He’s the rare figure with good relationships with both Trump and the Maduro regime.

JBS owns Colorado-based chicken producer Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., which gave $5 million to Trump’s inaugural committee, the largest single donation. JBS this year won Securities and Exchange Commission approval to list its shares in New York, overcoming fierce opposition from environmental groups and advocacy investors over concerns about past bribery scandals involving the Batista brothers and the company’s alleged role in cattle-driven deforestation of the Amazon.

Batista met with Trump earlier this year to advocate removal of tariffs on beef and a detente with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva after a clash over the prosecution of his predecessor and Trump ally Jair Bolsonaro. JBS is the world’s largest meat supplier and has more than 70,000 employees in the U.S. and Canada.

The Batista family’s ties to Venezuela go back at least a decade. JBS and Maduro years ago negotiated a $2.1 billion deal to supply Venezuela with meat and chicken at a time when the nation was experiencing acute food shortages and hyperinflation. The contract was facilitated by Venezuelan socialist hardline politician and current Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello.

Maduro has ruled Venezuela through increasing repression since 2013, weathering oil sanctions that Trump imposed in January 2019, under his first term.

J&F owns oil production in Argentina. The firm had considered investing in a Venezuelan oil joint venture centered on assets that belonged to ConocoPhillips and were seized by the government of Maduro’s predecessor and patron, Hugo Chávez, in a wave of nationalizations in 2007.

Batista has become increasingly intertwined with power circles since helping transform the butcher shop founded by his father in the 1950s into the world’s largest meat producer — with crucial help from Brazil’s development bank during Lula’s previous administrations. The company became the largest donor to political campaigns in Brazil in 2014, when Lula’s successor, President Dilma Rousseff, was reelected.

Years later, Batista admitted to bribing hundreds of politicians — including a finance minister — in return for funding from state-run banks and pension funds. In 2017, he famously recorded an off-the-agenda meeting with President Michel Temer as part of a plea-bargain deal with Brazilian authorities in exchange for immunity. The scandal rocked the country and triggered one of the deepest stock-market routs in Brazil’s modern history — a day that was subsequently branded “Joesley Day.”

The Trump administration has continued its aggressive approach toward Venezuela. It designated the Cartel de los Soles, a narcotrafficking organization allegedly headed by Maduro and senior Venezuelan officials, as a foreign terrorist organization the day after Batista’s visit to Caracas, ratcheting up pressure.

____

(With assistance from Gerson Freitas Jr.)