President Donald Trump met with Latin American Leaders in New York City on Monday, urging them to challenge Venezuela dictator Nicolás Maduro.
“The socialist dictatorship of Nicolás Maduro has inflicted terrible misery and suffering on the good people of that country,” Trump said during his remarks prior to the dinner. “His corrupt regime destroyed a thriving nation by imposing a failed ideology that has produced poverty and despair everywhere it has been tried.”
Maduro, Trump argued, had destroyed the representative democracy in the country as well as its economic future.
“The Venezuelan people are starving, and their country is collapsing,” he said.
Trump signaled that the United States was prepared to take further action against the country, and urged Latin American leaders to do the same. The president made his remarks during his visit to the United Nations where he will deliver a speech on Tuesday.
“I ask every country represented here to be prepared to do more to address this unbelievably serious crisis,” he said. “We call for the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela, and we want it to happen very, very soon.”
Trump has ordered four different rounds of sanctions on Maduro and his allies in Venezuela since taking office.
In August, Trump signaled that he was open to the idea of a military solution in the country.
“Venezuela is a mess, it is very dangerous mess, and a very sad situation,” Trump said. “We have many options for Venezuela, I’m not ruling out military options.”
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