A day after United States President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that Washington would “run” Venezuela, his administration’s top officials made it clear that US dominance is indeed real and that the rest of the world should take note.
The US government on Saturday captured Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro in an overnight raid and and extradited him to New York on charges of narcotics-conspiracy. A day after, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth on Sunday said that Maduro ‘had his chance’ to leave on his own, just like Iran, Fox News reported.
Hegseth added that Maduro had his chance before he did not, before becoming the latest example of a leader paying a high price for not responding to Trump’s pressure.
“He effed around and he found out,” Hegseth said as he spoke of Maduro.
Trump administration also hinted towards similar threats towards Cuba, Mexico and Colombia.
It threatened military action in Colombia and Mexico and said Cuba’s communist regime “looks like it’s ready to fall” on its own, Reuters reported.
The Colombian and Mexican embassies in Washington did not immediately return requests for comment.
Cuba
The government of Cuba in its latest statement advised all countries in the region to stay alert as the threat persists.
“All nations of the region must remain alert, as the threat hangs over all,” the government statement read.
President Trump on Fox News said that Cuba would be a country that he would end up talking about as he called it a ‘falling nation’. He made the sweeping remark as he was asked about how Cuba should be interpreting the Venezuelan operation on Fox News.
Trump claimed that given Cuba’s economic state, an operation in Cuba similar to that in Venezuela would not be necessary, reported news agency ANI. “Cuba seems to be on the verge of collapse. I don’t know how they’re going to be able to stay afloat; they have no income. They received all their income from Venezuela, from Venezuelan oil,” he said.
Trump further said that he wanted to help Cubans. “We want to help the people. It’s very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country,” he said.
Mexico
Speaking of Mexico, Trump on a phone call interview with Fox News said that he would do something with Mexico over the dominance of drug cartels in the country.
He said that he had asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wants the US military’s help in uprooting the densely spread drug cartel operations in the nation.
“We could be politically correct and be nice and say, ‘Oh yeah she is.’ She is very frightened of the cartels,” Trump said.
The MAGA chief further claimed that drug cartels have been running Mexico and that he had asked Sheinbaum several times if she would like US administration to take out the cartels to which she disagreed. “So we have to do something,” Trump stated.
Colombia
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, an ally of Maduro, condemned the US attack on Venezuela on Saturday and termed it as an aggression against all of South America.
He further announced the mobilization of Colombian troops along the border with Venezuela to halt the flow of refugees into the nation.
Colombian embassy in Washington issued a recent statement on X (formerly Twitter), stating that President Petro offered to help mediate a solution to the ongoing crisis in Venezuela.
Trump accused Petro of being a ‘drug-trafficker’ adding that Colombia is “run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States,” news agency AFP reported.
Speaking to reporters, when Trump was asked if a military intervention similar to Venezuela was on the cards for Colombia, he said that it sounds good to him.
“He has cocaine mills and cocaine factories and is not going to be doing it very long,” Trump added.
