In his interview with Politico on Monday, President Donald Trump threatened Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and wouldn't rule out sending American soldiers to fight in a ground war in the country. But according to six GOP lawmakers, Pentagon officials and White House advisers, the threats are empty.
According to a Wednesday report, the lawmakers and top officials told Politico that for all of Trump's tough talk, there's no real action behind it.
One person close to the White House and familiar with Trump's thinking said that it's nothing more than "a designed strategy to pressure Maduro to leave."
“This has a 99.9 percent chance of not happening,” said a second person close to the White House. “But leaving that .01 percent chance on the table will bring people to the table.”
“This is not the Monroe Doctrine 2.0, this is like the Monroe Doctrine 5.0,” claimed Steve Bannon, who worked briefly for Trump's first administration but remains an ally and influencer.
Trump recently moved the USS Gerald Ford, a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, to the Caribbean, where it sat off the coast of the U.S. Virgin Islands for a week. It has since left the island of St. Thomas and headed southeast.
Bannon said that this naval buildup puts “additional pressure on Maduro to surrender and do what Trump wants him to do, which is to go to Turkey, leave the country. Because I think the negotiations are kind of down to that — where this guy ends up [and] most of the stuff there now is for pressure.”
Politico reported that the Ford is "capable of launching nearly 200 Tomahawk missiles at targets on land in the region, according to a recent Center for Strategic and International Studies analysis."
But putting troops on the ground is another matter entirely.
“The United States does not have the ground forces needed for an invasion,” retired Marine Col. Mark Cancian told Politico. "The Venezuelan ground forces number some 90,000 including the army, marines and National Guard. The United States has only 2,200 Marines [nearby], and there’s no movement to reinforce them.”
"I don’t think we need them right now,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) of ground troops.
“I’m not a supporter of ground troops,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) agreed in an interview on Tuesday. “I’m not a supporter of regime change forced by the United States. I mean, if Maduro decides to go of his own accord, fine. But I’ve never been a supporter of regime change.”
One Defense Department official explained, “This isn’t something you can just dial up and go.”
“The Trump administration was hoping to scare Maduro into departing Venezuela, but if that doesn’t work, the remaining military options are unappealing,” a second former defense official agreed. “And if Maduro does indeed depart, by choice or by force, then it leaves open the question of whether U.S. forces will be needed to secure the country, and for how long.”
Trump spent years campaigning by promising "America First" policies and pledging "We are ending the era of endless wars."
Trump announced in June that he believed it was not the job of Americans “to solve ancient conflicts in faraway lands that many people have not even heard of."
Read the full report here.
