Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez will “pay a very high price” if she refuses to cooperate with the United States, Donald Trump said, setting out his position in blunt and unambiguous terms.
“If she doesn’t do the right thing, she will have to pay a very high price—probably even higher than Maduro,” the U.S. president said in a telephone interview with The Atlantic. In the magazine’s assessment, the remark amounted to an unmistakable signal: Trump made clear that he has no intention of tolerating what he described as Rodriguez’s “defiant refusal” to engage with Washington.
In the same conversation, he raised another issue, saying that the United States needs control over Greenland for defensive purposes.
Earlier, in an interview with The New York Post, the U.S. leader stressed that an American military presence in Venezuela would not be necessary if Rodriguez “does what we want.”