Since the U.S. military captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro over the weekend, U.S. President Donald Trump and his administration officials have issued warnings to several other governments, including Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Iran, and the autonomous Danish territory of Greenland.
“Our business is to surround ourselves with viable, successful, and free oil producers,” President Trump said Sunday.
“America’s primacy in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said.
Here’s what you need to know about President Trump’s statements over the past two days and some government responses.
greenland
President Trump reiterated Sunday that the United States needs Greenland, the giant island in the North Atlantic Ocean, “for national security reasons.”
“We need Greenland. … It’s very strategic right now. Greenland is covered in Russian and Chinese ships everywhere,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One. “We need Greenland from a national security perspective, but Denmark won’t be able to do it.”
Reacting to President Trump’s recent comments, Greenland’s Prime Minister Jens Frederik Nielsen said in a statement on Monday: “The current repeated rhetoric from the United States is completely unacceptable. For the President of the United States to say ‘we need Greenland’ and link us to Venezuela and military intervention is not only wrong, it is disrespectful.”
“We are not subject to great power rhetoric. We are a people, a country and a democracy,” Nielsen added.
“We’re not in a situation where we think there might be a takeover of the country overnight,” he told a news conference later, according to Reuters. “You can’t compare Greenland and Venezuela. We are democratic countries.”
President Trump has repeatedly said he wants to annex Greenland, a huge 836,000 square mile (2.16 million square kilometer) resource-rich island, and has argued that the autonomous Danish territory is necessary for U.S. national security, but has also cited “economic security.”
Greenland and Denmark, a NATO ally of the United States, are adamantly opposed to the idea.
President Trump on Sunday had harsh words for Colombian President Gustavo Petro, calling him a “sick man who likes to make cocaine and sell it to the United States, and he won’t be doing it for long.”
Asked by reporters whether these comments meant there was a possibility of a future “operation” in Colombia, Trump replied, “I think that’s a good thing.”
In a nearly 700-word post on X, Petro defended the government’s record in combating drug trafficking and touted what he called “the largest seizure of cocaine in the history of the world.”
He added, “I am neither an illegitimate child nor a drug addict. The only asset I have is my parents’ home, which I still pay for with my salary.”
Petro said he ordered targeted bombings against drug-linked armed groups while adhering to humanitarian law.
But according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Colombia’s cocaine production is at an all-time high.
Petro, a former member of the guerrilla group M19, said late Monday that he would personally fight to protect Colombia.
“I swore never to touch a weapon again…but for the sake of my country I will take up arms again,” he said.
Petro was furious with the Trump administration for calling on American soldiers to disobey orders and had his US visa revoked in September.
President Trump said Sunday that Cuba, a key ally of Venezuela, is “ready to collapse” and there is no need for military intervention.
“I don’t think any action is necessary,” President Trump said. “It looks like it’s going down.”
“I don’t know if they will hold out, but Cuba has no income right now,” he added. “They were getting all of their income from Venezuela, from Venezuelan oil.”
But Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the Cuban government “a big problem.”
“I think they’re in a lot of trouble, yes,” Rubio said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“I’m not going to talk about what our future path or policy is going to be in this regard right now, but I don’t think it’s surprising that we’re not big fans of the Cuban regime.”
“If I lived in Havana and worked for the government, I would be worried,” Rubio said.
At a rally in front of the U.S. Embassy in Havana on Saturday, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel pledged not to let the Cuban-Venezuelan alliance collapse without a fight.
“We are willing to give even our lives for Venezuela, and of course for Cuba, but the price is high,” Díaz-Canel declared.
President Trump has frequently accused Mexico of not doing enough to crack down on drug cartels.
He said Sunday there was an “influx” of drugs across Mexico and “we’re going to have to do something.”
President Trump added that Mexican cartels are “very strong” and warned that “Mexico needs to get its act together.”
In a phone interview with Fox News, President Trump said he asked Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum if she wanted the U.S. military to help root out drug cartels.
Mr. Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected U.S. intervention in Venezuela and seizing Mr. Maduro.
“Mexico reaffirms principles that are neither new nor tolerate ambiguity,” he said at a press conference on Monday. “We firmly reject interference in the internal affairs of other countries.”
Responding to Trump’s accusation that Mexico is not doing enough to combat drug trafficking cartels, Sheinbaum asserted that “Mexico is working with the United States, including on humanitarian grounds, to prevent fentanyl and other drugs from reaching our people, especially our youth.”
“We don’t want fentanyl or any drug near young people, whether it’s in the United States, Mexico or anywhere else in the world.”
Sheinbaum again rejected the concept of U.S. military action on Mexican territory, saying he did not believe the U.S. was seriously considering an invasion of Mexico.
President Trump also repeatedly issued warnings to Iran, where anti-government protests have entered their second week.
“If they start killing people like they’ve been doing, they’re going to get a very hard blow from the United States,” Trump told reporters on Sunday.
President Trump said last week that if Iran “kills peaceful protesters, which is what Iran does, the United States will come to their rescue. We’re locked, loaded and ready to go.”
An Iranian human rights group estimated on Sunday that 16 people had been killed in the protests so far. CNN cannot confirm that tally.
Late last month, President Trump warned Iran against any attempt to rebuild its nuclear or ballistic missile programs. After speaking with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, President Trump said he had heard that Iran was “misbehaving.” …We are hearing that Iran is trying to strengthen its regime again, and if that is the case, we will need to defeat Iran.
Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday that the Islamic Republic “will not yield to its enemies” and that the insurgents should be “put in their place.”
Amid Israel’s 12-day war against Iran, the United States bombed several of Iran’s major nuclear facilities in June. The attack ended a stalled process of bilateral negotiations between the United States and Iran aimed at curbing Tehran’s nuclear program.
