FT Discovers 'Opposition Leader' Relies on Trump for Venezuela
Mainstream media, here embodied by the Financial Times, frames María Corina Machado's reliance on Donald Trump as a 'risky gambit.' One might wonder if this 'risk' refers to the optics or the historical precedent of U.S. intervention in Latin America. Machado, a prominent right-wing figure and self-proclaimed 'liberal conservative,' has consistently called for foreign intervention against
Venezuela's gobierno, echoing the Cold War-era playbook of supporting opposition figures, regardless of their local legitimacy or support for sanctions that devastate ordinary citizens. This 'news' conveniently forgets decades of documented U.S. attempts to influence Venezuelan politics, from funding opposition groups to supporting coup attempts against Hugo Chávez in 2002 (documented by the New
York Times and The Guardian). Trump's administration, for its part, openly pursued 'regime change' in Caracas, implementing crippling sanctions that have led to estimated tens of thousands of deaths, as detailed by economists like Jeffrey Sachs in reports for the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Calling this alliance a mere 'gambit' rather than a continuation of documented foreign
interference is a masterful exercise in historical amnesia.