President Donald Trump said Monday that “it would be smart” for Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro to give up power.
During a press conference on shipbuilding at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Florida, a reporter asked Trump if it is his goal to force Maduro from power.
“Well, I think it probably would. I can’t tell him, that’s up to him what he wants to do. I think it would be smart for him to do that. But again, we’re going to find out,” Trump responded.
Trump then blasted Venezuela for having done “terrible things to the United States.”
“They sent hundreds of thousands of people, millions of people, into our open border. They sent their criminals, they sent their prisoners, they sent their drug dealers, they sent their mentally insane and incompetent people into our country,” he said. “More than any other country. Others did too.”
Another reporter asked Trump what would happen to the sanctioned oil of the two Venezuelan tankers the United States recently seized on December 10 and December 20.
“We’re going to keep it,” Trump said.
“Maybe we’ll sell it. Maybe we’ll keep it. Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves; we’re keeping it. We’re keeping the ships also,” Trump said.
The president also ripped into Colombian President Gustavo Petro, highlighting cocaine from Colombia that is smuggled into the United States.
“They make cocaine in Colombia, and he’s no friend of the United States. He’s very bad, very bad guy, and he’s got to watch his ass, because he makes cocaine and they send it into the United States of America from Colombia,” Trump said.
He called on Petro to quickly close his country’s “cocaine factories,” adding that the United States knows of at least three major ones in Colombia.
“We love the Colombian people. I love the Colombian people. They’re great people, energetic, smart, great. But their new leader is a troublemaker, and he better watch it,” the president said.
“He better close up those cocaine factories. They have at least three major cocaine factories. We know where they are; you better close them up fast,” he added.
Read the full article here