One day after the State Department said that the “U.S. does not recognize the Maduro regime as the government of Venezuela” and while it would maintain diplomatic relations with Venezuela it would “conduct our relations with Venezuela through the government of interim President Guaido, who has invited our mission to remain in Venezuela”, which in turn prompted Maduro to order the expulsion of all US citizens out of Venezuela in 72 hours, moments ago the US State Department ordered all non-emergency U.S. government employees to depart Venezuela.
“U.S. government has limited ability to provide emergency services to U.S. citizens in Venezuela,” the state department said in a security alert, warning that Americans residing or traveling in Venezuela “should strongly consider departing Venezuela. Commercial flights remain available.”
Yet while the US is advising non-emergency personnel to depart the politically unstable country, it did not do the same with “emergency” personnel (it was not exactly clear what is an “emergency” US employee in Venezuela), who however are not exempt from Maduro’s decree, which likely means that after 48 hours, unless something drastically changes, there may well be a major escalation in diplomatic (and not only) hostilities some time on Saturday when the 72 hour deadline expires.
In other words, the state department appears to be calling Maduro’s bluff, and it is unclear just how far Maduro, and the military which remains alligned with the socialist president, will be willing to push any potential escalation.
One thing is clear however: while much of the world has sided with the opposition “regime” of Guaido, two notable outliers remain: China and Russia, both of which made it very clear that any US intervention in Venezuela will not be tolerated. Whether the state department realizes that by calling Maduro’s bluff it is doing the same with Russia and China remains to be seen.
via ZeroHedge News http://bit.ly/2T8eSNi Tyler Durden