Almost immediately after Venezuelan Juan Guaido declared himself the country’s interim president on January 23, the United States led a chorus of other countries in recognising the opposition leader as Venezuela’s legitimate interim president.

President Nicolas Maduro, who enjoys the support of the highest ranks of the military, as well as China, Turkey and Russia, quickly hit back, assuring his supporters that he was the country’s legitimate president, and accusing Guaido and the US of staging a coup.

Days later, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo named Elliott Abrams, a hawkish former Republican diplomat, to handle US policy towards the South American country.

Since then the US has sent aid that Maduro rejected to the Colombian-Venezuelan border, hit Venezuela’s state-owned oil company, PDVSA, with sanctions and is reportedly in communication withmembers of Venezuela’s military in an attempt to persuade them to support Guaido.

In announcing Abrams’s post, Pompeo said that the former diplomat would be a “true asset to our mission to help the Venezuelan people fully restore democracy and prosperity to their country”. But many outside Trump’s circle see Abrams as a controversial figure.

‘Artfully distorted’

Abrams is a former US diplomat who served as assistant secretary of state during the administration of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. A neoconservative, Abrams has long advocated an activist US role in the world. He also served in the government of George W Bush, first as a Middle East expert on the National Security Council and later as a global democracy strategy adviser.

Assistant Secretary of State Elliott Abrams is sworn in prior to