Following the action in Venezuela, the Trump administration is alluding to possible action elsewhere in the region.
In remarks aboard Air Force One Sunday night, Mr. Trump mentioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro, saying Colombia is “very sick too, run by a very sick man.”
Mr. Trump said he felt Petro is “not going to be doing it for very long,” and when asked if he would carry out a military operation there as well, the president responded, “Sounds good to me.”
Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a new stern warning to the Cuban government, a longtime U.S. adversary and one of Venezuela’s most important allies and trading partners. Rubio, in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said he thinks “they’re in a lot of trouble.”
“I’m not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard,” Rubio said. “But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro.”
He said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.
“It was Cubans that guarded Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not guarded by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards,” adding that Cuban bodyguards were also in charge of “internal intelligence” in Maduro’s government.
The Cuban government said Sunday that 32 Cubans were killed during the U.S. military operation to capture Maduro.
Mr. Trump said that the Cuban economy, battered by years of a U.S. embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island subsidized oil.
“It’s going down,” Mr. Trump said of Cuba. “It’s going down for the count.”
-CBS/AP
