Bloomberg reported on Friday that Joe Biden’s advisors are preparing for potential negotiations with Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, a sign Biden will break from President Trump’s policy.
Sources told Bloomberg that the Biden administration will push for “free and fair” elections in Venezuela, offering sanctions relief in exchange. The Trump administration’s current policy is that it will accept nothing less than Maduro’s surrender.
Since January 2019, the US has recognized opposition leader Juan Guaido as the president of Venezuela, despite Maduro still being in office. According to the Bloomberg report, Guaido’s team has been trying to arrange a phone call with Biden since late November, without success.
Guaido’s failed coup attempts and calls for US intervention to oust Maduro lost him what little support he had in the country. Even among the hawks in Washington, Guaido is no longer seen as a viable opposition leader.
On Friday, the Trump administration issued new Venezuela-related sanctions over the country’s parliamentary election that was held on December 6th. The US claims the elections were fraudulent and blacklisted two people and a company it said were involved.
US sanctions on Venezuela have exacerbated the country’s economic crisis and has had a devastating impact on the civilian population. The sanctions are so heavy Venezuela is essentially under a US blockade as Washington is able to pressure shipping companies not to trade with Caracas.
“Free and fair” = Maduro must lose?
That was the definition used by Obama in Syria, that Assad must lose.
US offer to negotiate means giving in to US demands.
“On Friday, the Trump administration issued new Venezuela-related sanctions over the country’s parliamentary election that was held on December 6th. The US claims the elections were fraudulent”
Send Rudy G over there to file some lawsuits. Or maybe Sydney Powell can tell us Hugo was responsible.
Our problems with election fraud, ballot stuffing, vote switching, and programmable voting machines need to be fixed before telling other countries how to hold elections
Venezuela could be offered the “tamper-proof” US machines for the elections.
trump demonstrated that he was no different than any other prez—his dimwitted sanctions/tariffs vs Venezuela, Cuba, Russia, china, turkey, Iran, etc
The swamp drained him.
The same swamp he stocked.
anyone who gives John Bolton a foreign policy gig has fully embraced the “swamp.”
Actually, the swamp is draining us, trump will be fine.
Did Sleepy Joe not notice that Venezuela has just had free and fair elections,monitored by hundreds of observers, even when the US pawn boycotted the election and many other opposition parties joined in (UNLIKE the US election system-2 only allowed)?
25 election since 1998 and the US interfered in every one but the people in Venezuela won!!! Go Home Joe-your problems are there.
Venezuela’s Supreme Tribunal of Justice ordered government takeovers of the Green Party, Democratic Action, Justice First, Popular Will, Republican Movement, Tupamaro, Fatherland for All, Red Flag, and Compromiso Pais.
After all, you can’t have “free and fair elections” if there’s any actual opposition allowed, right?
Whatever actions the Maduro govt may have taken to secure the Bolivarian revolution must be seen in the context of the 20-year ongoing US aggression against Venezuelan independence. “Opposition” parties might be a legitimate political opposition, but they are also clearly vehicles for US subversion. Consequently some oversight is justified, prudent, and necessary.
True enough.
And in any event such formulations as “free & fair elections” and “democracy” are purely terms of art.
The US is a one party state, the Corporatist Party, totally in the hands of the Plutocracy. And though sadly it’s likely to be brief, the Laboring classes have won the class war in Venezuela.
There are two classes — the productive class and the political class.
Like all “revolutionary” regimes, Venezuela’s overthrew the political class in the name of the productive class, then constituted itself as the new political class and proceeded to go right back to looting the productive class on its own behalf.
And no, the US isn’t any different. The new political class took over very quickly after the American revolution with the counter-revolutionary project known as the US Constitution.
But the Political class is not autonomous, only a subsidiary function of the Ownership class, be it productive (prole), exploitive (capitalist), or military. Venezuela’s ownership class consisted mainly of absentee Americans. In country it functioned via a comprador Political class.
In Latin cultures mineral rights are from ancient times the property of the crown. So like the Gracchi, Chavez put himself forward as Tribune of the people, and succeeded in reclaiming it for the wards of the crown.
Since which has ensued a long and very cruel war by the former usurpers. But, alas, Maduro is not Chavez.
“But the Political class is not autonomous, only a subsidiary function of the Ownership class”
True.
And as true of the Chavez/Maduro regime as of previous regimes.
Yes, and Chavez, like Fidel, conceived ownership to be The Crown’s, meaning The People.
Yes, Chavez and Fidel both conceived The Crown to mean The People, and The People to mean themselves and their cronies.
Bourgeois polemic means end of serious discussion.
Translation: You can’t admit that your idols have the same clay feet as all the others.
There is a point where quantitative difference becomes qualitative. Over just the last 20 yrs we all watched as Wall St. & the War Industry butchered millions and stole trillions. By comparison, the corrupt fraction of Chavistas, counts as angelic.
Well, that’s at least an argument.
Of course, it’s the same argument that the US makes every other week, e.g. “Assad gasses HIS OWN PEOPLE, so whatever little atrocities we commit are OK.”
Your information is what is shown in all the US media, which throughout the whole of the Chavez years, never managed to find one good point to write about all the reforms which the vast majority of the population appreciated. Probably the books written about his achievements were not stocked by Amazon, which rules the world of course. An excellent source is Jean Bricmont (written in French so denied to US “educated readers”) is “The Seven sins of Hugo Chavez” (irony!!) and the film by John Pilger also gives some ideas. The whole US domination for so long in Latin America seems set to continue again after the twenty years when some effort, decried by “antiwar” critics, has succeeded in allowing the mass of the people to have a say. Bolivia too-how long will the MAS-return govt last??
Yes, I’m sure you know what my information is.
What’s slick about 5th column subversion, is if the existing regime successfully interdicts them, the US can point at them and claim how “oppressive” they are. It’s a feature.
“sleepy joe” can we just end it, with the Limbaugh/Trump schoolyard name calling? It does zilch to advance any argument, it’s a grade-school level virtue signal.