An answer to the pressing question of what to do about Venezuela may be starting to take shape. U.S. Rep. Pete Sessions traveled to Venezuela for an unannounced meeting with President Nicolas Maduro on April 5. The day before, Sen. Dick Durbin quietly met with unspecified members of the Venezuelan government and opposition on a trip to the country. A former U.S. official — a Cuba expert in President George W. Bush's administration who had previously negotiated with Venezuelan officials in the wake of an attempted coup in 2002 — visited Venezuela to meet with Maduro in February. The same month, the governor of Carabobo state, a close confidant of Maduro, came to the United States and delivered a message to U.S. lawmakers that Venezuela was willing to discuss freeing Joshua Holt, a U.S. citizen in its custody. The reason for the series of meetings is clear: Caracas is trying to begin substantive negotiations with Washington, starting with Holt's release.

But it will be difficult for the United States to broach the subject of his return (or that of several other U.S. citizens held in Venezuela) without the Venezuelan government making its own demands. Caracas, for example, could ask Washington to remove the sanctions against it or try to get the United States to promise not to implement heavier restrictions on its oil sector. The United States, meanwhile, is unlikely to agree to a deal that would leave Maduro in power, since keeping him in office will do nothing to address the country's political standoff or resolve its economic crisis. Any discussion between the United States and Venezuela will eventually come around to what it will take to get Maduro out of power.

For Maduro to give up the presidency — for instance in the election slated for May 20 — the United States would, paradoxically, have to agree to drop its demands for a free and fair vote. Washington has long backed the Democratic Unity Roundtable — the opposition political coalition that Maduro in December barred from running — and has demanded that the Venezuelan government allow it to contest the election. Now the United States would have to acquiesce to Venezuela's holding the election with Henri Falcon as the only opposition candidate in the running, and holding it in such a way that he could stand a chance of winning. The ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) would rather Maduro slowly turn power over to a known quantity such as Falcon than lose his office suddenly and leave the administration at the mercy of the opposition and the United States. A delay in the election would be a likely signal that discussions along these lines are underway.

If the United States goes through with the talks, however, it may well open up a Pandora's box of competing interests that would hamstring the negotiations. Maduro is pursuing talks probably because of pressure from members of his own administration, but plenty of other Venezuelan officials may want to attach themselves to the discussions, too, to see what they can get. Immunity from criminal prosecution — whether in Venezuela or in the United States — would be at the top of the list. Maduro himself also may bring demands to the talks that would delay a resolution. He could, for example, demand his nephews' release from the United States on cocaine smuggling charges. And Washington would try to insist that the Venezuelan government recognize the opposition and involve it in policymaking. 

The negotiations' complexity, the changes in the U.S. administration's foreign policy team and the realities of domestic politics will all work against a resolution. Arranging a transition away from Maduro, after all, would require Washington to sideline the Democratic Unity Roundtable. Doing so may not sit well with hawkish foreign policy officials such as incoming national security adviser John Bolton, and it definitely won't sit well with Cuban-American politicians such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. Unlike Barack Obama, who undertook his controversial outreach to Cuba during his last term in office, President Donald Trump has his re-election campaign to think about. Trying to negotiate with the Maduro administration would risk alienating voters in Florida, a battleground state in the next presidential race.

For these voters, U.S. government officials and Venezuelan opposition members, the main sticking point with such a negotiation is that it would leave the PSUV in power. Separating Maduro from the government would be an elegant way to stop the party's oppression of opponents and its inaction on the economy. But the PSUV would still control the country's most powerful institutions, such as the military, the government bureaucracy and the state-owned oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela. As a result, the United States would have a hard time squaring the outcome with its stated intent to remove Maduro's administration from power.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration may resort to this solution, for want of a better one. Washington has few options to effect political change in Venezuela without deepening the plight of the population and driving more Venezuelans into Colombia and Brazil. At the same time, if Maduro simply stays in power, a violent nationwide coup could unfold. Allowing the PSUV to undertake a slow transition away from the president and toward political coexistence with the opposition may be the safest and most expedient way to curb the country's chaos.

The obstacles to reaching a deal are numerous. What's more, the Venezuela crisis is still a low enough priority for Washington that it won't have to engage in a negotiation with Maduro's government if it doesn't want to take the risk. Caracas' attempt at dialogue with the United States may fail, but the Maduro administration is trying all the same.