On March 21, US Senator Marco Rubio and US Representative María Elvira Salazar, together responsible for pushing some of the deadliest sanctions against the socialist nations of Cuba and Venezuela, have applauded the House Committee on Foreign Affairs for passing the Venezuela Emergency Relief, Democracy Assistance, and Development (VERDAD) Reauthorization Act.
The Act would reauthorize an anti-Venezuela sanctions bill passed into law in 2019, the original VERDAD Act. This new act would extend existing US sanctions against Venezuela. The Act is a bipartisan effort, having been introduced both by Republican Representative Salazar and Democratic Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schultz on December 14, 2023.
The VERDAD Reauthorization Act is being ostensibly introduced due allegations that the democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro is acting illegally against opposition figure María Corina Machado, who is attempting to run for President in the July 2024 elections. In introducing the VERDAD Reauthorization Act, Salazar stated that “the dictator Maduro and his lackeys are doing everything in their power to ensure Chavismo’s primary opponent, María Corina Machado, never reaches Miraflores,” calling the democratically elected Maduro government the “illegitimate Venezuelan narco-regime.”
In reality, María Corina Machado was banned from running for public office in Venezuela due to her consistent support for regime change in her own country—including celebrating the illegal sanctions against Venezuela, supporting Juan Guaidó’s illegitimate claim to the Venezuelan presidency, and participating and benefitting from the looting of the state companies and assets illegally seized by the US and handed over to Guaidó’s parallel regime.
Salazar’s cheerleading for sanctions is deeply ironic given how sanctions and regime change efforts influence migration to the United States, especially from Venezuela. Throughout her career, Salazar has fear mongered about migrants, including writing in January about “cities overrun with migrants are funneling resources away from American citizens. Thousands of foreign nationals are running across our border each day. Border communities are at the brink.”
“Salazar’s meddling in the internal matters of sovereign nations like Venezuela simply because they resist US hegemony is both arrogant & a blatant hypocrisy, underscored by her racist attacks of migrants who are precisely fleeing the heavy sanctions that she supports,” said Manolo De Los Santos, Executive Director of the People’s Forum, an internationalist space in New York City.
