Remembering that balance in all things is a necessity, Trump made sure to undermine any possible, drug-related justification for U.S. intervention in Venezuela, against the regime of president Nicolás Maduro, by announcing the "full and complete pardon" of former Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, currently serving a 45-year federal prison sentence after being convicted in a U.S. court of conspiring with cartels to move more than 400 tons of cocaine toward the United States.
Meanwhile, over 600,000 Venezuelans in the United States have lost the protection of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) and are now at risk of being deported. Maduro is facing the most severe crisis of his mandate, yet each passing day is another day in power, even as the arrival of the USS Gerald Ford in Caribbean waters and the launch of Operation Southern Spear seem to signal an imminent checkmate.