Spare Venezuela from More Outside 'Help'

The total failure of U.S. Venezuela policy up to this point tells us that Washington doesn’t know what it’s doing and cannot be counted on to “act” constructively.

The Financial Times doesn’t want the complete failure of U.S. policy in Venezuala to get in the way of Doing Something:

A Trump-era US policy of “maximum pressure” sanctions worsened hardship and failed to dislodge Maduro. Washington’s decision to recognise the head of the national assembly, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s rightful president in 2019 led nowhere. 

These mis-steps are no excuse for inaction now.

It is possible that the U.S. and other outside governments would be in a much stronger position to protest Maduro’s apparent theft of the election if they had not already blundered so badly over the last five years, but we can’t know that. The total failure of U.S. Venezuela policy up to this point tells us that Washington doesn’t know what it’s doing and cannot be counted on to “act” constructively. Inaction would be a huge improvement over what our government has done before now.

The best thing that the U.S. could do right now is to stop trying to “help” a country that it has been devastating with economic warfare for years.