In Venezuela, brutal sanctions and the recognition of a phony president continue to wreak havoc. Biden has not implemented any real change to US policy towards the country. Historians Steve Ellner and Greg Wilpert discuss the reasons why.

Transcript

Greg Wilpert

Welcome to theAnalysis, I'm Greg Wilpert. Recently, the Biden administration announced that Venezuelans living in the United States would be able to qualify for temporary protected status or TPS.

This means that about 300,000 Venezuelans could remain in the U.S. for another 18 months or longer if the program is extended. Also recently, Secretary of State Anthony  Blinken had a phone call with so-called interim president and hard-line opposition leader Juan Guaidó, where Blinken reaffirmed that the United States continues to recognize Ecuador as the legitimate president of Venezuela, even though he no longer leads Venezuela's national assembly and was never elected. The European Union, in contrast, withdrew its recognition of Guaidó following last December's legislative elections in Venezuela.

Joining me to discuss the recent developments in U.S. Venezuela relations is Steve Ellner. Steve is a retired history professor from Venezuela's Universidad de Oriente. Currently, he's an associate managing editor of the journal Latin American Perspectives and editor of the recently published book Latin American Extractivism: Dependancy, Resource Nationalism, and Resistance in Broad Perspective. Thanks for joining me today, Steve.

Steve Ellner

Thanks for having me on. Greg.

Greg Wilpert

So there have been a number of adjustments in U.S. policy towards Venezuela since Biden came into office, but there's also some important continuity, as I mentioned, the major change has been the TPS program, which Trump did not want to provide to Venezuelans, presumably because of his anti-immigration stance. He canceled TPS for all kinds of other nationalities, such as the Nicaraguans, Hondurans, et cetera, but then there are the sanctions and the recognition of Guaidó as President of Venezuela.

Now, how would you characterize the differences and the continuities between Biden's policies towards Venezuela and that of Trump?

Steve Ellner

Well Greg you pretty much said it all. The Biden administration claims that there is a new policy, that it's embarking on a new course in rejecting anything that Trump said stood for dead, but we really see how false that is with regard to foreign policy. With regard to domestic affairs it's a whole different ballgame, but with regard to foreign policy, nothing is really changing in a big way. Just to take one example, doesn't have to do directly with Venezuela. The military budget.

Trump just announced that the budget will remain the same, even though it increased by astronomical amounts during the four years of the Trump administration, but with regard to Venezuela, I mean, you pretty much said that the Biden administration claims it's embarking on a new approach, but it really isn't, with the exception of Venezuelan immigrants in the United States, but with regard to Venezuelan policy, with regard to Venezuela itself. Firstly, the Biden administration is maintaining the international sanctions which have caused so much suffering among the Venezuelan people.

In the second place, as you also mentioned, the Biden administration is continuing to recognize Juan Guaidó who's really sort of a bogus president, but the Biden administration recognizes him, even though, as you also said, the European Union is pulling their recognition of Guaidó,