by Doug Bandow
America’s UN Ambassador Nikki Haley, who routinely promotes the agendas of friendly dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, recently stepped out as a defender of liberty to denounce repression in Venezuela. She evidently wants regime change, via means unstated. Furthermore, President Donald Trump supports military action. But intervention in Venezuela is a dumb idea.
The Maduro government is a disaster. Little pretense remains that the country is a democracy; the regime maintains power through brutality and violence.
At the same time, President Nicolas Maduro has proved to be an enemy of the poor. Social services, including health care, have collapsed. Getting enough to eat has become a major challenge in this oil-rich nation, with roughly 90 percent of the population now falling below the poverty line. Amazingly, the ruling regime has “turned natural resource wealth into a curse,” as noted my Cato Institute colleague Juan Carlos Hidalgo. Millions of Venezuelans have fled in despair.