During the administration of United States President Donald Trump, the possibility of a United States-led invasion of Venezuela was discussed. [1]
During the administration of United States President Donald Trump, the possibility of a United States-led invasion of Venezuela was 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 said plan. [1] During the venezuelan presidential crisis the possibility of intervene in Venezuela, Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Kimberly Breier declared 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 May 2020, Trump said in a conversation with the television network Fox News that "if we ever did something with Venezuela", in that case "it would be called invasion ", explaining: "if I wanted to enter Venezuela I wouldn't I would keep it a secret, and I would not send a small group, we would talk about an Army. [3] In June 2020 John Bolton, national security advisor at the time, published in a book that Donald Trump said that invading Venezuela would be "great" because "actually It is part of the United States». [4]
In May 2023 Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, declared that Donald Trump had made a proposal to then-president Iván Duque to invade Venezuela through Colombia, but that his advisors had stopped him. [5]
In June 2023, Trump declared at a press conference in North Carolina: [6]
When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over, we would have gotten all that oil.
Yoseph Alicia Machado Fajardo is a Venezuelan-American actress, tv host, singer and beauty queen who was crowned Miss Universe 1996, she previously crowned Miss Venezuela 1995. She was the fourth woman from Venezuela to be named Miss Universe.
Gustavo Francisco Petro Urrego is a Colombian politician and economist who has been serving as the 34th and current president of Colombia since 2022. A member of the M19 armed guerrilla movement, upon inauguration, he became the first left-wing president in the recent history of Colombia.
Colombia–Venezuela relations refers to the diplomatic relations between the South American neighboring countries of Colombia and Venezuela. The relationship has developed since the early 16th century, when Spanish colonizers created the Province of Santa Marta and the Province of New Andalucia. The countries have a share history of achieving their independence under Simón Bolívar and becoming one nation—the Gran Colombia—which dissolved in the 19th century. Since then, the overall relationship between the two countries has oscillated between cooperation and bilateral struggle.
Iván Duque Márquez is a Colombian politician and lawyer who served as the president of Colombia from 2018 to 2022. He was elected as the candidate from the Democratic Centre Party in the 2018 Colombian presidential election. Backed by his mentor, former president and powerful senator Álvaro Uribe, he was elected despite having been relatively unknown a year before the election. He ran on a platform that included opposing Juan Manuel Santos' peace agreement with the FARC guerrilla group. After Duque's term came to an end, he was succeeded by Gustavo Petro on 7 August 2022, after Petro won the runoff round in the 2022 Colombian presidential election.
Francia Elena Márquez Mina is a Colombian human-rights and environmental activist and lawyer, who is the 13th and current Vice President of Colombia. She was born in Yolombó, a village in the Suarez municipality in Cauca Department. She first became an activist at 13, when construction of a dam threatened her community. After taking office, she became the first Afro-Colombian vice president in the country's history. She is also the second woman to hold the post, after Marta Lucía Ramírez. In August 2020, Márquez announced her candidacy in the 2022 Colombian presidential election and sought the nomination for the Historic Pact for Colombia coalition. She was later chosen by the coalition's nominee, Gustavo Petro, to be his running mate. In 2023 she was also appointed as Ministry of Equality and Equity of Colombia.
Juan Gerardo Antonio Guaidó Márquez is a Venezuelan opposition politician. He belonged to the social-democratic party Popular Will, and was a federal deputy to the National Assembly representing the state of Vargas. On 23 January 2019, the National Assembly declared that he was acting president of Venezuela and Guaidó swore himself into office, starting the Venezuelan presidential crisis by challenging Nicolás Maduro's presidency. In December 2022, opposition parties voted to dismiss Guaidó as interim president, choosing Dinorah Figuera as a successor on 5 January 2023 and ending Guaidó's presidential claim.
The Venezuelan presidential crisis was a political crisis concerning the leadership and the legitimate president of Venezuela between 2019 and 2023, with the nation and the world divided in support for Nicolás Maduro or Juan Guaidó.
