The United States stands with the Interim Government of Venezuela’s President, Juan Guaidó, with the democratically elected Venezuelan National Assembly, and with the Venezuelan people as they work to end the illegitimate Maduro regime. To support the country’s long-suffering people, the United States is providing additional aid.
On September 24, while attending the 74th United Nations General Assembly, USAID Administrator Mark Green announced 52 million dollars in development assistance to help interim President Juan Guaidó, his government, and the Venezuelan people as they seek to restore citizen-responsive, democratic governance to their country. This money will go toward programs that support the Venezuelan National Assembly, independent media, civil society, and restoration of the health sector.
Just a day later, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced nearly 119 million dollars in additional humanitarian assistance for the Venezuela crisis. This amount includes nearly 36 million dollars for life-saving aid inside Venezuela. The rest will go toward helping the four million Venezuelans who have fled to neighboring countries to escape the economic and political crisis, as well as to the countries and host communities that have generously welcomed them.
“This is the first time that the United States is going to be providing assistance to Venezuelans within Venezuela,” said USAID Deputy Administrator Bonnie Glick:
“ We're using funding to support some of those basic humanitarian needs in the country as well as to support the National Assembly. The National Assembly is the parliament, effectively the Congress of Venezuela.It was democratically elected.The United States believes that the elections that brought to power people the likes of whom are interim president Juan Guaidó who was president of the National Assembly. We believe that legitimate elections have to be supported. In the case of Venezuela, you have a legitimate national assembly and you have an illegitimate dictator who is keeping the Venezuelan people from being able to exercise their democratic rights.”
“The goal of the United States as well as of the Lima Group and truly all democracies in the world is to see Venezuela restored to its original state, which was as a prosperous gem in South America”, said Deputy Administrator Glick. “We look forward to the day when we'll be able to stand with the legitimate government, a democratic government in Caracas that rules justly across the entire country.”
