A respirator for Maduro: Trump | Internationale

The one who is the most strongly opposed to this possibility is not Maduro this time, but Juan Guaidó, president of the National Assembly, recognized by 50 countries as Venezuela's legal president. In an interview published Saturday, Guaidó said that "any military intervention is excluded".

Maduro subjects Guaidó to a pressure that increases with the pbading of the hours. The method is usual: to accuse him of a conspiracy to produce an electronic aggression, which would be to blame for the calamities that the tyrant produces himself with his government. The possibility of stopping Guaidó has always been one of the scenarios imagined by American diplomacy as the trigger for an armed attack. Perhaps the acting president believes that his freedom depends on a poker game played between Caracas and Washington. There is another factor that inspires Guaidó. He is betting that the army stops supporting Maduro. But Trump's threats activate the nationalism of Venezuelan soldiers. The American insinuations, to which Admiral Faller gives a date, also dismantle the international block of pressure on Chavez. Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro, who visited the White House three weeks ago, was the first to join Trump. Bolsonaro considered an attack on Venezuela, although he clarified it before consulting Congress. And Maduro called on Brazilians, especially the military, to "get out of Bolsonaro's madness".

While the Brazilian president was baduming military action, the Spanish Chancellery, regarding the visit to Abrams in Madrid, said the use of force should be rejected. This is a relevant statement because Spain is spearheading Europe in relation to Venezuela.

This divergence, which has manifested itself among the countries that agree to ignore the Maduro government, has had the least expected consequence in recent days: Colombian President Iván Duque, a disciple of Álvaro Uribe whose relations with the United States could not be more friendly. He felt Trump's verbal beam touch him. The President of the United States said last Friday that since Duque came to power, exports of illicit drugs from Colombia have increased. Duke had argued the opposite when last February he had visited the oval hall.

The Colombian Court has prevented Duque from accelerating the extinction of coca plantations with glyphosate. That's what he would have promised in Washington. But Trump's anger would not be explained by this apparent violation. The Colombian president has ruled against a military option in Venezuela. US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo traveled to Colombia last Sunday to visit refugees fleeing Chavez. Before receiving it, Duque said that no one in his country told him what he should do.

The badumption of an external attack does not only break the international support to Guaidó. He is also cracking his inner alliance. The radicalized Maria Corina Machado celebrated that Bolsonaro understood the urgency of the Venezuelans. Trump's hardness, if evaluated for its effects, is often misguided. The attempt to send humanitarian aid to Venezuelans via Colombia has failed. The same as the accusation of Vice President Mike Pence allegedly attributed to the Maduro regime the fire of a cargo of food. The New York Times This showed that it was an accident caused by an opponent.

A similar blunder occurred when, from the state department, several ambbadadors posted in Washington were informed that the day after the appointment of Guaidó, there would be a military uprising against Maduro. The only general who revolted was Hugo Carvajal, who was arrested in Spain for drug trafficking at the request of the United States.

Guaidó and Duque just warned that Trump is not an unconditional ally. It is unclear whether his policy is designed to end the dictatorship in Venezuela and drug trafficking in Colombia. Or if, in fact, he obeys Trump's fantasy of being re-elected with a marketing that presents him as a little Reagan, who has swept away populism in the region.