Dealing With Maduro Is No Distraction. It’s a Necessity.
With the latest American-led negotiation about Ukraine well underway, Beijing browbeating Japan's new prime minister over her concerns about Taiwan's security, and India rolling out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin, the Beltway is consumed with… Venezuela. The Trump administration's drone strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats have roiled Washington, and criminal accusations and constitutional challenges abound.
Since this administration is up to its ears with several other major initiatives, many wonder why it is ramping up its pressure campaign on Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro in spite of this pushback and the public's unease. It is because Latin America is heading in a bad direction, and taming the threat emanating from Venezuela could head off the region's slide.
Trouble in the Western Hemisphere creates serious problems for U.S. national security. The Trump administration has largely solved the illegal immigration problem along the southern border, but criminal gangs still smuggle drugs and other harmful substances into the United States. The region has mostly been free from great-power competition, but communist infiltration there sparked some of the most heated foreign policy controversies during the Cold War.
Americans have long been puzzled about how to handle their southern neighbors. Latin America is blessed with an abundance of natural resources, from the Andes' copper and lithium deposits to Argentina's and Brazil's agricultural bounty and Venezuela's oil reserves, which are larger than even Saudi Arabia's. But it suffers from a range of maladies, from rampant corruption to misbegotten ideologies like Peronism and even communism, that prevent its people from making the best use of their talents and those resources. As a result, the region's economies are stuck in the "middle income trap" and unable to break through to the higher tiers.
https://freebeacon.com/columns/dealing-with-maduro-is-no-distraction-its-a-necessity/