Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro branded President Donald Trump a “coward” on Tuesday after the United States imposed sanctions on his wife Cilia Flores and other high-ranking regime officials.
“If you want to attack me, attack me, but do not mess with Cilia, do not mess with the family, do not be cowards,” he warned Trump, adding that her only crime was “being my wife.”
Maduro’s comments came after the U.S. Treasury imposed fresh sanctions on Flores and other members of his inner circle, including vice president Delcy Rodriguez, seizing all their U.S.-based assets and banning Americans from dealing with them in any financial capacity.
“We are continuing to designate loyalists who enable Maduro to solidify his hold on the military and the government while the Venezuelan people suffer,” said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on announcing the sanctions. “The Treasury will continue to impose a financial toll on those responsible for Venezuela’s tragic decline, and the networks and front-men they use to mask their illicit wealth.”
As well as being First Lady, Flores is a trained lawyer and former attorney general, who is regularly seen alongside her husband at public events. She is widely considered one of the regime’s most important behind-the-scenes power players.
Like Maduro’s son, Nicolás Maduro Guerra, Flores is a member of the “national constituent assembly,” a counterfeit legislature Maduro fabricated to replace the legitimate constitutional power of the National Assembly, currently controlled by opposition parties.
Last December, Flores’s nephews, Franqui Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efraín Antonio Campo Flores, were sentenced to 18 years in prison after being found guilty of conspiring to smuggle 1,700 pounds (800kg) of cocaine into the United States. Cilia later accused Washington of “kidnapping” the two men as part of an effort to undermine the Venezuelan government.
During his speech at the United Nations on Tuesday, Trump denounced Maduro’s socialist regime, whose policies have led to the worst economic and humanitarian crisis in the country’s history.
“All nations of the world should resist socialism and the misery that it brings to everyone,” he said. “Virtually everywhere socialism or communism has been tried, it has produced suffering, corruption, and decay … Socialism’s thirst for power leads to expansion, incursion, and oppression.”
He also continued to hint at a military solution to end the crisis, suggesting that an internal coup could topple the dictatorship “very quickly.”
“We ask the nations gathered here to join us in calling for the restoration of democracy in Venezuela,” he continued. “It’s a regime that, frankly, could be toppled very quickly by the military if the military decides to do that. It’s a truly bad place in the world today.”
Trump’s comments came amid growing international pressure on the Maduro regime as thousands of people continue to flee Venezuela every day in desperate need of humanitarian assistance. Some regional countries, including the U.S., Canada, and Colombia, have refused to rule out a military solution to the crisis, although many countries still oppose the use of force.
During a meeting with Colombian President Ivan Duque on Tuesday, Trump appeared to laugh at the strength of the Venezuelan military, mocking their reaction to an unsuccessful assassination attempt on Maduro last month.
On Tuesday, five leading Latin American democracies sent a letter to the International Criminal Court (ICC) on demanding a probe into crimes against humanity carried out by the Maduro regime. Numerous human rights investigations have found evidence of egregious human rights abuses, that include over 8,000 extrajudicial executions as well as the systematic repression and imprisonment of hundreds of opposition activists.
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