Venezuela: No Tourist Visas For You!

I'm quoted in this Associated Press story on the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela announcing that it did not have the personnel to process tourist visas because Venezuela has kicked too many of them out.

The reporter wondered whether the United States was playing hardball and my response was no, not yet anyway. It's a warning to suggest that more could happen if Venezuela doesn't tone things down. As warnings go, it's actually pretty subtle, which is not always a hallmark of U.S. policy toward Latin America. It's a dig at the Bolibourgeoisie, who are getting rich from the revolution.

Even though Nicolás Maduro claims to have foiled a U.S. coup or assassination attempt about every other day, the response has been muted. Even the most diehard anti-Chavistas in the U.S. Congress talk about highly targeted sanctions and nothing more serious than that (at least for now!). It's almost as if policy makers are actually learning something...

Update: Comments got me to this over-the-top legislation from Rep. Ros-Lehtinen. If it goes anywhere then sadly my own comments about actually learning from the past fly totally out the window.