Washington.- The US President, Donald Trump, assured this Sunday in an interview with the magazine The Atlantic that if the interim Venezuelan president, Delcy Rodríguez, does not do the right thing, she will end up worse than Nicolás Maduro, imprisoned in New York after a spectacular US military and police operation.
“If he doesn’t do what is right, he’s going to pay a very high price, probably higher than Maduro’s,” Trump assured.
The tone in this
telephone interview contrasts with the one the president used on Saturday in his press conference, in which he said that the valid interlocutor for a transition process in Venezuela is Rodríguez, because in the absence of Maduro she is the legitimate heir.
“She is essentially willing to do what we believe is necessary to make Venezuela great again,” he assured at the press conference in which he said that after capturing Maduro, Washington would govern the country for as long as necessary.
Trump also nuanced his stance against regime change and nation-building. “Rebuilding there and changing the regime, whatever you want to call it, is better than what we have now, it couldn’t be worse,” he said in reference to Venezuela.
“Rebuilding in the case of Venezuela is not a bad thing,” he insisted, later adding that the country is a “disaster in every aspect.”
Trump denied that what is beginning in Venezuela has parallels with the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq in 2003 during the presidency of George W. Bush.
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“I was not responsible for Iraq. That was Bush. You have to ask him, but we should never have gone into Iraq. That was the beginning of the Middle East disaster,” he affirmed.
Trump’s warnings coincide with statements from the
U.S. Secretary of State,
Marco Rubio, who said this Sunday that
Rodríguez “is someone you can work with”, unlike the deposed Venezuelan president, who, according to him, broke all the agreements made with Washington.
Hours after Maduro’s capture, Delcy Rodríguez reacted harshly this Saturday, calling the US operation an “illegal and illegitimate kidnapping” and defending that Venezuela “will not be anyone’s colony”.
