WASHINGTON: US President Donald Trump left open the possibility of war with Venezuela, as his top diplomat Marco Rubio vowed Friday (Dec 19) to enforce a blockade on the country’s oil wealth.
Asked in an interview with NBC News conducted Thursday about a war with Venezuela, Trump said, “I don’t rule it out, no.”
Trump declined to say whether he wants to oust President Nicolas Maduro, after saying in an earlier interview that the leftist firebrand’s “days are numbered”.
“He knows exactly what I want,” Trump replied. “He knows better than anybody.”
Rubio, who was repeatedly asked about Venezuela during a two-hour news conference at the State Department which he addressed both in English and Spanish, also declined to answer explicitly if the United States was aiming to overthrow Maduro, but he promised to press on.
“It is clear that the current status quo with the Venezuelan regime is intolerable for the United States,” Rubio said.
“So yes, our goal is to change that dynamic, and that’s why the president is doing what he’s doing,” he said of Trump.
Rubio, a Cuban American and vociferous critic of the communist government in Havana, has pressed for a hard line on Venezuela after Trump initially appeared open to a transactional relationship with Maduro. Rubio did not rule out talks with Maduro.
Trump earlier this week declared that Venezuela is “completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America”.
Trump vowed that the United States would stop Venezuela’s shipments of oil, in what he described as enforcement of sanctions imposed unilaterally by the United States.
“There’s nothing that’s going to impede our ability to enforce US law when it comes to sanctions,” Rubio said.
Hardline Trump aide Stephen Miller has accused Venezuela of “expropriation” as US companies were involved in early oil exploration on sovereign Venezuelan territory.
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