American intervention in Venezuela was considered by Trump from his first term, claims a former Latin American president
Juan Manuel Santos, former president of Colombia Photo: Luis Barron / Zuma Press / Profimedia
The former Colombian president and laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize, Juan Manuel Santos, said in an interview published by the Financial Times on Friday that US President Donald Trump suggested “an invasion” in Venezuela during a meeting with Latin American leaders in 2017, during his first term in the White House, reports AFP, taken by Agerpres.
The former head of state of Colombia (2010-2018), who negotiated the disarmament of FARC guerrillas in 2016, considered the US attack on Venezuela and the capture of President Nicolas Maduro on January 3 as “terrible” for “global stability”.
Santos also claimed that Donald Trump raised the idea of an “invasion” of Venezuela years earlier during a meeting in New York in September 2017. “He said, half jokingly, half seriously: 'Look at Venezuela, I think we could quickly solve this problem with an invasion,'” the former Colombian leader said.
“We Latin Americans were quite surprised,” said Juan Manuel Santos, who claims he told Trump at the time that it was “the worst possible solution.”
The former Colombian president believes that Trump's intention to govern Venezuela from a distance will fail and is counting on democratic elections.
“They removed Maduro under the pretext that he is a drug dealer… But they replaced him with his number two, who is also illegitimate,” he added.
For now, Trump rules out the organization of elections and prefers to “dictate” until further notice the decisions of the team that remained in charge in Caracas after the capture of Maduro.
