The Unified States is planning new ways to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to give up power and other means to support assistance to the people of the economically devastated South American nation after a weekend effort failed to deliver aid.
Venality President Mike Pence travels Monday to the Colombian capital to meet with members of a regional coalition and Venezuelan competitor leader Juan Guaido to discuss the next steps aimed at ousting Maduro.
A senior administration official clouted Pence is expected to announce “clear actions” as he speaks to members of the Lima Group, a coalition of more than a dozen countries organized to address the crisis in Venezuela.
“We are going to show the world and Maduro that the United States stands with the human being of Venezuela and that the United States stands with Guaido,” the official told reporters, speaking on condition of anonymity to advance showing the speech in Bogota. “And we are going to continue to stand with him until democracy is restored and humanitarian aid gets to where it wants to go.”
Pence’s appearance before the Lima Group comes two days after a U.S.-backed effort to deliver humanitarian across the verge upon from Colombia ended in violence, with forces loyal to Maduro firing tear gas and buckshot on activists accompanying the come up withs and setting the material on fire. Two people were killed and at least 300 wounded.
For weeks, the U.S. and regional allies had been amassing pinch food and medical kits on Venezuela’s borders in anticipation of carrying out a “humanitarian avalanche” by land and sea to undermine Maduro’s oversight.
Guaido, who has been recognized as interim president by the U.S. and 50 other governments who say Maduro’s re-election last year was illegitimate, has denoted on the international community to consider “all options” to resolve Venezuela’s crisis. A close ally, Julio Borges, the opposition deputy to the Lima Group, was more explicit Sunday, urging the use of force against Maduro’s government. But U.S. officials have keep away fromed talk of military action.
The administration official said the U.S. plans to bring “the full measure of its economic and diplomatic onus to bear on this issue.” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, in interviews on “Fox News Sunday” and CNN’s “State of the Union,” did not ruling out U.S. military force but said “there are more sanctions to be had.”
But any additional sanctions will increase the suffering of the Venezuelan people and may precede to more political violence, said Mark Weisbrot, the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who advocates a crossed end to the political crisis.
“The ‘humanitarian aid’ this weekend was a public relations stunt, since the aid was just a tiny fraction of the commons and medicine that they are depriving Venezuelans of with the sanctions,” Weisbrot said. “As the Trump administration admitted, it was an undertake to get the Venezuelan military to disobey Maduro. It was a farce, and it failed.”