Amid the escalation of the conflict between the United States and Venezuela, which is related to the statements of Donald Trump The president warned that he could not rule out war Javier Milei At the Mercosur summit he supported “the pressure” of the North American president “Free the Venezuelan people.”“.
“Argentina welcomes the pressure from the United States and Donald Trump to free the Venezuelan people. The time to do it.” a timid approach to this matter has been exhausted“said Milei during his speech at the summit in Foz de Iguazú.
The president emphasized that Venezuela “continues to suffer from a crisis.” devastating political, humanitarian and social crisis“ and called Nicolás Maduro a “narcoterrorist.”
“The cruel and inhumane dictatorship of drug terrorist Nicolás Maduro casts a dark shadow over our region. “This danger and this shame cannot continue to exist on the continent, otherwise it will drag us all into the abyss,” the Argentine president said shortly before supporting US military action.
Milei’s sharp speech against Maduro and in support of Trump’s intervention in Venezuela was a clear counterpoint to the words of his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who minutes earlier had warned that a possible war would be “a humanitarian catastrophe.”
“We also call on all other members of the bloc to support this position and categorically condemn this authoritarian experiment,” emphasized Milei.
Despite Milei’s pleas to his colleagues in the regional bloc, Brazil refused on Friday to agree to a ministerial resolution proposed by Argentina and Paraguay that would condemn human rights abuses and threats to democracy in the Maduro regime.
The head of state, in his presentation this Saturday, also took the opportunity to call for Maduro’s release of gendarme Nahuel Gallo, and also celebrated “the international recognition of the courage of María Corina Machado”, Maduro’s opposition leader, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
Lula, who is hosting the summit in Foz de Iguazú, told his colleagues in the region: “Armed intervention would be a humanitarian catastrophe“.
“He The South American continent is once again plagued by the military presence of a supra-regional power (…) An armed intervention in Venezuela would be a humanitarian catastrophe,” Lula said during the meeting of heads of state.
The Brazilian president, who presented himself as a mediator between the United States and Venezuela and held telephone conversations with Trump and Maduro, believed that “the real threats” to the sovereignty of countries in the region were “wars, anti-democratic forces and organized crime.”
The counterpoint in Milei and Lula da Silva’s speeches on the situation in Venezuela further highlights the differences between the two leaders as Trump wages a campaign of attacks against ships belonging to suspected drug traffickers in waters near Venezuela.
Tensions between the two countries escalated on Friday when Trump did not rule out war with the Caribbean country. It was during an interview with the network NBCNews. When asked directly whether the current operations could escalate into a war conflict, he replied: “I’m not ruling it out, no.”.
He also defended the “blockade” order issued earlier this week against sanctioned oil tankers. He warned that seizures of ships near Venezuelan waters would continue.
Venezuela’s response was not long in coming. The Venezuelan Interior and Justice Minister Diosdado Cabello, who is considered number two in the Maduro regime, assured that the police forces were responsible ready to defend their country from “any threat.”.
“Today Venezuela is a territory of peace, so it should continue to be, because when we talk about the fusion of population, military and police, it means that today our police officers are ready and willing to defend the homeland from any threat, internal or external,” the official said at an event to hand over vehicles and uniforms to state security forces in Caracas.
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