If few astute analysts of United States foreign policy are likely to bet that the passing into history of the Trump administration will take with it the pressures that sit like a hangman’s trap door beneath the Maduro administration in Venezuela they would do well to think again. True, from where Maduro sits, the singing of Donald Trump’s swan song is likely to be drowned out by a collective sigh of relief from President Nicolas Maduro and members of his beleaguered administration. That, however, is perhaps as much as a breather as Maduro can hope for.
If the current state of economic and political affairs in Venezuela is anything to go by, there can be no doubt that the Trump-driven efforts to extract Maduro and his administration from political office worked, to the extent that it squeezed the country’s economy to a virtual standstill.
