José Enrique Arrioja Spoke to The i Paper about the U.S. in Post-Earthquake Venezuela
José Enrique Arrioja Spoke to The i Paper about the U.S. in Post-Earthquake Venezuela
Washington's presence on the ground "tells you how important and how sensitive [this] is for the Trump administration," said AQ's managing editor.
The crisis engulfing Venezuela in the wake of two deadly earthquakes marks a major test of Donald Trump’s claim to “run” the country after the U.S. capture of its then-president, Nicolás Maduro, in a smash-and-grab raid in January.
The moves by the Trump administration show what is at stake for the U.S. in Venezuela, following its intervention in January , which saw Maduro replaced by his deputy, Delcy Rodriguez, and the U.S. take control of the country’s oil trade, said José Enrique Arrioja, managing editor of Americas Quarterly magazine.
“Washington cannot afford to have this unprecedented experiment go wrong, especially in light of the big picture of the U.S. exercising again a dominant role in the Western hemisphere,” he told The i Paper . Arrioja said early signs point to the White House taking its responsibilities seriously, with U.S. forces on the ground in some of the worst-affected areas before even the Venezuelan army. He also pointed to Trump’s references to a high death toll in the immediate aftermath of the first earthquake before figures were widely known. “They definitely have a really close monitoring system in place in Venezuela,” Arrioja said. “That tells you how important and how sensitive it is for the Trump administration.” [...]
The regime has become so unpopular that much of the Venezuelan public is broadly supportive of the U.S. taking further control of their country, Arrioja said, pointing to recent polls by local and international organisations that show Trump and Rubio remain more popular than Venezuela’s leaders...
