President Donald Trump just issued an ultimatum to Venezuela’s
military: Either join with the US-led effort to
depose Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, or suffer immense
consequences.
Maduro’s troops can defect and support the US-backed challenger
— Juan Guaidó — “or you can choose the second path,
continuing to support Maduro,” Trump said on Monday at Florida
International University. “If you choose this path, you will find
no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You will lose
everything.”
Since January, the Trump administration, joined by governments
in the Americas and Europe, has called for Venezuela’s socialist
president to step down, partly because the country has suffered an
immense economic and humanitarian collapse during his rule. The US
and others now support Guaidó, the leader of the country’s
opposition-controlled legislative body, who claims he is the
country’s rightful president.
Guaidó asserts that Maduro rigged the presidential election
last May that kept him in power. Citing Venezuela’s
constitution, Guaidó and others say the sham vote means
that he, as the head of the National Assembly (the country’s
legislative body), is now the interim president of the country.
But Guaidó can’t govern the nation until the military supports
him, and so far, the leaders of Venezuela’s
military stand behind Maduro. Their resolve, however, is
facing its biggest test yet.
Three US military planes arrived in neighboring
Colombia on Saturday to deliver aid to Venezuelans desperately in
need of humanitarian relief due to the country’s high inflation and
hunger rates. Maduro has ordered the military to block the aid,
saying that the assistance is tantamount to foreign intervention
and denying Venezuela faces a crisis.