Donald Trump has warned Nicolás Maduro he can “do things the easy way … or the hard way” as Venezuela’s authoritarian leader responded to the growing US pressure campaign by urging followers to prepare to defend “every inch” of the South American country.
Dressed in woodland camouflage, Maduro said at a rally in the capital, Caracas, it was their historic duty to fight against foreign aggressors, just as Venezuelan liberation hero Simón Bolívar did two centuries ago.
“We must be able to defend every inch of this blessed land from any kind of imperialist threat or aggression, no matter where it comes from,” Maduro declared in his Tuesday address to the “revolutionary people of Caracas”.
“I swear before our Lord Jesus Christ, that I will give everything for the victory of Venezuela,” Maduro said, promising to protect the skies, mountains and plains of his country.
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Speaking on Air Force One as he flew to Florida, Trump declined to explain the precise purpose of his four-month campaign against Venezuela, although many suspect it is designed to topple Maduro, who is understood to have stolen last year’s presidential election.
Officially, the huge US military deployment in the Caribbean Sea is part of a crackdown on Latin American drug traffickers “flooding” the US with drugs. Washington has accused Maduro of running one narco “cartel” – the “Sun Cartel”, which this week was designated a foreign terrorist organization – although many experts say the group does not actually exist.
“I’m not going to tell you what the goal is. You should probably know what the goal is,” Trump said of his crusade, indicating that he “might” talk to Maduro.
“If we can save lives, if we can do things the easy way, fine. And if we have to do it the hard way, fine too,” the US president told reporters.
Trump’s future plans for South America’s sixth largest country – and the nation with the world’s largest proven oil reserves – remain shrouded in mystery.
“Maduro and many of his cohorts consider US military threats a bluff,” a source in regular contact with top Venezuelan officials told the Wall Street Journal this week.
“Maduro believes the only way the United States can oust him is by sending troops to Caracas,” the person added.
Given Trump’s reluctance to send US troops into combat overseas, this seems highly unlikely. But many observers suspect that, after carrying out more than 10 deadly airstrikes targeting suspected drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean Sea, Trump’s next move will be US strikes on Venezuelan soil.
“I think we’re going to start blowing things up. I think we have to do something because there’s too much force out there [in the Caribbean] not to do something,” said Douglas Farah, a national security adviser and Latin American expert who advised the US government on Venezuela during Trump’s first term.
Farah said that his biggest fear was that – even if the United States launched some kind of attack, perhaps targeting a major Caribbean port from which cocaine was smuggled – it would not succeed in overthrowing Maduro, just as Trump failed to overthrow him in 2019.
“[If that happens] Maduro will feel empowered. He will say: ‘Yes, I defeated the United States,'” said Farah. And any chance of the Venezuelan dictator leaving power “in some kind of orderly way will end again for another 10 years”.