The former president didn’t do enough to force Maduro out but he did put Hugo Chávez’s successor under pressure. Biden—by contrast—seems happy to largely ignore him, although the Trump-era sanctions on Venezuela remain in place.
“It feels like Biden represents never-ending dialogs, bureaucratic committees and special envoys,” a former aide to opposition leader Juan Guaidó told The Daily Beast. “It creates this uneasy feeling that Maduro is here to stay, not a guy to be hunted down, but a counterpart for a talk.”
Trump’s toughness on Maduro, which included a $15 million bounty the former president put on his head a year ago, won him a legion of fans in Venezuela. The most ardent of those call themselves magazolanos in tribute to Trump’s Make America Great Again slogan.
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