Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday pledged $20 million in humanitarian aid for Venezuela, which he said fulfilled a request from National Assembly President Juan Guaido, whom the U.S. has recognized as the country’s interim leader.
“These funds are to help them cope with the severe food and medicine shortages and other dire impacts of their country’s political and economic crisis,” Pompeo told a meeting of ambassadors at the Organization of American States. “Our announcement of aid is in response to a request from the National Assembly, led by the interim president.”
Pompeo’s announcement is a first step in helping Guaido provide benefits to the Venezuelan people even as Nicolas Maduro seeks to maintain power. He paired the pledge with a rebuke of Maduro’s international supporters, who have accused the United States of backing a coup against the socialist government.
[Read more: White House offers safety to Maduro if he leaves Venezuela peacefully]
“Our support for Venezuela’s democratic hopes and dreams is in sharp contrast to the authoritarian regimes across the globe who have lined up to prop up former president Maduro,” Pompeo said.
Maduro has garnered support from Russia, China, and Cuba throughout the crisis that has gripped his country in recent years. “Venezuela is friendly to us and is our strategic partner,” Russian deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview published Thursday. “We have supported them and will support them.”
Pompeo attacked only Cuba by name at the OAS meeting.
“Maduro’s illegitimate rule was for years sustained by an influx of Cuban security and intelligence officials,” he said. “They schooled Venezuela’s secret police in the dark arts of torture, repression, and citizen control. Maduro was a fine student at the Cuban academy of oppression. We call on the OAS and all its member states to act on decent democratic principles and the incontrovertible facts on the ground.”
