President Joe Biden is open to increasing pressure on Venezuela if Nicolás Maduro fails to take concrete steps toward democratic elections, the Biden administration said on Thursday, as Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro visited the White House.
Petro came to Washington hoping the Biden administration would express a willingness to relieve sanctions on Maduro, whose grip on power has thrown the South American country into economic turmoil and the region into a humanitarian and migration crisis. But U.S. officials said they had not yet seen concrete steps taken by Maduro toward democracy to justify any relief.
“We’d like to see more,” John Kirby, coordinator for strategic communications at the National Security Council in the White House, told reporters at a press briefing before the meeting began.
