Donald Trump has given Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro an ultimatum to get out, get out, get out, whatever the word is.
The warning came in a telephone conversation between the two, the week before last, according to what Reuters reported. New York Times and Wall Street Journal – Which, by the way, has also become considered a “pile of garbage” by the American president, since the newspaper stopped pledging allegiance to him. Trump’s ideology is the same.
The US President confirmed the conversation with Maduro, but did not want to confirm its content. In other words, there was an ultimatum. So much so that Trump used his social network to warn other countries that Venezuela’s airspace “should be considered completely closed.”
At this point, it seems difficult to create chemistry between the US president and Maduro, although you never know what’s going on with that orange hair.
Trump accuses the Venezuelan dictator of being the head of a terrorist drug gang that threatens the United States and sent a powerful naval fleet to flex its muscles off the coast of Venezuela. Young men from the north were playing with booby-trapped boats suspected of transporting drugs, and killing people in violation of international law, and no one ruled out that they could launch some of their toys on Venezuelan territory.
Maduro, like any Latin American bully, is terrified when confronted by someone stronger than him. You can no longer rely on Vladimir Putin, who is preoccupied with the massacre in Ukraine, let alone Xi Jinping, who only talks about the Venezuelan dictatorial regime.
At the beginning of the American hostilities, the impudent man tried to bargain to remain in power until the end of his term, and to hand over the Venezuelan oil, gold, and mineral industry to the United States.
Since the inappropriate proposal to abandon the people of Venezuela was not accepted, especially since the opposition promised to do something similar if it came to power, Maduro asked Trump to allow him to maintain control of the armed forces until he resigns, and finally call for free elections. He also asked Trump to grant him a global pardon, in an implicit acknowledgment of the crimes he committed.
It seems that the US President only told him that he and his family would be allowed to leave the country freely. This would give it some kind of passage.
Where is Maduro headed? It is expected that perhaps for Russia, and perhaps for Turkey, and Brazil, who have become increasingly insignificant in the Venezuelan chapter, this also represents an option, since under the Labor Treaty the tradition of condemning international criminals has been renewed. It is enough for him to threaten to tell everything he knows about the last twenty-five years of relations between the two countries, and it is certain that Lula will make the enormous sacrifice of sheltering the friend he trembles at.
The Venezuelan opposition, led by Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, is celebrating Maduro’s almost certain escape. Understandably, he does not care whether the dictator is the head of a terrorist drug cartel or not, as Trump claims. It is not uncommon for us to get the right thing for the wrong reasons in international relations.
Many regret that the United States has returned to behaving as if Latin America were its backyard. In fact, Americans never stopped looking at us that way, and were even more interested in other parts of the world. We again attracted attention because of our regional specialization: drug production and trafficking.
Anyone who has learned to be a perfect fool in Latin America must unlearn how to be one. It’s time to be adults. What I want to say is that at the same time that we are pointing the finger at the United States, and we should be pointing it out, we should be doing something wrong. Foreigners are not responsible for everything that happens in these ill-fated areas, contrary to what their history and sociology teachers say.
With very few exceptions that confirm the general rule, we have never avoided becoming what Americans have always viewed us as, and for good reason. We are a subcontinent that insists on being a graveyard of outdated ideologies, a breeding ground for caricatured dictators, like Maduro and Daniel Ortega, and outdated populists, like Lula and Jair Bolsonaro, who are cut from the same cloth.
Insanity, narcissism, and lack of interest in covering up Trump’s lack of scruples are an American exception, but lack of common sense, corruption, and the perversion of governments toward the people are constants in Latin America, and the whole list is accompanied by the hot sauce of cynicism. If we want to be respected, we have to respect ourselves.