The United States vowed Monday to stop Venezuela from becoming a "failed state," as it rallied Latin American allies after President Donald Trump warned of possible military action. US Vice President Mike Pence met in a church in Cartagena, Colombia with Venezuelan families who have fled their country's deadly crisis, as he wrapped up the first stop on a Latin American tour.
"We will not stand by as Venezuela crumbles, but it's important to note, as the president said, that a failed state in Venezuela threatens the security and prosperity of the hemisphere," Pence told reporters. He was due later to head from Colombia to Argentina, the second stop on a tour that will also take him to Chile and Panama.
On Sunday, Pence advocated a peaceful approach to the crisis in Venezuela even as he stood by Trump's earlier warning that US military action remained a possibility. "We have many options for Venezuela, but the president also remains confident that working with all of our allies across Latin America we can achieve a peaceable solution," Pence told a news conference alongside Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos.
Trump on Friday said he was mulling a range of scenarios for crisis-hit Venezuela - "including a possible military option if necessary." Caracas condemned the comment, calling the threat "reckless" and "craziness." The rest of Latin America - even countries that condemn President Nicolas Maduro's attacks on Venezuela's democratic institutions - also strongly rejected it.
Santos re-affirmed that regional stance by saying he told Pence "that the possibility of a military intervention shouldn't even be considered." He added: "Every country in Latin America would not favor any form of military intervention." Colombia, Venezuela's neighbor, is a stalwart US ally and a fierce critic of Maduro and his policies.
But it and many other Latin American countries have bitter memories of past US adventures in the region. Those include invasions, gunboat diplomacy and the propping up of military dictators. Washington has already imposed unilateral sanctions on Maduro and nearly two dozen of his officials. The sanctions were in response to their establishment of a new loyalist body, an all-powerful Constituent Assembly, that supersedes the legislature controlled by the opposition.
Specifically on the threat of military action, Pence said: "President Trump is a leader who says what he means and means what he says." But he emphasized his trip was "to marshal the unprecedented support of countries across Latin America to achieve by peaceable means the restoration of democracy in Latin America, and we believe it is achievable by those means."
Trump's stated possibility of a US military operation looked likely to shadow Pence at every stop, eclipsing bilateral issues, especially trade, that he was raising along the way. Maduro's regime has seized on Trump's threat as proof of its claim that the United States wants to topple the current leftist government to get its hands on Venezuela's oil reserves, the largest in the world.
The Venezuelan opposition coalition on Sunday also rejected "the use of force, or the threat of applying such force, by whatever country against Venezuela." The coalition is seeking to oust Maduro through early elections. Venezuela's economy is heavily reliant on its oil exports. Shipments to the United States - its biggest customer - account for 40 percent of its crude production, but only eight percent of US oil imports.
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