US President Donald Trump on Friday said he was considering military options as a response to the escalating crisis in Venezuela, a move the South American nation quickly shot down as “craziness.”
Washington has slapped sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and some of his allies and branded him a “dictator” over his attempts to crush his nation’s opposition. Venezuela has in turn accused the US of “imperialist aggression.”
However, Trump’s latest comments were the first sign that he is mulling military intervention.
“We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary,” Trump told reporters. “We have troops all over the world in places that are very far away. Venezuela is not very far away and the people are suffering and they’re dying.”
Trump said Venezuela’s political crisis was among the topics discussed at the talks he hosted at his golf club in New Jersey with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley.
“Venezuela is a mess. It is very dangerous mess and a very sad situation,” Trump said.
However, if any US military contingency planning is under way, it must be in its early stages.
Pentagon spokesman Eric Pahon refused to elaborate on Trump’s comments, adding: “As of right now, the Pentagon has received no orders.”
Pahon said that “the military conducts contingency planning for a variety of situations. If called upon, we are prepared to support whole-of-government efforts to protect our national interest and safeguard US citizens.”
The White House said Trump would only agree to speak with Maduro “as soon as democracy is restored in that country,” after the Venezuelan leader requested a phone call with the US president.
Trump’s military warning came two days after his administration imposed new sanctions on Venezuela, targeting members of a loyalist assembly installed last week to bolster what Washington calls Maduro’s “dictatorship.”
Venezuelan Minister of Defense General Vladimir Padrino dismissed the threat as “an act of craziness, an act of supreme extremism.”
“There is an extremist elite governing the United States and honestly I don’t know what’s happening, what is going to happen in the world,” Padrino said.
The Venezuelan government had previously responded to the sanctions — which already targeted Maduro himself — by saying the US was “making a fool of itself in front of the world.”
On Thursday, Maduro declared that Venezuela’s new Constituent Assembly holds supreme power over all branches of government, even over his position, and that its work — ostensibly to rewrite the constitution — would return “peace” to the nation.
However, the US and major Latin American nations allege that Maduro is using the body as a tool to quash dissent, by clamping down on the opposition and the legislature it controls.
The crisis has fueled the street demonstrations that have gripped Venezuela for the past four months. Nearly 130 people have been killed in clashes between protesters and security forces.
The protests have lost steam in the past week as security forces have stepped up repression and demonstrators have grown discouraged by the opposition’s failure to bring about change.
However, hackers have taken up the torch. On Thursday, a group calling itself The Binary Guardians claimed responsibility for a massive cyberattack that cut mobile telephone service to seven million users.
Two renegade officers behind an attack on an army base in the northwestern city of Valencia to raid its armory last weekend have been captured, Padrino said.
“Whoever betrays the nation, whoever takes up arms against the FANB will receive exemplary punishment,” he said, referring to Venezuela’s armed forces.
SEEKING CHANGE: A hospital worker said she did not vote in previous elections, but ‘now I can see that maybe my vote can change the system and the country’ Voting closed yesterday across the Solomon Islands in the south Pacific nation’s first general election since the government switched diplomatic allegiance from Taiwan to Beijing and struck a secret security pact that has raised fears of the Chinese navy gaining a foothold in the region. The Solomon Islands’ closer relationship with China and a troubled domestic economy weighed on voters’ minds as they cast their ballots. As many as 420,000 registered voters had their say across 50 national seats. For the first time, the national vote also coincided with elections for eight of the 10 local governments. Esther Maeluma cast her vote in the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was