After President Donald trump threatened to take military action against Venezuela, the country's defense minister Vladimir Padrino responded to his threat as "an act of craziness." The U.S. President's saber rattle came during the same week that he threatened to attack North Korea. Kim Jong-un's regime also responded to Trump's threat with the same sentiment saying that it was a "load of nonsense."
Other threats of military action within seven months of presidency
Military action against North Korea is already a big problem as it's unlikely there would be much support for it.
With Venezuela, military action is so unnecessary that it's absurd to even suggest it. Like North Korea, there isn't any support for it and, with the President having threatened Syria with war and then Kim Jong-un, threatening Venezuela seemed laughable But President Nicolas Maduro'segime has become a major problem in the region as it hustles other countries for support beyond its means.
Venezuela has already been given a loan by the Russian and Chinese governments. One opinion piece by the Hill titled: "Trump can avoid military force by targeting Venezuela's debt crisis," stated that Venezuela and its state oil company PDVSA are in debt by over $100 billion. It also said that Venezuela currently has $10 billion in gold reserves and shipped $1 billion of that to Switzerland that goes to paying off some of that debt.
This is just one example where they've started to "chip away at it" in recent years. The article also says that Goldman Sachs recently bought $2.8 billion of that debt. However, their payments are not equal to their borrowing and they're simply not able to manage it without intense reform.
Conflict and power grab in Venezuela
For years, Venezuela has been under a political crisis that continues to get worse. With a domestic economy collapsing and severe food shortages, the President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, has increased his attempts to seize power and continued to extend the length of his presidency. Violence has broken out in Venezuela's capital of Caracas with reports that anti-government forces had been arming themselves with stolen weapons from a military base.
This was after the nation's legislative body had been taken over by pro-Maduro lawmakers in July.
The Constituent Assembly was "elected" in July but 12 nations including the U.S. have joined together to declare the assembly illegitimate. Maduro claims that the new assembly was necessary to write a new constitution that would bring peace to the country. The Congress was elected in 2015 but hardly any of their legislation has passed as they have all been rejected by the pro-Maduro supreme court.
Maduro rejected by U.S.
Maduro made a statement last week in which he attacked Twhile also asking that both of them engage in talks. According to the White House, Maduro asked for a phone call with Trump on the same Friday that Trump threatened Venezuela.
The White House reportedly rejected Maduro's request.
Over the last few months, there have been reports that a member of the assembly, a powerful lawmaker named Diosdado Cabello was behind a plot to assassinate Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Rubio accuses Cabello of helping Venezuela become a narco-state.
Sen. Rubio has also helped fill a gap in President Trump's foreign policy efforts towards Latin America where he appears to be the source of influence for that policy. Rubio has suggested that the U.S. ban all oil exports from Venezuela, which make up for 75 percent of that nation's economy.
Targeted countries response to President's threats
North Korea reacted to President Trump's threats by saying that they would strike Guam which is known to have U.S.
military stationed there, even detailing the coordinates and the types of missiles they would use. They had further detailed that they would plan to take action by the middle of August. Last Tuesday, however, Kim Jong-un rolled back his rhetoric and said he wanted to see how the "Yankees" would respond. Venezuela has made similar gestures of defiance in retaliation when they said earlier this year that the Latin American country had anti-aircraft missiles positioned along the coast.
The Pentagon went even further to deny that there were any plans to invade Venezuela. When the President was pressed for more details by the press of what kind of military action he had in mind for Venezuela, he said that he doesn't talk about military options but that it would be something that they could pursue.
So far, in his presidency, Trump has only conducted strikes against another country once, with 59 cruise missiles against a Syrian air base that was cleared before attacked.
Aside from this, there were no signs that there would actually be an attack or that even Trump knew what he would do to conduct one. When asked for details about similar threats, he said that he would not "telegraph" details about how he would handle another hostile nation.