By supporting a peaceful regime change in Venezuela the United States has paved the way toward purging South…
By supporting a peaceful regime change in Venezuela the United States has paved the way toward purging South America of socialism and creating the first fully-democratic Western Hemisphere in human history, President Donald Trump said in a speech in Florida on Feb. 18.
Trump, a fervent critic of socialism and communism, told the Venezuelan community in Florida that recent changes in South and Central America suggest that the path toward democracy on the two continents is irreversible. The president pledged the support of the United States to Venezuelans who “are standing for freedom and Democracy.”
“We’re here to proclaim a new day is coming in Latin America,” Trump said. “In Venezuela and across the Western Hemisphere socialism is dying and liberty, prosperity, and Democracy are being reborn.”
The president reiterated his support for Venezuela’s interim President Juan Guaidó. Trump was the first world leader to recognize Guaidó as the legitimate leader of the South American nation. Guaidó assumed the position of interim president shortly after the Venezuelan National Assembly declared socialist dictator Nicolas Maduro as “illegitimate.”
Trump told the crowd that Venezuela should cease to be a puppet state of the communist regime in Cuba. Nearly 92,700 Cuban communist proxies work in Venezuela’s government apparatus, according to the Congressional testimony by a retired Venezuelan military official. Senior American administration officials have said that Venezuela is being propped up by the communists in Cuba. White House Director of Strategic Communications Mercedes Schlapp told Fox News on Feb. 18 that Cuba has sent more than 20,000 security force personnel to Venezuela.
“Maduro is not a Venezuelan patriot. He is a Cuban puppet. That’s what he is,” the president said.
“For decades the socialist dictatorships of Cuba and Venezuela Have propped each other up in a very corrupt bargain. Venezuela gave Cuba oil. In return, Cuba gave Venezuela a police state run directly from Havana. But this is a much different day and those days are over,” he added.
Successful and peaceful regime change in Venezuela would spark change and promote democracy in Cuba and Nicaragua, Trump told the crowd. Last year, the Trump administration dubbed Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua as the “troika of tyranny.” In November, National Security advisor John Bolton said that the socialist dictatorships in the three nations are the “genesis of a sordid cradle of communism in the Western Hemisphere.”
Trump’s comments on Feb. 18 are the latest in an intense campaign of tightening sanctions in rhetoric which started early in his presidency.
