On August 21, the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued a couple of new general licences related to Venezuela’s telecommunications sector. Both General Licenses 61 and 62 will now allow the Venezuelan Government (including but not limited to the telecom authority CONATEL and the State-owned telecom company CANTV) to acquire goods and services from and/or related to the United States and authorize them to negotiate new contracts.
To better understand the implications of this on Venezuelan telecommunications, there’s what specialized local journalist William Peña wrote on Telecommunicaciones360 and his conclusion is that “this opens an opportunity to the country in the issue of technologic updating, now it’s up to companies to have resources in order to accelerate their innovation process”.
The reaction from CONATEL to this announcement was so enthusiastic to the point of bragging that these licences “represent the recognition of the institutional legitimacy of the Venezuelan State” and that “these mechanisms reaffirm the intention of strengthening the infrastructure.”
Its press statement also mentioned the many areas that these couple of licenses will help to improve: from telephone and high-speed Internet to subscription TV services and everything in relation to fiber optic cable networks, satellite transmission systems and submarine cable links.
The purchase of any non-US tech not explicitly banned is still subject to OFAC approval.
“Despite being the regulation authority, CONATEL is the one who disposes and provides the equipment for technical analysis of infrastructure and monitoring of the radioelectric spectrum,” Peña told Caracas Chronicles, later adding that “Many of CONATEL’s current equipment is Chinese (in origin) and the Americans do not want that.”
Which leads to the main catch that the OFAC’s licences leave clear by explicitly forbidding: “Any transaction involving a person located in the Russian Federation, the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Republic of Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, or any entity that is owned or controlled by or in a joint venture with such persons.”
The purchase of any non-US tech not explicitly banned is still subject to OFAC approval.
The same day the licenses were published, the US Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Juan Pablo Segura, said on his X account that Chinese tech companies like Huawei, ZTE and several others “cooperate with Beijing’s intelligence services, creating risks of spying, hacking, and network shutdowns” and asked “US partners in the Americas to quickly switch to trusted suppliers to protect their people and their sovereignty”.
A deep relationship
This also comes with challenges for CANTV, which despite being the largest company in the sector, found itself behind in comparison to private companies because of several factors, including the US-set sanctions that forced it to go with what other allies were offering.
Most of those countries mentioned were the only viable options that CANTV and other State entities were left with as a consequence of the US sanctions, and Peña notices their negative impact: “This process, with exceptions like some Chinese Huawei technologies, ended up harming the country’s advance in diverse areas, as beside the issue of language, many of the implemented solutions were not compatible with the technologies passed down and most were of very low quality regarding assets and software solutions with plenty of complications.”
This instruction from Washington to avoid China as a telecom provider was not missed by either the PRC’s embassy in DC or by Hong Kong’s major newspaper, the South China Morning Post, indicating that “the China carve-out could prove particularly consequential. Huawei and ZTE became important suppliers to Venezuela as US sanctions and compliance concerns curtailed other international companies’ ability or willingness to work with government-linked entities”.
The relationship between CANTV and Huawei was very close in matters of system infrastructure, to the point that Peña says the State telecom company has a hefty debt of 600 million dollars with Huawei. “If CANTV already paid for that technology, and has it at its disposal either in inventory or storage, then it’ll be deployed, but from now on any new acquisitions must come from the US.” Many of those issues aren’t directly addressed by OFAC’s licenses.
So important is the role of the Chinese company in CANTV operation that in 2019 there was an unfounded rumor on social media that the Maduro government was about to sell it to Huawei.
A decade later, the political ID card was rolled out, and ZTE’s personnel were working within CANTV in handling the related databases: “We don’t support the government… We are just developing our market.”
ZTE, the other company mentioned by the South China Morning Post, has its own long history not only with Cantv but with the Venezuelan government: the company had a central role in the development of what is one of chavismo’s biggest instruments of political control: the “carnet de la patria”.
A 2018 special report by Reuters mentions how it all started with a visit from a delegation from the Venezuelan Justice Ministry to the headquarters of ZTE in Shenzhen back in 2008. Then, the delegation saw a glimpse of what later became known as the “social credit system”, which started its first trials in some regions of mainland China the following year.
A decade later, the political ID card was rolled out, and ZTE’s personnel were working within CANTV in handling the related databases. This was confirmed by ZTE’s head in Venezuela at the time, Su Qingfeng: “We don’t support the government… We are just developing our market.” The deep rapport between Nicolás Maduro and Xi Jinping continued until very recently. In July 2025, the Gran Expo China-Venezuela exposition was held in Caracas, and new agreements between both governments on a diverse range of issues were signed. Six months later, things would change with Operation Absolute Resolve. The person who signed those deals on behalf of Maduro was then VP Delcy Rodríguez.
Now, the Trump administration is taking a growing interest in Latin America (thanks in part to having new allies in the region like Jose Antonio Kast in Chile or Abelardo de la Espriella in Colombia), and it’s using it to push out the influence of Beijing. Still a work in progress.
The impact on Venezuelan clients
Going back to what these licences could mean for Venezuela’s telecommunications sector, they could bring an expansion of the improvement seen in recent years, like with our Internet service.
Peña mentions the immediate benefit for private companies, domestic and/or foreign: “This will allow them not only to be part of these large purchases, but also for the payments to be made in an easier and more opportune manner. Back in the time of the sanctions, they couldn’t open a bank account in the US, and buying abroad was complicated, causing the costs to go up. Now they can buy again from American companies with no hassle”.
Besides, this can also help with fixing the faults and limitations found because of the June 24 quakes, like the damaged submarine cable which affected overall access for weeks. And even before OFAC’s announcement, CANTC and Liberty Networks launched a joint investment in a new Fenix underwater cable that will connect Venezuela and Curaçao, reinforcing our connectivity.