Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland, is leading a delegation of State Department, National Security Council, and Southern Command personnel to three Ibero-American nations—Paraguay, Panama, and El Salvador—to peddle the democracy, human rights, and regime-change mantra that is the mainstay of U.S. foreign policy. Along the way, she announced that the U.S. will be supplying Paraguay with one million doses of Pfizer vaccine, with more to go to Peru and Colombia. All well and good. But Nuland, a key architect of the 2014 Nazi coup in Ukraine, offered only lectures on climate change and fighting corruption and nothing in terms of actual assistance to help the COVID-devastated nations of the region rebuild their economies.
Why visit Paraguay? A couple of months ago, there were rumblings that this nation, the only one in South America to maintain ties with Taiwan, might be considering breaking with Taiwan and establishing diplomatic relations with China. This arose around the issue of Paraguay’s need for vaccines. The rumors caused such alarm in Washington, that Secretary of State Tony Blinken called President Abdo Benitez to assure him of the U.S.’s undying support and its commitment to supplying aid and strong economic cooperation. It’s no surprise, then, that in her press conference after meeting with Abdo Benitez, Nuland gushed that “Paraguay’s strong relations with Taiwan set an example for the world and for the region,” EFE news service reported June 28.
