This op-ed was originally published in the New York Times.
Two weeks ago, at the invitation of Senator Bob Corker, I testified before the Committee on Foreign Relations at a hearing on Venezuela’s current crisis of governance. It was a remarkable meeting at a remarkable time in Washington.
Although the hearing started with senators expressing their willingness to add to the list of sanctioned Venezuelan officials, by the end of the session all discussion was about the need for vigorous multilateral diplomacy. Senator Marco Rubio, a Republican like Mr. Corker and one of the authors of existing sanctions legislation, suggested that the Trump administration should support the invocation by the Organization of American States’ secretary general, Luis Almagro, of the O.A.S.’s Inter-American Democratic Charter, which lays out standards for democratic rule in the hemisphere.