Trump and Rubio framed the assault on Venezuela as a warning to Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and other nations.<\/b>
\nU.S. President Donald Trump and top administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, characterized Saturday\u2019s assault on Venezuela and abduction of the country\u2019s president as a warning shot in the direction of Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, and other Latin American nations.
During a Saturday press conference, Trump openly invoked the Monroe Doctrine \u2014 an assertion of U.S. dominance of the Western Hemisphere \u2014 and said his campaign of aggression against Venezuela represented the \u201cDonroe Doctrine\u201d in action.
In his unwieldy remarks, Trump called out Colombian President Gustavo Petro by name, accusing him without evidence of \u201cmaking cocaine and sending it to the United States.\u201d
\u201cSo he does have to watch his ass,\u201d the U.S. president said of Petro, who condemned the Trump administration\u2019s Saturday attack on Venezuela as \u201caggression against the sovereignty of Venezuela and Latin America.\u201d
Petro responded defiantly to the possibility of the U.S. targeting him, writing on social media that he is \u201cnot worried at all.\u201d
In a Fox News appearance earlier Saturday, Trump also took aim at the United States\u2019 southern neighbor, declaring ominously that \u201csomething\u2019s going to have to be done with Mexico,\u201d which also denounced the attack on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro.
\u201cShe is very frightened of the cartels,\u201d Trump said of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. \u201cSo we have to do something.\u201d
Rubio, for his part, focused on Cuba \u2014 a country whose government he has long sought to topple.
\u201cIf I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I\u2019d be concerned, at least a little bit,\u201d Rubio, who was born in Miami to Cuban immigrant parents, said during Saturday\u2019s press conference.
That the Trump administration wasted no time threatening other nations as it pledged to control Venezuela indefinitely sparked grave warnings, with the leadership of Progressive International cautioning that \u201cthis armed attack on Venezuela is not an isolated event.\u201d
\u201cIt is the next step in the United States\u2019 campaign of regime change that stretches from Caracas to Havana \u2014 and an attack on the very principle of sovereign equality and the prospects for the Zone of Peace once established by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,\u201d the coalition said in a statement. \u201cThis renewed declaration of impunity from Washington is a threat to all nations around the world.\u201d
\u201cTrump has clearly articulated the imperial logic of this intervention \u2014 to seize control over Venezuela\u2019s natural resources and reassert U.S. domination over the hemisphere,\u201d said Progressive International. \u201cThe \u2018Trump corollary\u2019 to the Monroe Doctrine \u2014 applied in recent hours with violent force over the skies of Caracas \u2014 is the single greatest threat to peace and prosperity that the Americas confront today.\u201d<\/p>\n