Trump, Colombia work to send aid to Venezuelans
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and his Colombian counterpart — the two Western Hemisphere leaders with the most at stake in ousting Nicolas Maduro — huddled Wednesday at the White House to search for a way to get millions of dollars’ worth of humanitarian aid into Venezuela.
According to a senior administration official and people familiar with the discussions, Trump and Ivan Duque talked about how to enlist regional leaders to break the military blockade stopping the aid and turn Maduro’s loyal generals against him.
They also discussed how the United States can continue supporting Colombia, which is Washington’s most important ally in the fight and faces the brunt of the humanitarian crisis spilling out of Venezuela.
“Duque is the key player in all of this obviously be- cause of the border,” a senior administration official said, who was not authorized to speak publicly about administration policy. “You’re looking at a country who had to endure more than a million Venezuelans inside their borders. For them it’s a national security issue, just like it is for us.”
The two menare working closely with their teams on how to support the 35-yearold Venezuelan opposition leader and self-proclaimed acting president, Juan Guaido, who has promised that tens of millions of dollars’ worth of food and medicine will be delivered to the people starting Feb. 23 without any real explanation of how.
Trump and Duque touched on some of those challenges during public comments where the two, sitting by a fireplace, lamented the state of affairs in Venezuela.
“Really, we’re trying to get food to people,” Trump said. “You have people starving in Venezuela. It just shows what can happen with the wrong government.”
They met previously in September at the United Nations General Assembly and appear to be comfortable together. Duque was comfortable enough to twice interject himself into questions to Trump about U.S. priorities on Venezuela and to give the Colombian’s perspective and support for the opposition.
It was only when drugs came up that the discussion seemed to get tense; Trump turned to look directly at Duque after saying that Colombia needed to do more to eradicate drug production.
“I wouldn’t say that at this moment you’re ahead of schedule, but hopefully you will be at some time in the near future,” Trump said, triggering Duque to interrupt a third time and defend his government’s efforts to meet goals to eradicate drugs.
But it was the crisis in Venezuela that was the central issue that brought the two leaders together.
The Maduro government has blocked a bridge connecting the once oil-rich nation to Colombia as humanitarian aid, requested by Guaido, has collected along the border.
The Trump administra- tion is wrestling with how to get the aid to Venezuela without using force, possibly by sea or air. They’re also studying the feasibility of having Venezuelans fill backpacks and bags to carry aid into the country to be distributed.
The administration has offered amnesty from U.S. sanctions to top ranking military officials and urged rank-and-file members to disobey Maduro and allow the aid to enter the country.
While Trump and Duque met at the Oval Office, the administration’s new special envoy for Venezuela, Elliot Abrams, told members of Congress that they’ve been unsuccessful in efforts to turn leaders of the military against Maduro, but that they’re seeing positive signs.
“We’re hearing a lot of discontent in the military,” Abrams said at a House Foreign Affairs hearing Wednesday. “If you’re a general looking down at the ranks, you know that your own people in the army are starving.”