Argentine President, Javier Milei, urged his Mercosur partners to support the military pressure exerted by his North American counterpart, Donald Trump, against Venezuela and to condemn the Government of Nicolás Maduro. “Argentina welcomes the pressure from the United States and Donald Trump to free the Venezuelan people. The time for a timid approach to this issue is over. We also urge all other members of the bloc to support this position“, appealed Milei in his speech at the Mercosur Summit in Foz de Iguaçu, in the south of Brazil, which takes place this Saturday, December 20th.
The Argentine leader referred to his Venezuelan counterpart as a narco-terrorist and authoritarian, reinforcing his support for the large United States naval deployment in Caribbean waters since September. Last week, Washington also announced a blockade of Venezuelan oil exports.
Milei recalled that Venezuela is suspended from Mercosur for violating the Ushuaia Protocol, which regulates participation in the South American bloc. He also accused Maduro’s government of being responsible for the “devastating political, humanitarian and social crisis” in your country.
“The atrocious and inhumane dictatorship of narco-terrorist Nicolás Maduro casts a dark shadow over our region. This danger and this shame cannot continue to exist on the continent, or it will end up dragging us all down.“, warned Milei. The Argentine president is close to the leader of the White House, in a speech that followed a different orientation from that of the Brazilian President, Lula da Silva.
“Four decades after the Falklands War, the South American continent is once again haunted” by the military presence of a foreign powersaid the Brazilian head of state at the opening of the Mercosur summit. Lula da Silva warned that military intervention in Venezuela “it would be a humanitarian catastrophe for the southern hemisphere and a dangerous precedent for the world”.
On Friday, the US President did not rule out the possibility of a war with Venezueladays after ordering a blockade of oil tankers originating or destined for that country. The White House leader refused on the other hand to comment on whether the objective of US military operations is the deposition of the Venezuelan Presidentwith whom he spoke by phone in November, and “knows better than anyone” what Washington intends.