Podcast: Venezuela's Crisis, Outside Powers, Politics, and the Search for a Solution

In the latest WOLA Podcast, WOLA’s Adam Isacson interviews Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde on the current state of play in Carcas and Washington.This situation report covers a lot of ground. Ramsey and Smilde explain the current humanitarian situation in Venezuela, with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic likely to come, along with the effect of sanctions. The discussion moves on to alternatives, like what it would take to bring the country’s ever-worsening crisis to a political solution. This brings up the role of external powers like Russia, China, Iran, and the United States. Ramsey and Smilde unpack the current state of U.S. policy, which at the White House level is heavily driven by Florida electoral politics. They note that the Trump administration’s mixed messages are inadvertently dividing a Venezuelan opposition that is already in a bad moment after a botched mercenary invasion at the beginning of May.Geoff Ramsey and David Smilde co-manage WOLA’s Venezuelan Politics and Human Rights blog. Also mentioned in the podcast is a May 2020 paper that both co-authored in the European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies, which explores the recent history and theory of negotiation efforts in Venezuela, as well as prospects and necessary conditions for a negotiated solution today.

Podcast: Venezuela’s Crisis, Outside Powers, Politics, and the Search for a Solution1 min read

Venezuela Program

Geoff Ramsey

David Smilde

Kristen Martinez-Gugerli

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Podcast: Venezuela’s Crisis, Outside Powers, Politics, and the Search for a Solution1 min read

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