Venezuela
By Kevin Young
August 17,2019 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal reposted from NACLA — On August 5, the Trump administration issued an executive order escalating its sanctions against Venezuela. The order froze all Venezuelan government assets in the United States and threatened third parties around the world with punitive action if they trade with the Venezuelan government.
The next day, National Security Adviser John Bolton delivered a speech to a meeting of foreign governments in Lima, Peru. “We are sending a signal to third parties that want to do business with the Maduro regime: proceed with extreme caution,” he said. “There is no need to risk your business interests with the United States.”
In response, the Nicolás Maduro government cancelled its negotiations with self-proclaimed “interim president” Juan Guaidó, which had been scheduled for later that week in Barbados. The Venezuelan foreign minister plausibly speculated that Washington was “trying to dynamite the dialogue.”
The move is the Trump administration’s latest escalation of its coup campaign in Venezuela.
August 10, 2019 - U.S. sanctions have blocked the Venezuelan people from obtaining food and medicine. They have resulted in at least 40,000 deaths between mid-2017 and the end of 2018, according to a study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research – and that was prior to the more severe sanctions, announced in January, and the total embargo announced in August. VENEZUELANS UNDER SIEGE documents the impacts of the sanctions, plus the ways that ordinary Venezuelans are organizing to survive the crisis and to build new institutions of participatory socialism.
By Steve Ellner
February 9, 2019 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal republished from NACLA: Report on the Americas — Since its outset, the Trump administration has ratcheted up pressure on Venezuela and radicalized its positions. In the process, the Venezuelan opposition has become more and more associated with—and dependent on—Washington and its allies. An example is the opposition protests slated for February 4. The actions were timed to coincide with the European Union’s “ultimatum” stating that they would recognize the shadow government of Juan Guaidó if President Nicolás Maduro did not call elections within a week’s time.
By Stansfield Smith
January 26, 2019 — Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal — For over two years we have been told Putin’s Russia has interfered with the 2016 US presidential elections. We now find the US government has decided it can unilaterally invalidate the actual presidential elections in Venezuela and recognize a person of its choosing as president. This is just the latest US-backed coup attempt against a progressive Latin American government, following Venezuela (2002), Haiti (2004, and every subsequent election), Bolivia (2008), Honduras (2009), Ecuador (2010, 2015), Paraguay (2012), and Nicaragua (2018).