“No nation has done more to sustain the death and daily misery of ordinary Venezuelans, including Venezuela’s military and their families, than the communists in Havana,” Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said earlier this month. Holding Cuba responsible for Venezuela’s misery and Maduro’s endurance has proved serendipitous for President Trump’s foreign policy and domestic political aims. Some of them sense a moment to do in Venezuela what the United States never could in Cuba: Bring down the government. The United States remained nominally outside a coalition of leading Western Hemisphere countries, the Lima Group. While millions have crossed into neighboring Colombia and Brazil, at least 74,000 have applied for asylum in the United States.

Source: Washington Post March 26, 2019 14:37 UTC