THE US-sponsored bid by Venezuelan pretender Juan Guaido to summarily declare himself president and take over the government seems a damp squib. Immediate recognition from Washington and rapid copycat action by the EU and some right-wing governments in Latin America now looks like a mistake.

Foreign ministries in the – by global standards – small minority of countries whose governments decided to bet on Guaido now have to go through the motions of dealing with a “government” without a territory or mandate, while for pragmatic reasons continuing to work with the authorities that actually exist. Venezuela’s elected President Nicolas Maduro has been able to mobilise greater street support than Guaido, whose April attempt at a military takeover had no more success than his optimistic self-coronation on TV had a few months earlier.

Venezuela might be standing firm in the face of an unusually pathetic attempted coup. But the United States is not backing down. Last month saw a further tightening of sanctions that the US-based Centre for Economic and Policy Research estimated had already caused tens of thousands of deaths. Venezuela’s ambassador to Britain Rocio Maneiro says the stranglehold on the Venezuelan economy now amounts to a blockade.