Changing U.S. Policy Toward Venezuela

The Americas Quarterly Podcast

At a moment when Nicolás Maduro commemorates 10 years in power in Venezuela, the opposition has agreed to participate in presidential elections in 2024, marking a change to their previous strategy of boycotting them. The United States has spent the past decade trying different measures to remove the Maduro dictatorship for office, most notably in 2019 recognizing opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the country’s interim president, a tactic that did not succeed. Now that the opposition is united, the U.S. should support their decision to move forward with elections, even if they are not ultimately free and fair. That’s what this week’s guests argue, and they call for a bipartisan approach to this support. Juan Cruz was the top official on Latin America at the White House at the beginning of the Trump administration and Mark Feierstein held that same job at the end of the Obama years.