Venezuela's Woes Draw Neighbors' Ire as Trade Leadership Hangs in Balance
It's the latest way Venezuela's regime has been rebuked.
— -- Leadership of South America’s largest trading bloc is in question, as the country meant to assume MERCOSUR's rotating presidency has apparently failed to meet legal and human rights standards required for membership.
Opposition from three countries to Venezuela assuming the helm of South America’s largest trading bloc by GDP, may represent growing resentment of Venezuela’s left-leaning regime by other South American countries according to experts.
Venezuela had failed to meet Friday's deadline to meet the membership requirements set forth when it joined MERCOSUR in 2006, according to a statement on the Brazilian foreign ministry’s website.
Venezuela was supposed to assume the group’s presidency for six months starting at the beginning of August, but its leadership has been opposed by Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, according to Matthew Taylor, adjunct senior fellow for Latin America studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. The three countries represent three of the bloc’s five members, and all have center-right governments.
"Venezuela, respectful of the law and in full exercise of the pro tempore presidency of MERCOSUR, will not allow its destruction," Venezuelan Foreign Minister Delcy Rodríguez tweeted earlier this week.
The three countries’ opposition, Taylor said, represents a “real shift in at least country’s attitudes” towards Venezuela, whose economy has been mired in a deepening crisis.
As ABC News reported last week from within Venezuela, the economic crisis is becoming a humanitarian one, with hospitals short on supplies and people queuing for hours for basic supplies.
“I suspect that if Venezuela were in a different place, this requirement wouldn’t be as stringent as Brazil and its allies are making it,” Taylor told ABC News. “Venezuela has been in the presidency in the past without having met these requirements.”
“It’s kinda ironic that Brazil has taken a stance now, but I think that says a lot about how devastating and destabilizing Venezuela’s crisis is for the rest of South America,” Taylor said.
Indeed, the Venezuelan government has been rebuked by other countries across the Americas in recent weeks.
On Thursday, fifteen countries, including the United States, which are all members of the Organization of American States, issued a joint statement calling for the “remaining steps” of a referendum to recall Venezuela’s embattled president to be pursued clearly, concretely and without delay
In June, the secretary general of the 35-country group Luis Almagro Lemes, said that Venezuela’s crisis was “reaching a breaking point,” and slammed the regime of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, saying the, “challenges cannot be blamed on external forces” and “the situation facing Venezuela today is the result of the actions of those currently in power.”
Meanwhile, the Venezuela-Colombia border is set to partially reopen today, after being shut for about a year.
The opening will almost certainly see Venezuelans pour across the border this weekend to buy food and medicine.
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