Above photo: US President Joe Biden appearing to reach out for a handshake, despite nobody being on stage with him. Thursday, April 14, 2022. WFMY/File photo.
The White House has reversed the statement made by US President Joe Biden, in which he declared that he supported the proposal to run a new election in Venezuela, continuing the zigzag of the imperial line on its statements regarding the Latin American nation.
Biden was questioned by a journalist this Thursday, August 15, about whether he “supported new elections in Venezuela,” to which the US president, in a newly overt display of interventionism, replied, “Yes, I do.” The White House then had to reverse their president’s statement and “clarify” what the US president supposedly meant.
“The President was referring to the absurdity of Maduro and his representatives not telling the truth about the July 28 elections,” the Biden administration’s “clarification” statement read, reiterating the regime change narrative of an alleged victory of the Venezuelan far-right opposition.
Venezuela President Maduro: “Biden gives an opinion and half an hour later he’s contradicted by State Department spokespersons. Who’s in charge of the US? Who conducts US foreign policy?” pic.twitter.com/Sv0yky5oSs
— COMBATE |🇵🇷 (@upholdreality) August 16, 2024
The National Security Council (NSC) also contradicted Biden’s statements, stating that “the United States calls for respect for the will of the Venezuelan people,” and called for “conversations on a transition to begin.” Washington and its local pawns in Venezuela have been talking about a “transition” in Venezuela that is only to transfer power to them and a small group of far-right fanatics.
This is not the first time that US authorities have contradicted themselves on the situation in Venezuela. Given the economic situation in the country, they must carefully evaluate their statements when a probable escalation and expansion of the scope of the ongoing genocide in Palestine, backed by Israel’s settler-colonial brother of the US, might heavily affect the energy market.
On August 1, amid international pressure from the Venezuelan far-right, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “recognized” Edmundo González’s fictive electoral “victory,” taking it upon himself to usurp the constitutional role of Venezuela’s National Electoral Council (CNE).
Just days later, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller clarified that the US “is not yet at that point [of recognizing González as president].”
“We are in close contact with our partners in the region,” said Miller, “especially Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia, to find a way forward,” regarding a sovereign and democratic process that the US and their imperial and colonial allies have always sought to discredit.
The intervention of the US government after an electoral process in Venezuela is nothing new. On numerous repeated occasions it has written the opposition’s script and has echoed calls for fraud every time this political sector loses an election, just as they did on July 28.