Allison Fedirka
It’s no secret that the United States’ physical and economic security depends on the security of the Western Hemisphere, and it’s no secret that Washington has been rethinking how it engages the region. Since the end of the Cold War, the U.S. has taken a comparatively hands-off approach. In fact, Western Hemispheric affairs – save for Mexico and Canada – tend to take a back seat to European, Russian and Asian affairs. But threats such as the ones Venezuela is believed to pose have persuaded Washington to be more interventionist. The threats, in Washington’s estimation, are three-fold. First, corruption and economic decline under the Maduro regime made Venezuela ripe for illicit criminal activities such as drug trafficking, gun running and illegal mining, compelling many Venezuelans to flee the country for better conditions. Second, an influx of irregular migration has occurred as a result. Third, the Maduro government aligned itself with China, Russia and Iran, offering a foothold in the Americas in exchange for political and economic support.
This helps to explain why some of President Donald Trump’s first actions in office hit close to home. In the hours after assuming office, he said the U.S. no longer needed Venezuelan oil, and so the U.S. could soon stop buying it. He also signed an executive order that repealed the CHNV (Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela) humanitarian parole program, which allowed as many as 30,000 Venezuelans to enter the U.S. legally per month and stay up to two years. And, through Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the U.S. government officially recognized Venezuelan opposition leader Edmundo Gonzalez as the democratically elected president of the country. U.S. special envoy for Venezuela, Richard Grenell, has already spoken with officials from the Maduro and Gonzalez camps.
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