Guaido Hopes to Maintain Bipartisan Support for Venezuela Regime Change

Democrats in Congress have criticized Trump for failing to achieve regime change in Venezuela

Venezuela’s Juan Guaido said on Tuesday that he hopes to keep support from both Republicans and Democrats as Joe Biden prepares to take office. Since January 2019, the US has recognized Guaido as the president of Venezuela, despite Nicolas Maduro still holding the position in Caracas.

“Any president in the world today would want to get closer to a solution to the crisis in Venezuela,” Guaido said in an interview. “We want to have bipartisan support. It’s a challenge for us, not for the new administration … to show a path toward a viable solution.”

The Trump administration’s recognition of Guaido came with a few failed coup attempts and crippling economic sanctions. While Biden hasn’t been specific on what his Venezuela policy would look like, it’s not expected to be much different from Trump’s, and Biden’s aides have said he will keep up the pressure on Maduro.

Democrats have spoken out against Trump’s Venezuela policy but not for the damage the sanctions are doing to the country’s population, but because it failed to depose Maduro. After a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Venezuela back in August, Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) laid out his issues with Trump’s policy on Twitter.

“In April 2019, we tried to organize a kind of coup, but it became a debacle,” Murphy wrote. “Everyone who told us they’d rally to Guaido got cold feet and the plan failed publicly and spectacularly, making America look foolish and weak.” Murphy blamed the failure to rally people around Guaido on Trump’s diplomatic errors.

Author: Dave DeCamp

Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.