Brazil’s role in efforts to topple the Venezuelan government

Nicolás Maduro’s days as president of Venezuela appear to be numbered. The country is hurtling towards rock bottom, with the International Monetary Fund projecting its inflation rate could reach an almost unreal 10,000,000 percent in 2019. A humanitarian crisis has seen over 1.6 million flee the nation, which is undergoing an extreme supply crisis.

Mr. Maduro was sworn in for a second term last week, won by way of elections held last May. However, a number of anti-democratic maneuvers and suspicions of fraud have led Brazil to declare that it does not recognize the legitimacy of the government in its neighbor to the north.

Brazil is not alone in doing so, either. Thirteen of the 14 members of the Lima Group—the Latin American multilateral body established in 2017 to negotiate an end to the Venezuelan crisis—also signed a declaration stating they do not recognize Mr. Maduro’s new term. Only Mexico, which claimed it wanted to maintain relations with the country in order to help with its humanitarian crisis, did not sign. The European Union and the...