U.S. military “surgical strikes” are a possibility in Venezuela, according to Frank Mora, a former U.S. ambassador to the Organization of American States.
Mora, the director of Florida International University’s Latin American and Caribbean Center, said President Donald Trump’s objective is to oust Nicolás Maduro.
“If there is no regime change, I think that a lot of people in South Florida and beyond are going to be quite disappointed,” the FIU professor of politics and international relations said on Sunday during This Week In South Florida.
Mora said Trump’s announcement on Friday about pardoning ex-Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández was an indication that his actions on Venezuela were not just about drug trafficking.
Hernández, who was sentenced to 45 years in a U.S. prison after a federal jury trial on narcotrafficking, “was caught on tape saying that he was committed to stuffing cocaine up the nose of Americans,” Mora said.
The New York Times recently reported that Trump and Maduro had a conversation, and Trump used Truth Social to warn against flying near or over Venezuela.
Maria Corina Machado, Venezuelan opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, has said Venezuelans are hopeful about the U.S. designation of the Cartel De Los Soles as narcoterrorists.
Mora said this is all part of an effort to pressure Maduro and his supporters to leave power.
“I think you are seeing a psychological operation,” Mora said.
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