Perhaps this will make possible a quick response into Venezuela to protect our American personnel when the poo hits the fan there.
President Trump has made no secret of his desire to see Nicolas Maduro deposed, and has made it clear all options are on the table. Most Latin American nations and Israel have sided with the United States in recognizing his opponent Juan Guaido as the true President. European nations have told Maduro to hold a new election within eight days since the last one was corrupt. If he doesn’t, they too will recognize Guaido. Maduro has refused.
Today, John Bolton was seen holding a yellow pad that contained the notation, “5,000 troops to Columbia.”
Whether he meant for journalists to see it or not is unclear, but Maduro now knows. There is little doubt the U.S. will do whatever has to be done.
There was another note, “Afghanistan — welcome to talks.”
National Security Adviser John Bolton isn’t the type to make a mistake like that.
We have diplomats on the ground and the U.S. would respond immediately if the madman and former bus driver Maduro tries to harm them.
While I’m tired of seeing our overstretched military deployed all over the globe often to be involved in situations that arguably are none of our business I’d have to agree with Bolton. Sending a US carrier group or at least a Marine assault group to the region would also send a very powerful message and be a wise move.
Russia and Cuba keep telling us to stay out of it, both can go to hell. This is our hemisphere and our business and Putin hasn’t got the resources to much of anything other than run off at the yap and neither does Cuba. The best either could do is to send in some special op’s in support of Maduro and maybe some older corvettes and maybe a destroyer and that’s about it, no real threat to any substantial force we put in the region.
I don’t know enough about the “opposition leader” here involved in this case but he has to be an improvement over Maduro.
That is just it TWR! Include China on that list who can go fuck themselves! US should be spending more time developing and helping South American Countries with Business interests and strong US ties within Trade and relations in order to make our strategic location more robust and insuring to keep the CHICOMS and Russians, as well as the fucking Ocasio Cotez’s Marxist’s hatred of ever mutating again!
I have for years been saying that we need to quit bowing down and kissing China’s ass. Without US their biggest customer, the country would collapse financially in 6-12 months and would then collapse from internal strife when a billion starving Chinese take to the streets.
China isn’t going to sit on the sidelines re: Venezuela. They’ve dumped 100? billion in loans into that country as part of their belt and road initiative, more than the rest of their investment into South America combined.
And when those loans aren’t able to be repaid, China starts seizing state assets. No debt forgiveness there.
Doesn’t sound like the interim President is going to abide by the loan agreements, so China is all in in protecting Maduro.
China is going to lose big! They already are losing big and there is not a thing they can do about it! So bye bye! They are not in their own back yard and wouldn’t actively send a military presence to enforce it! Also you really think China is going to risk violating US and their current trade deal negotiations with the US to bypass current sanctions so they can protect their precious investment? Seriously? You haven’t thought this one out apparently! I am assuming you never worked in government, and your statement is typical hypothesis arm chair quarterbacking nonsense! Watch how this unfolds and how blatantly wrong you are going to look!
Oh good lord, those aren’t collateralized loans. They can no more move into VZ seizing property over this than they could here if the US refused to honor their bonds.
It’s a sovereign nation, the best they could do is try to fight them in the Venezuelan courts.
If the Chinese attempted to intervene militarily the US and the other nations can shut it down immediately by cutting off trade and we would have to respond militarily as well to any such move in our own hemisphere.
There is one thing that the Chinese love more than anything and that is money! I seriously doubt they will want to start a war at the risk of suffering a larger loss of trade revenue that they currently enjoy with the worlds largest market for a mere pittance that is known as VZ ! Not only is that stupid it would be insane! The CHICOMS are not stupid! They know when to cut their losses!
They don’t need to be collateralised. And the Chinese don’t need to move in militarily to seize anything.
That’s not how the Chinese ended up with their first overseas naval base. Djibouti handed it over to repay debts, what will Maduro hand over to secure their ongoing support and maintain his position? Oil fields maybe.
The Chinese debt-trap is very real. Creditor imperialism.
The Chinese could indeed end up losing big. Assuming Maduro is ousted.
If he’s not, they will carve off parts of Venezuela that are of strategic importance to them. It’s what they’re doing all over the world when their debtors can’t pay up anymore.
They haven’t needed to do any of it at the point of a gun.
Debt Imperialism will not work in this part of the world for several reasons, and one of them is the US won’t allow it to happen. It may have worked for Djibouti and other African Nations that they have exploited, due to not having competing interests with US companies. Trust me, China knows they already lost when the entire NAFTA agreement was renegotiated and they were on the hook for several trade violations they were engaged in for several years that they tried to arbitrate in the WTO and are losing on that front altogether. US holds all the cards when it comes to trade with China, and they certainly don’t have much in the way that they can do in terms of trying to proxy something out in order to undermine this situation for doing so will risk further problems on their already fragile trade relations they have with the US! The best China can do is what TWR said and that is challenge their claims through legal channels. Good luck with that one! However, if Maduro steps down and the new Government can stabilize the country, then most likely Venezuela’s neighboring Democratic allies who are pro democratic will encourage the country to pay its debts in order to get its economy back to being normal by making good on those outstanding loans they have to other countries such as China and Russia, and Oil is their biggest export they will leverage.
Bolton is a pretty smart guy with a good sense of humor. I bet he did that to set up the media and perhaps scare the crap out of that Venezuelan dictator.
