Colombian president, Trump talk about aid for Venezuela

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 that is spilling out of Venezuela.

“Duque is the key player in all of this obviously because 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 men are working closely together with their teams on how to support the 35-year-old 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.”