Trump says Venezuela is a “disaster”

The President of the United States, Donald Trump, indicated this Monday (20), through some statements, how his government should treat the relationship with Venezuela in the coming years.

The American president says he is following the political crisis in the South American country “with great interest” and assured that he does not intend to negotiate the purchase of oil from Caracas.

“It’s a country I know very well for a number of reasons. It was a great country 20 years ago, and now it’s a disaster,” Trump said when asked after his inauguration how he would guarantee, after signing a decree to restrict immigration, that Maduro would welcome people expelled from the US. “We’ll see. We are looking at Venezuela with great interest”, he indicated.

The American president also suggested that he could adopt additional measures to put pressure on the dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro, who remains in power in Caracas despite numerous demonstrations of electoral fraud in the July elections.

At another point, when asked if he was still committed to Maduro’s departure from power, Trump replied: “We’ll also see, because we’re probably going to stop buying oil from Venezuela, we don’t need to.”

The Republican suggested that he may implement another embargo, as he did in his first term, as he considers that the US has more than enough oil. “This would change Venezuela a lot,” he concluded.

Newly confirmed Secretary of State Marco Rubio said at his confirmation hearing for the position that the US should review the licenses that allow the American oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela, because it contributes billions to the Maduro dictatorship.

Over the weekend, a source on Trump’s foreign policy team told Axios that “we wouldn’t mind at all seeing that Maduro shares a neighborhood with (Bashar al) Assad in Moscow,” referring to the Syrian dictator’s departure. into exile after the collapse of his regime.