Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan isn’t confirming or denying whether President Trump is seriously considering dispatching American troops to Colombia to turn up the heat on Nicolas Maduro, the embattled president of neighboring Venezuela.
The question arose because Monday, at a White House briefing national security adviser John Bolton held a yellow notepad with the words, “5,000 troops to Colombia,” scrawled on it as Bolton asserted that “all options are on the table.”
On Tuesday, Shanahan joked, “I didn’t bring a notepad today,” at his first Pentagon news conference since assuming the duties of acting defense secretary. But when pressed he repeatedly refused to say if a deployment of U.S. troops was a possibility.
“I haven’t discussed that with Secretary Bolton,” was as far as Shanahan was willing to go. When pressed again about whether he was specifically not ruling it out, Shanahan said, “I’m not commenting on it.”
The United States has officially recognized Maduro’s rival Juan Guaido as the legitimate interim president of Venezuela, over Maduro.
