Marco Rubio warns of using force if Delcy Rodríguez does not cooperate with the U.S.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated this Tuesday that the White House is willing to use force again against Venezuela in order to ensure that the acting president of the South American country, Delcy Rodríguez, cooperates to fulfill Washington’s strategic objectives in the region. “We are prepared to use force in order to ensure maximum cooperation, if other methods fail,” said the senior official in a statement that he will present this Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which was accessed by Bloomberg. “We hope this will not be necessary, but we will never shirk our duty to the American people and our mission in this hemisphere,” he added.

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Contrary to what Rubio expressed, the U.S. President, Donald Trump, stated this same day that his relations with the Venezuelan authorities are “very good”. “We have a very good relationship with the leaders of Venezuela and we are going to maintain it that way”, said the president to journalists, after reiterating that his Administration works “wonderfully” with Caracas and that it is going to make “a lot of money”, which will benefit both nations.

For his part, Rodríguez asserted that after the bombings of January 3rd and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, “channels of communication of respect and courtesy” were opened between Caracas and Washington, while he reiterated that the two nations are settling their “differences” and “divergences” through “diplomatic dialogue” and “political conversation between authorities of both countries”.

“I reaffirm what President Donald Trump has said, that we have established channels of communication of respect and courtesy, both with the US president and with Secretary [of State of the US, Marco] Rubio, with whom we are establishing an agenda”, he declared in a televised work session.