After Secretary of State Marco Rubio sought to clarify President Donald Trump’s Saturday comment that the United States would “run” Venezuela following the capture and extradition of Nicolás Maduro, the president reiterated his position Sunday.
“We’re dealing with the people. We’re dealing with the people that just got supported. And don’t ask me who’s in charge, because I’ll give you an answer, and it’ll be very controversial,” Trump told reporters on board Air Force One. “We’re in charge.”
Trump added that there would be elections in Venezuela “at the right time.”
“We’re going to run it, fix it,” he said. “It’s a broken country. There’s no money. There’s inflation, like we would have had if I didn’t win this election, we would have been Venezuela on steroids.”
When asked whether he believed America was back in the business of nation-building, Trump said rebuilding the Venezuelan economy would be good for the country.
“We’re in the business of having countries around us that are viable, successful and where the oil is allowed to freely come out, because that’s good, it gets the prices down. That’s good for our country,” Trump said. “This is Venezuela, our area, the ‘Donroe Doctrine,’” a play on words riffing on the Monroe Doctrine to describe his Trump-branded approach to American leadership in the Western Hemisphere.
Trump said that he was inspired to take action against Maduro because of the drugs coming into the United States from Venezuela. Over the last few months, the War Department has conducted strikes on more than 30 boats suspected of running drugs, many of them coming from Venezuela. Trump said that drugs coming by sea into the United States were down 97%.
During his conversation with reporters, Trump called for Mexico to take more action to stop drug trafficking.
“You have to do something with Mexico,” Trump said. “Mexico has to get their act together, because they’re pouring through Mexico, and we’re gonna have to do something. We’d love Mexico to do it. They’re capable of doing it. But unfortunately, the cartels are very strong in Mexico.”
Trump was also asked about Greenland and whether he had any plans to take control there. He said he wanted to focus on Ukraine and Venezuela for the next few months, but believed it was a strategically important country.
“We need Greenland from a national security situation. It’s so strategic right now, Greenland is covered with Russian and Chinese ships all over the place,” Trump said. “We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it.”