Biden's Indefensible Venezuela Policy

Biden’s Venezuela policy is indefensible, but not for the reasons Abrams gives.

The only good thing that Biden seems to have accomplished with his handling of the Summit of the Americas is annoying Elliott Abrams. This is Abrams’ complaint:

Although he has rightly denounced Maduro as an illegitimate ruler, he has refused to support—and, until recently, even speak to—Juan Guaidó, the country’s acting president and titular leader of the opposition. Why did Biden speak to Guaidó for the first time only this week—after more than 16 months in the White House? And why not invite Guaidó, whom the United States and dozens of other countries recognize as the legitimate president of Venezuela, to the summit?

It is a measure of how ridiculous our debate over Venezuela policy is in this country that someone could fault Biden for being insufficiently pro-Guaidó, but then this is a debate in which a convicted liar and abettor of genocide like Abrams is still taken seriously. Abrams was Trump’s special envoy for Venezuela, so of course he defends the failed and destructive regime change policy that is closely identified with him. U.S. Venezuela policy is a prime example of why so many countries in our hemisphere continue to view our government’s intentions with suspicion, so it would have been exceptionally stupid to put that policy at center stage at the summit. The fact that this criticism of Biden is coming from Abrams, whose reputation in Latin America is about as bad as it gets, reinforces that point.

Biden’s Venezuela policy is indefensible, but not for the reasons Abrams gives. The president’s error has been to continue a failed policy that has caused enormous harm to millions of ordinary Venezuelans.