Regarding Maduro’s departure, the commentator considered that it would be very well received by the population, recalling the impact of the crisis in the country
Venezuela has become a “new focus of tension or at least a more threatening tension”, warned Paulo Portas this Sunday. In his usual analysis space, on TVI’s Jornal Nacional, from the same group as CNN Portugal, the commentator highlighted the risks that the crisis represents for the approximately 300 thousand Portuguese who still live in the country, especially those from Madeira, many of them small traders with prestige in the restaurant industry, who have “tried to survive in a deteriorating regime” led by Nicolás Maduro.
For Paulo Portas, the North American military presence in the region has an explanation. “The Americans have placed a very significant naval force in the vicinity of Venezuela, and this is obviously not to target small vessels, even sophisticated ones, that could carry drugs. For this, the air force or drones are sufficient”, he explains. The commentator points out three possible scenarios: sea or air blockades, negotiations for Maduro’s departure or a land invasion, considering all of them problematic for different reasons.
Regarding the blockades, Portas is clear in stating that they mainly affect the most vulnerable. “Lockdowns never hurt the oligarchs, who continue to have medicine, continue to have meals, continue to have much more than the basics. Lockdowns harm the poorest in any society.” Furthermore, it warns that the United States cannot abuse extraterritoriality. “They have every right to veto interference in their airspace, but behaving like the owner of another country’s airspace sets precedents, of course.”
As for Maduro’s departure, the commentator considered that it would be very well received by the population, remembering the impact of the crisis in the country. “Venezuela lost between 7 and 8 million people, today it has a population of around 28 million, it used to be much more, and the youngest people, under 40, almost all fled, because they have no expectation of a future there”. Despite still holding the world’s largest oil reserves, the country’s daily production has fallen drastically, from several million barrels to less than a million. “Venezuela is today much poorer compared to what it was before the Bolivarian regime,” he added.
Faced with consecutive threats from Trump to invade the country by land, Paulo Portas warns of the complexity of the operation. “Venezuela has a regime with weapons distributed neighborhood by neighborhood, with popular militias, so I hope that the expectation of any land invasion does not happen”, he highlights, highlighting the paradox of North American influence. “Obviously this would be the Monroe Doctrine, on the contrary, the Americans used the Monroe Doctrine to, they said, avoid European interference in Latin America, now they seem to be using it to increase their own influence.”
