DORAL, Fla. — Many in South Florida have been watching the escalating situation between the United States and Venezuela very closely.
Raul Fuenmayor is from Venezuela and works in international shipping logistics.
“I have been here since I was 9 years old,” he said. “I am 33, I have two kids, and I am waiting for the day that I can go back and build a family and help rebuild the country. That is what the country needs.”
Fuenmayor said the majority of Venezuelans in the U.S. are eager to go back to their homeland.
“I have been waiting for this 25-30 years, everyone is,” he said. “We came here for security and to feed our family.”
Similar sentiments were expressed by Venezuelan-American Adelys Ferro.
“We must acknowledge a simple truth,” said Ferro. “We don’t we do not know what is being negotiated.”
Florida International University politics and international relations professor Eduardo Gamarra also spoke on the political aspect to this situation.
“The reality is that the administration has sent mixed messages to this community,” Gamarra said. “Are we interested in regime change? Are we interested in fighting drugs? Or are we interested in having access to Venezuela’s very, very wealthy oil resources?”
As the situation intensifies, a growing number of foreign policy experts wonder if the next steps could include the U.S. advocating for regime change.
“It is a first natural step for (Nicolas Maduro) to leave, but then after that, a lot of things have to happen for the big Venezuelan community go back and have a normal life,” said Fuenmayor.
Some of the main things that would need to happen, he says, are a return to safety and an open economy.
“Sanctions, they helped move things along to pressure the regime, but they definitely cooled off the market, made the economy worse, so that needs to happen,” he said. “You need jobs, you need security, you need to be available to open a business and bring food to your home, right? It is an economy that lost 80% of its GDP. It needs to be rebuilt from zero.”
Currently, there is still much that is unknown, as the countries continue wading into uncharted waters.
“We also don’t know what Maduro is considering, considering the range of options that are that are before him, including leaving the country or resisting, so this conference that the President will give this evening should clarify a lot of the questions that people have,” said Gamarra. “My sense is that there are probably going to be some significant developments. What direction those developments might take, of course, is anybody’s guess.”
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