The US Is 'Desperate' to Provoke Government Change in Venezuela

The U.S. Special Envoy for Venezuela Elliott Abrams assured that he is working "hard" to prevent President Nicolas Maduro from remaining in office until the end of the year.

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To fuel its political destabilization agenda, the United States urged the European Union (EU) and its Latin American allies to impose sanctions against the Bolivarian revolution.

"Obviously we hope that [Maduro] will not survive the year and we are working hard to make that happen," Abrams said in a hearing at the Senate Foreign Committee.

Another element of the Trump administration's destabilization agenda is to incite the Venezuelan people against the December elections that will allow the renewal of the National Assembly, which is not in the best interest of the U.S.-backed lawmaker Juan Guaido, who self-proclaimed president in January 2019.

Abrams said that Washington will not recognize the legitimacy of those elections. Whatever the electoral result, the United States will continue to unilaterally recognize Guaido as the alleged interim president.

"We need more sanctions, personal sanctions, of the kind that Canada, the EU, and the Rio Treaty countries have. We need travel restrictions," Abrahams said in a desperate tone.

During the hearing, the senators harshly criticized the policy toward Venezuela. Specifically, they questioned the effectiveness of the recognition of the opposition lawmaker Guaido.

"We have to make it clear that our policy towards Venezuela, in the last year and a half, has been an absolute disaster and if we are not honest about it, we cannot correct anything," Democratic Senator Chris Murphy said.

"Our great move to recognize Guaido from the beginning and move quickly to the imposition of sanctions has not worked," he said, tacitly admitting that the only result achieved has been the strengthening of President Maduro's constitutional government.