While Trump cuts food stamps, USAID bankrolls Venezuela regime change with half a billion in tax dollars

The Trump administration has spent $654 million in “aid” to try to overthrow Venezuela’s government, including $435 million through USAID and $128 million directly to Juan Guaidó and his corrupt coup gang — all while imposing crippling austerity at home.

By Ben Norton

“Information Clearing House” -Under President Donald Trump, the United States has dumped over half a billion dollars into regime change-related “aid” efforts targeting Venezuela’s elected, UN-recognized government.

From 2017 to December 2019, the Trump administration spent at least $654 million on Venezuela-related aid schemes. While Washington claims this spending assisted humanitarian efforts, much of the US taxpayers’ money financed efforts to destabilize and ultimately overthrow the government of President Nicolás Maduro.

The US Agency for International Development (USAID) is a central arm of Washington’s hybrid war on socialist and independent states around the world. It has a long and sordid history of funding “civil society” groups and political opposition parties to topple the governments of designated enemies.

USAID has provided $435 million of this $654 million, bankrolling Venezuela’s right-wing, US-controlled opposition. At least $128 million of this USAID money went directly into the pockets of the coup leaders that the Trump administration attempted to install as the rulers of the country in 2019.

USAID recently divulged this shocking level of support, acknowledging that it is going to fund Venezuelan anti-government activists, NGOs, and opposition media outlets, along with the supposed “interim government” led by US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó, as well as Venezuela’s National Assembly, which until January was led by Guaidó and controlled by the right-wing opposition.

While the United States is spending hundreds of millions of dollars trying to overthrow Venezuela’s leftist government, the Trump administration is aggressively cutting social programs at home.

To slash $4.2 billion in public expenditures over five years, Trump gutted food stamps that fed 700,000 poor Americans, most of whom are children. Funding this crucial program would cost just around $840 million per year – close to the amount Trump has poured into US regime-change efforts in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has also drastically cut taxes for the rich and large corporations. Thanks to these cuts, the richest 400 billionaires in the US now pay a lower tax rate than the poorest Americans.

As working-class Americans increasingly bear the burden of this taxation, their tax dollars are being spent on destroying socialist governments in the Global South.

USAID’s role in US coup attempt against Venezuela

USAID has long acted as a front for the CIA and other government agencies, disguising regime-change activities as supposed humanitarian work. Under the administration of Donald Trump, the organization’s role as an arm of US hybrid warfare has become more aggressive than ever.

In February 2019, a USAID plan was revealed to train “aid workers” as special operations forces who serve in teams with military and intelligence operatives to advance US “national security” interests.

That same month, the ostensible humanitarian agency was activated as the lead element in a plot to overthrow Venezuela’s elected government. USAID collaborated with the Defense Department and State Department in a scheme in Cucuta, Colombia, on Venezuela’s border.

USAID worked hand in glove with Venezuelan coup leaders, many of whom disguised themselves as so-called aid workers. On February 23, they tried to ram a US “aid” convoy across the Venezuelan border.

The putsch attempt was ultimately unsuccessful. So as a last resort, violent right-wing coup-mongers set the aid on fire, and Washington and the international media immediately blamed the Maduro government — in a scheme first exposed by The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal, and finally acknowledged weeks later by The New York Times.

Actual aid organizations publicly condemned USAID’s involvement in the violent coup attempt. The International Red Cross said the stunt “is, for us, not humanitarian aid.” And the United Nations slammed the “politicized” nature of USAID’s activities.

USAID funding of Juan Guaidó’s corrupt coup cabal

In its December statement, USAID claimed, “No funds are provided directly to elected National Assembly members, high-level officials of the Guaidó Administration, Ambassadors, or the interim President himself.”

But in the same breath, just one sentence prior, the agency acknowledged, “USAID is providing compensation, travel costs, and other expenses for some technical advisors to the National Assembly and the interim Guaidó Administration through assistance funds.”

USAID’s denial of direct funding appears to be bald-faced lies. In October, The Grayzone reported that, through USAID, US taxpayers are paying the salaries and expenses of Venezuelan opposition leaders from Guaidó’s shadow regime.

The Grayzone contributor Leonardo Flores noted that USAID signed an October 8 agreement with Guaidó’s ersatz administration that included $98 million in assistance allotted for Venezuela.

The Los Angeles Times obtained an internal government memo which showed that approximately $42 million of that funding was taken from aid that had originally been proportioned to assist desperate Central American migrants. Instead, the money was re-routed to “Guaidó and his faction… to pay for their salaries, airfare, ‘good governance’ training, propaganda, technical assistance for holding elections and other ‘democracy-building’ projects.”…….more here

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