Does anyone remember the hapless Venezuelan Juan Guaidó, the non-entity whom then-Secretary of State Mike Pompeo recognized in January of 2021 as Venezuela’s “interim President” in an attempt to oust President Nicolas Maduro? A year and a half later he was gone, removed by Venezuela’s own National Assembly, disgraced and rejected as a useless tool of the Anglosphere. Yet it appears that the Biden administration, with less than two months to go before Donald Trump is sworn in, is trying the Guaidó experiment again, People’s Dispatch reported Nov. 23.
On Nov. 19, Secretary of State Tony Blinken posted on X that Edmundo Gonzalez, the opposition figure who ran for President in the July 28 elections, is the legitimate President-elect. “The Venezuelan people spoke resoundingly on July 28 and made Edmundo Gonzalez the President-elect. Democracy demands respect for the will of the voters,” Blinken wrote. For years, Venezuela has suffered the effects of draconian sanctions intended to destabilize the Maduro government in hopes of provoking a domestic uprising against it. The recognition of Gonzalez, who vows he will travel to Venezuela in January to be sworn in as President, is another step in that direction, accompanied by additional sanctions being prepared by the U.S. Congress.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-FL) is leading the charge in demanding that Venezuelans suffer. The BOLIVAR Act, which she introduced, passed the House on Nov. 18. If passed in the Senate, and approved by the President; it will intensify sanctions on the Maduro government by “prohibiting the U.S. government from contracting with any person that has business operations with the illegitimate government of Nicolas Maduro, as well as any successor government of Venezuela not recognized as legitimate by the United States.” Wasserman-Schultz brags that the BOLIVAR Act “will cut off Maduro’s support network and send the clear message that Americans will not tolerate anti-democratic repression—and we certainly won’t subsidize it.”
