Foreign policy


When Humanitarian Aid Is Used as a Weapon to Bring Down Regimes

Ostensibly aimed at alleviating Venezuela’s spiraling crises of hunger, health, and security, the humanitarian aid put forward by the United States also serves another purpose. Venezuelan opposition leaders here and the U.S. officials offering up much-needed aid posit that the mission could induce military officers to turn away from their government. Aid groups on the ground worry, however, that a political operation thinly padded with humanitarian objectives could send a precarious situation down an even worse path—disastrous American efforts to intervene in Latin America from decades past serve as a reminder of how badly things can go.

After years of decline, living conditions for most Venezuelans worsened substantially in the past year. Thousands of people who flee the country each day, many on foot, testify to miserable hunger and sickness at home, where food continues to grow scarcer. Then last month, Maduro officially began a new term in office after winning what international observers said was a sham election, and tensions ratcheted up markedly. Venezuelan legislators hailed their own leader, Juan Guaidó, as the interim president, and huge protests erupted across the country. In the weeks since, though, Guaidó’s efforts to win over Venezuela’s powerful military leaders have made little headway, and the two sides are now deadlocked.