Foreign Policy Guru Predicts Trump Strikes on Venezuela Are ‘Imminent’
AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin
Foreign policy guru Ian Bremmer said on Tuesday that President Donald Trump ordering military strikes against Venezuela looks “pretty imminent.” Bremmer, who heads a political risk consulting firm, made the comments in a video he posted to social media.
“Hi everybody, Ian Bremmer here in Mexico City, a little bit closer to where the action appears to be heading: the United States and Venezuela. Basically, President Trump is talking about regime change, giving an ultimatum to dictator Nicolas Maduro—leave with your family to safety, or else you will be removed,” Bremmer began, adding:
That is… you know, been stepping up now with America’s naval capabilities arrayed in addition to 15,000 troops around Venezuela, off the coast. You are not going to be putting that kind of military capacity in place, and you’re certainly not going to be making that kind of an ultimatum as Trump did unless you’re planning on using it. So indeed, military strikes against Venezuela look pretty imminent.
Bremmer then went on to give his take as to why Trump would suddenly be using military force against Venezuela, “Now, why is Trump interested in doing this?”
“It’s certainly not because Maduro is an illegitimate dictator, though that is indeed the case. He stole an election, and most of the Venezuelans want him out, and those that would support the United States being involved in that would do so precisely because he has stolen an election. But that’s not Trump’s interest,” Bremmer argued, adding:
Trump doesn’t care if you’re a dictator or if you’re a Democrat, as long as you’re doing a deal with him. The issue for Trump is much more about the drug export to the United States. That’s also about the largest oil reserves in the world. And you know that anyone that comes in on the back of Trump’s military operations is gonna be very interested in cutting a deal to give the United States preferred access to those investments.
So in this case, it is indeed in part—in large part—about the oil. Same way that if the Ukrainians wanted Trump to continue to provide intelligence and military support, sell the weapons, they were gonna have to cut a critical minerals deal with the U.S. The United States took a percentage of Intel after Biden granted them U.S. taxpayer money. Now the United States government owns a piece of it. That is what you’d be looking at in Venezuela.
But how do you get from here to there? We’ve seen Maduro just in the past hours giving a public speech. He certainly is not about to leave the country, flee the country. But that speech was with a large number of civilians, women, children, all around him. He’s not doing speeches where he’s like on a dais by himself. He’s in places where, when he appears, if you try to take him out, a lot of civilian casualties would also be in place. He recognizes there is an imminent danger to him. He’s not going to make it easy for the United States unless the military, under pressure, were to go after him themselves.
Watch the clip above.
