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Business and personal 45th and 47th President of the United States Incumbent Tenure
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During the first presidency and second presidency [ citation needed ] of United States president Donald Trump, the possibility of a United States-led invasion of Venezuela has been discussed. [1]
Within the framework of the crisis in Venezuela, an intervention was raised in 2017 to Donald Trump's advisors, including US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson and the national security advisor, H. R. McMaster (who left the Trump administration from that moment on) and later to several presidents of Latin American countries, among those, Juan Manuel Santos. [1] On both occasions, everyone present asked President Trump not to proceed with the plan. [1] On the possibility of intervention in Venezuela during the Venezuelan presidential crisis, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kimberly Breier said that:
Although our policy is based on a peaceful transition, we have made it very clear that all options are on the table. [2]
In an interview on Face the Nation in 2019, Trump said, "Well, I don't want to say that, but certainly it's something that on the – it's an option." which left the possibility that the U.S. could intervene militarily if Maduro's government continues to repress opposition and violate human rights open. [3]
In May 2020, Trump said in a conversation with the television network Fox News that "If we ever did anything with Venezuela", in that case "it would be called invasion ", explaining: "if I wanted to go into Venezuela I wouldn't make a secret about it", and "I wouldn't send a small, little group, no, no, no. It would be called an army." [4] In June 2020, John Bolton, National Security advisor at the time, published in a book that Trump said that invading Venezuela would be "cool" because it is "really part of the United States". [5]
In May 2023, Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, declared that Trump had made a proposal to then-president Iván Duque to invade Venezuela through Colombia, but that his advisors had stopped him. [6]
In June 2023, Trump said at a press conference in North Carolina, "When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil." [7]
U.S. Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, has long supported a strong U.S. response to Venezuela's crisis and has said that all options should remain on the table to remove Maduro from power and restore democracy in Venezuela. [3] Puerto Rican governor Jenniffer González-Colón said in a letter to US President Donald Trump that Maduro "is an open threat to the United States, our national security and stability in the region". [8] [9]
Axios reported that President Trump's team wanted regime change in Venezuela. His advisors want to see "dictator" Maduro go the way of former Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad and become "neighbours" with him in Moscow but "regime change doesn't necessarily mean military action". One advisor laughed off Maduro's threat to invade Puerto Rico. [10]
