How Long will Russia and China Underwrite a Collapsing Venezuela?

U.S. President Donald Trump and his Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro are in a tit-for-tat of name-calling. Trump, in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in New York earlier this month, called Maduro a socialist dictator and said, “This corrupt regime destroyed a prosperous nation by imposing a failed ideology.” Maduro, in response, called Trump the “new Hitler.” A week later, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza in his UNGA speech said Trump is acting “as if he were the world’s emperor.”

On Tuesday, Trump reiterated his disdain for the Maduro regime, saying at a joint press conference with Spain’s President, “Here, in the Western Hemisphere, we have seen the heartbreaking tragedy of Maduro’s socialist rule in Venezuela.”