During the 2019 Venezuelan presidential crisis, AP News reported that "familiar geopolitical sides" had formed, with allies Russia, China, Iran, Turkey, Syria, and Cuba supporting Maduro, and the US, Canada, and most of Western Europe supporting Juan Guaidó as interim president. Amid widespread condemnation, President Maduro was sworn in on 10 January 2019, and the President of the National Assembly, Guaidó, was declared the interim President by that body on 23 January 2019. Intervention by the United States in Venezuela was criticized by allies of Nicolás Maduro and political figures from the left spectrum; Maduro's government stated that the crisis was a "coup d'état led by the United States to topple him and control the country's oil reserves." Guaidó denied the coup allegations, saying peaceful volunteers backed his movement.
Operation Gideon was an unsuccessful attempt by the Active Coalition of the Venezuelan International Reserve, Venezuelan dissidents, and a private security firm, Jordan Goudreau's Silvercorp USA, to infiltrate Venezuela by sea and remove Nicolás Maduro from power. The plan executed from 3 to 4 May 2020 was for expatriate Venezuelan military living in Colombia to enter the country by boat at Macuto, take control of an airfield, capture Maduro and other high-level figures in his administration, and expel them from the country.
Presidential elections were held in Colombia on 29 May 2022, with a runoff on 19 June 2022 as no candidate obtained at least 50% in the first round of voting. Iván Duque, who was elected president in 2018, was ineligible to run due to term limits. Gustavo Petro, a senator, former Mayor of Bogota, and runner-up in the 2018 election, defeated Rodolfo Hernández Suárez, former Mayor of Bucaramanga, in the runoff election. Petro's victory made him the first left-wing candidate to be elected president of Colombia, and his running mate, Francia Márquez, is the first Afro-Colombian elected to the vice-presidency, as well as the second female vice-president overall.
Parliamentary elections were held in Colombia on 13 March 2022.
The Madrid Forum is an anti-communist organization created on 26 October 2020 by the Disenso Foundation think tank of the right wing Spanish political party Vox. Its founding document, the Madrid Charter, includes signatures by members of the Republican Party in the United States, Venezuelan opposition members, Cuban dissidents, Fujimorists of Peru, and other representatives of political parties from Latin America.
Rodolfo Hernández Suárez is a Colombian politician, civil engineer, and businessman who served as a senator of Colombia from July to August 2022. He was mayor of Bucaramanga from 2016 until his resignation in 2019. As the nominee for the League of Anti-Corruption Governors (LIGA) coalition, Hernández placed second in the first round of the 2022 Colombian presidential election, and he was ultimately defeated by Gustavo Petro in the second round run-off election. Hernández then accepted a senate seat offered to the runner-up in a presidential election and took office on 20 July. Hernández resigned his seat after serving for less than four months, citing incompatibility with the position. His departure fueled widespread speculation that he intended to run for office in his department of Santander.
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A series of protests began in Colombia on 26 September 2022 against left-wing cross-sectoral structural reforms of the State requiring a record-breaking taxation, proposed by the government of President Gustavo Petro in order to respond to the challenges of the post-COVID-19 pandemic times. Following his inauguration on 7 August 2022, the newly installed President Petro put forward legislative bill proposals to reform the defense sector and the military police, open peace negotiations with the ELN and other armed guerrilla groups, reestablish bilateral relations with Venezuela, change the legal framework regarding drug use and narcotrafficking, and introduce tax reforms, among others.
Gustavo Petro's term as the 34th president of Colombia began with his inauguration on 7 August 2022. Petro, a leftist leader from Córdoba who previously served as mayor of Bogotá, took office after his victory in the 2022 presidential election over the self-proclaimed "anti-corruption leader" Rodolfo Hernández. Upon his inauguration, he became the first left-wing president in the recent history of Colombia. Petro took office amid the political shadow of his predecessor, an economic crisis and increased political polarization.
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