Following the actions in Venezuela, the Trump administration is hinting at possible actions in other parts of the region.
In remarks aboard Air Force One on Sunday night, Mr. Trump mentioned Colombian President Gustavo Petro, saying Colombia “is also very sick and is being run by a very sick man.”
Mr Trump said he didn't think Petro was “going to be doing this for very long” and when asked whether he would conduct a military operation there, the president replied: “That sounds good to me.”
Earlier in the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio issued a stern new warning to the Cuban government, a longtime U.S. adversary and one of Venezuela's most important allies and trading partners. Rubio on NBC's Meet the Press. said he thinks “they're in big trouble.”
“I'm not going to talk to you about what our future steps will be or what our policy will be in this regard right now,” Rubio said. “But I don’t think it’s any mystery that we are not big fans of the Cuban regime, which, by the way, supported Maduro.”
He said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela before his arrest.
“It was the Cubans who protected Maduro,” Rubio said. “He was not protected by Venezuelan bodyguards. He had Cuban bodyguards,” adding that the Cuban bodyguards were also responsible for “internal intelligence” within the Maduro government.
The Cuban government said on Sunday that 32 Cubans were killed in the US military operation to capture Maduro.
Mr Trump said the Cuban economy, battered by a decades-long US embargo, was in ruins and would fall further after the overthrow of Maduro, who supplied subsidized oil to the Caribbean islands.
“It’s going down,” Mr. Trump said of Cuba. “The count is going down.”
-CBS/AP
