A Misguided Approach: Trump and Venezuela
By: Aidan Mcgahey
Tags: Current Events, Venezuela, Trump Administration

WHILE THE USE OF THE TERM “EMERGENCY” to describe the U.S.-Mexico border may be the subject of a current federal lawsuit, it is safe to say that the term fairly accurately describes the current situation in Venezuela. Data from the World Bank shows that the value of the Venezuelan currency, the bolivar, has plummeted, with inflation reaching the million percent range. Ishaan Tharoor of the Washington Post called the number of refugees leaving Venezuela “the biggest crisis in the hemisphere.” Amnesty International reports that protesters marching against the rule of authoritarian Nicolás Maduro, including children, have been detained. NBC News reported that supporters of the opposition are subject to “targeted killings.” NPR found that the Venezuelan health care system was near collapse — and that was a year ago, in February 2018. Since then, the situation has only gotten worse. Venezuela’s power struggle has left the country divided, malnourished, and desperate. However, President Trump’s response to this crisis has been ultimately futile, as he has focused on bolstering his own political agenda, rather than supporting the people of Venezuela.

Image Credit: Quartz

The approach that the Trump Administration has taken towards Venezuela has come primarily in three main areas: recognizing Guaidó, stopping trade, and a major public relations campaign focused on tarnishing the image of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. The first of these three aspects, recognizing Juan Guaidó as the legitimate leader of Venezuela, has been one of Trump’s few good decisions regarding Venezuela. Guaidó is the leader of the Venezuelan National Assembly, and the United States recognizes Guaidó on the basis of the Venezuelan Constitution, which stipulates that in the case of a president being unable to lead, the leader of the National Assembly shall become the interim president. The U.S. Department of State claims that the 2018 reelection of Maduro, which is widely considered to be invalid, has rendered Maduro unable to lead, allowing for Guaidó to assume this position. Many European and South American nations echoed the position of the United States in this manner and recognized Guaidó as well.

Recognizing Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of Venezuela has allowed the United States to take greater international action against the Maduro regime. Primarily, it has allowed the United States to shift control of Venezuelan assets held in the U.S. from Maduro to Guaidó, taking away the ability for the regime to finance itself. Guaidó can now use these assets to finance the democratic opposition within Venezuela. Most recently, this has resulted in a new board of directors appointed by the Venezuelan opposition for Citgo, an American subsidiary of Petroleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), the country’s massive state-owned oil company. Additionally, it provides the Venezuelan people and the world with a viable public candidate for Maduro’s replacement.

However, Trump’s subsequent actions towards Venezuela have read more questionable. The first of these has been halting trade with Venezuela. This action has primarily occurred by sanctioning one of Venezuela’s top exports: oil. Trump’s Treasury Department has placed various restrictions on U.S. financial firms that prohibit them from trading with PDVSA. The restrictions also covered trading in PDVSA’s debt as well. These American measures not only affected domestic trade but had international implications as well. Ben Bartenstein of Bloomberg writes, “the concentration of debt trading within the U.S. financial system makes it challenging for those firms to buy and sell as well.” The effects of these measures were immediate and severe, with ships traveling between the two nations at the time of their implementation having to turn around or find a new port. Daniel Gallas of the BBC writes that the Trump Administration “is trying to do a difficult thing: to make oil revenues directly reach ordinary Venezuelans and bypass the government of Mr. Maduro, which owns most of the oil industry through PDVSA.”

Image Credit: The Conversation

The implications of these measures, however, have not merely hurt the intended target of the Maduro government, but the Venezuelan people as well. Many international experts doubt that the plan will actually bypass the Maduro regime while still allowing the Venezuelan people to survive. Former Secretary of the UN Human Rights Council and special rapporteur Alfred de Zayas states that the sanctions amount to “economic warfare” and “crimes against humanity.” His colleague and fellow UN special rapporteur Idriss Jazairy continued, saying, “Sanctions which can lead to starvation and medical shortages are not the answer to the crisis in Venezuela… Precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes.” While Gallas of the BBC quotes National Security Advisor John Bolton, stating that the U.S. will provide aid to the Venezuelan people, it is hardly an end-all solution to a problem that the Trump Administration has exacerbated.

The final major aspect of the Trump Administration’s approach to Venezuela has been a major public relations campaign aimed at tarnishing the image of Maduro. The State Department and various Republican leaders have traveled and promoted on social media various messages to the Venezuelan people about the corruption of Maduro, and his inhibition of aid. Most notably, Sen. Marco Rubio (R, FL) has taken a strong role in this campaign. Rubio even recently traveled to Colombia to promote this anti-Maduro message. Below are examples of the message the State Department and Rubio have promoted on their official Instagram accounts.

In normal circumstances, denouncing a despot is a good idea, but frankly, at times, the public relations campaign has amounted to nothing more than a thinly veiled swipe at Democrats. On Monday, February 18th, President Trump spoke in southern Florida about the growing crisis in Venezuela. His speech, however, was not aimed at denouncing Maduro’s government or addressing the growing crisis there; Trump used Maduro’s gross mismanagement of his country’s economy and human rights violations to criticize socialism and other values embraced by many members of the Democratic Party. As Vox News notes, throughout his speech, Trump only mentioned Maduro 10 times, while mentioning “socialism” and “socialists” almost 30 times.

Frankly, President Trump’s response to the crisis in Venezuela is focused more on boosting his own domestic political image and an archaic assault against socialism rather than actually helping the suffering people in Venezuela. The people of this country, many protesting daily against the brutal regime, have suffered greatly over the past few years, and their suffering is set to all but continue as a result of new American sanctions. As long as this misguided approach continues, it is hard to see improvement in the lives of the everyday Venezuelans suffering under the Maduro regime.