President Trump on Tuesday threatened to impose heavier sanctions on Venezuela if its president, Nicholas Maduro, refuses to relinquish power.
“We really haven’t done the really tough sanctions yet,” Trump said while speaking at a joint press conference with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro in the White House Rose Garden. “We can do the tough sanctions and all options are open, so we may be doing that. But we haven’t done the toughest of sanctions, as you know. We’ve done, I would say, right down the middle, but we can go a lot tougher if we need to do that.”
The United States and several other countries have repeatedly called on Maduro to step down, but Maduro has so far refused, despite heavy pressure.
Tuesday morning, the U.S. Treasury Department slapped a new sanction on Minerven, Venezuela’s gold mining company, which Maduro relies upon for financial support.
As a result of Maduro’s failed policies, Venezuela is experiencing massive food shortages as well as countrywide power outage last week. Trump said he wanted to help the people affected by the humanitarian crisis.
“We’re not looking for anything other than taking care of a lot of people that are starving and dying in the streets,” the president said. “What is happening there is a disgrace. This was one of the wealthiest countries in the world and all of a sudden, it is grief stricken, poverty stricken, no food, no water, no air conditioning, no anything, no power for a long time last week, no power. And that’s going to break down again because it is being held together by threads. So it’s very sad.”
Earlier in the day, Trump reiterated that the U.S. has not ruled out the potential use of military force to remove Maduro from power if necessary.
“All options are on the table,” he said Tuesday morning.
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