South America and Venezuela: Foreign Affairs

Since the wave of democratization in the 1980s swept the continent, South America has strengthened intraregional connections in an effort to reject foreign intervention, especially from the United States and the West. Brazil led the charge in ensuring that its neighboring countries would not resort to authoritarian governance. For some time, multinational organizations, created to bring about cooperation and peace in the region, lived up to its purpose and isolated leaders who tried to solicit outside support for domestic coups. These diplomatic efforts, however, were no match for former Venezuela president Hugo Chávez. He managed to co-opt countries like Brazil, Argentina, and Bolivia by promising them lucrative yet shady oil deals so that they would look the other way when it came to Venezuelan domestic politics. Oliver Stuenkel writes in Foreign Affairs that countries that could exert pressure on Maduro are the United States, China, Russia and Cuba, none of which is in South America. The only measure South American countries could take, diplomatically recognizing Guaidó, is already completed, leaving them with no other real options. – YaleGlobal