The Biden administration said Friday it was offering $25 million for information leading to the arrest of Nicolás Maduro, the president of Venezuela.
The announcement is Washington’s retaliation measure for Mr. Maduro’s decision to take over the third mandate in the office on Friday. Mr. Maduro has not presented evidence that he won the July election, while his opponent, Edmundo González, has presented thousands of the publicly available vote totals it says they indicate he won easily the most votes.
The United States recognized Mr. González as the newly elected president of Venezuela and invited Mr. Madura to step down.
In 2020, under the Trump administration, the State Department offered a $15 million reward for help in arresting Mr. Maduro. At the time, he was indicted in the United States, accused of a decades-long narco-terrorism and international cocaine-trafficking conspiracy. Mr. Maduro remains under indictment.
Ministry of Justice formal accusation by a foreign head of state was an unusual move that signaled that the United States was likely to take an increasingly hard line toward Mr. Madura.
The new $25 million award represents an escalation.
The United States will also offer $25 million for information leading to the arrest of Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello, up from $10 million.
And the State Department added another reward: $15 million to help apprehend Venezuelan Defense Minister Padrino López.
Just a few minutes after Mr. As Maduro was sworn in for another term on Friday, the US Treasury Department also said it was imposing new sanctions on eight Venezuelan officials, adding to the long list of Maduro allies already under sanctions.
The measures freeze assets held by officials in the United States.
“The United States and its allies in the region pushed Maduro to commit to a democratic transition,” Bradley T. Smith, a Treasury official, said in a statement. “Instead, Maduro and his representatives have continued their violent repression in an attempt to maintain power and have ignored the Venezuelan people’s calls for democratic accountability.”
The Biden administration also announced it would expand protections given to the roughly 600,000 Venezuelans living in the United States who have Temporary Protected Status, a program that allows migrants from countries in crisis to live and work legally in the United States.
Venezuelan migrants who apply can have their status extended for another 18 months.