The new chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee called Tuesday for a fresh look at the US campaign to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, urging a more multilateral approach under President-elect Joe Biden.

In an interview with AFP, Representative Gregory Meeks also charged that outgoing President Donald Trump had shown hypocrisy on Venezuela as he tries to overturn his own election defeat.

"Clearly, this administration is not on the right track. In fact, I think many individuals in Venezuela are laughing because, to me, what Trump is doing with this election is very similar to what Maduro has tried to do in Venezuela," Meeks said.

"We need a different policy," the Democrat from New York said of Venezuela.

Meeks has traveled several times to Venezuela and met Maduro's predecessor Hugo Chavez, with former president Barack Obama sending the congressman to represent the United States at the leftist firebrand's funeral in 2013.

Meeks said that the United States needs to be "working collectively in a multilateral way" with regional players and international organizations.

"We can't come in and say this is who your president is. That's not our role; that's the role of the Venezuelan people," Meeks said.

Meeks stopped short of saying Biden should reverse Trump's recognition of opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president and called for the United States to encourage unity within Venezuela's often fractious opposition.

He acknowledged election irregularities under Maduro and said that any solution to the crisis needs to focus on repairing institutions, including bringing the opposition into the election commission.

"You've got to make sure that the climate on the ground is set so that you can have a free and fair election," he said.

More than 50 nations, including most Latin American and European powers, recognize Guaido as interim president after wide reports of irregularities in Maduro's 2018 reelection and amid an economic catastrophe that has led millions of Venezuelans to flee.

Guaido had led the National Assembly until elections last month, which the opposition boycotted and international observers found to be unfair.

Outgoing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in a statement Tuesday said that the United States continued to recognize Guaido's legitimacy despite the "sham elections."

Maduro has stayed in power with support from Venezuela's military, Russia, China and Cuba.

Meeks is the first African-American to lead the House Foreign Affairs Committee, succeeding fellow New York Democrat Eliot Engel who lost his seat in the primary to a challenger from the left.

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