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The President of the United States, Donald Trump, declared this Monday that the Venezuelan leader, Nicolás Maduro, would be "smart" if he chose to leave power and that "if he plays tough it will be the last time he can do it".
We assume, he defined his Colombian counterpart, Gustavo Petro, as "a troublemaker" and warned that "he better be careful", in what represents a new escalation.
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Trump uttered these words at an event held at his private residence in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, in which he called Petro the "new leader of Colombia" despite the fact that he was elected in 2022 and has only about eight months left to leave the presidency of the country. "I love the people of Colombia. They are great, energetic, intelligent, but their new leader is a troublemaker, and he better watch out," explained the real estate magnate during the event. The Republican again insisted that Colombia has three cocaine factories that are then sent to the U.S. "Shut down those cocaine factories. They have at least three major cocaine factories, they better shut them down fast," Trump said. The words of the American president, who has gone so far as to say that Petro is a "drug trafficking leader" who encourages the production of cocaine in his country, were made during an event in which it was announced that the U.S. will build new warships, the first of a class that will be christened "Trump Class". The announcement about these new warships comes a week after the president ordered the confiscation of all sanctioned tankers entering or leaving Venezuela to strangle the so-called "ghost fleet" and the oil industry, the main one in the Caribbean country.Since December 10, the United States, using its large military force deployed in the Caribbean with the argument of combating drug trafficking, has detained two tankers related to the transport of Venezuelan crude oil, a forceful pressure maneuver to try to force Maduro's departure from Venezuela.
Hours earlier, U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, assured that Maduro "has to go" from power. "We are not only intercepting ships, but also sending a message to the world that the illegal activity in which Maduro participates cannot be tolerated; he has to go," Noem told Fox News about the military operations against drug trafficking and sanctioned oil tankers.
