MIAMI — President Trump on Monday warned Venezuelan soldiers who remain loyal to President Nicolas Maduro that they are risking their future and their lives and called on them to allow humanitarian aid into the country.
Speaking to a crowd mostly of Venezuelan and Cuban immigrants in Miami, Mr. Trump said if the Venezuelan military continues supporting Mr. Maduro, “you will find no safe harbor, no easy exit, and no way out. You’ll lose everything.”
In Venezuela late Monday, Mr. Maduro responded by saying Mr. Trump acted as if he were the owner of Venezuela and its citizens his slaves.
Mr. Trump offered support for Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido, whom the United States and many other Western countries have recognized as interim president of Venezuela.
But Mr. Maduro, who won a second term last year in an election that critics denounced as a sham, retains the backing of Russia and China and control of Venezuelan state institutions, including the security services.
Mr. Trump cautioned Venezuelan forces not to harm Mr. Guaido or other opposition politicians, urged them to accept the National Assembly leader’s offer of amnesty, and demanded they allow in food and other supplies.
Mr. Guaido invoked constitutional provisions to declare himself the country’s leader last month.
The United States has sent tons of aid that is being stockpiled on Colombia’s border with Venezuela.
Mr. Maduro refuses to let it in, calling the aid a U.S.-orchestrated show.
He denies any crisis.
The aid shipments are intended in part to dramatize the hyperinflation and shortages of food and medicine that are gripping Venezuela.
“He would rather see his people starve than give them aid,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Maduro.
Venezuela’s power struggle is headed toward a potential showdown Saturday, when Mr. Guaido plans to run caravans of U.S. humanitarian aid across the Venezuelan border from Colombia.
“We seek a peaceful transition of power, but all options are open,” Mr. Trump said during his speech Monday at Florida International University.
More than 2 million Venezuelans have fled the country in the last two years, most flooding across the border into Colombia, Brazil, and Peru.
Those left behind struggle to afford scarce supplies of food and medicine as inflation soars.
White House spokesman Sarah Sanders said earlier Monday that the United States “knows where military officials and their families have money hidden throughout the world.”
South Florida is home to more than 100,000 Venezuelans and Venezuelan-Americans, the largest concentration in the country.
Speaking in the presidential battleground state, Mr. Trump also sought to draw a contrast with the policies of some Democrats, which he brands as “socialist,” as he gears up for re-election.
Mr. Trump said that “socialism has so completely ravaged” Venezuela “that even the world’s largest reserves of oil are not enough to keep the lights on.
“This will never happen to us,” he said.
“Socialism promises prosperity, but it delivers poverty,” he said.
The President also spoke of the socialist governments in Cuba and Nicaragua, which have large expatriate communities in the Miami area.
“Socialism is dying and liberty, prosperity, and democracy are being reborn” throughout the hemisphere, Mr. Trump said.
“This will become the first free hemisphere in all of human history,” he said.
Shortly after Mr. Trump ended his speech, he made an appeal on Twitter.
“I ask every member of the Maduro regime: End this nightmare of poverty, hunger and death. LET YOUR PEOPLE GO. Set your country free! Now is the time for all Venezuelan Patriots to act together, as one united people. Nothing could be better for the future of Venezuela!”
Mr. Guaido addressed the Florida crowd in a recorded video released by the White House.
He thanked Mr. Trump and the state of Florida for their support.
“Now there is a debate between the democracy and dictatorship — one between life and death,” Mr. Guaido said. “Today this fight is existential.”
Mr. Trump said the United States is “profoundly grateful” to dissidents and exiles who have protested and raised alarms about the actions of the Maduro government.
The Trump Administration also has come under criticism, however, for not doing enough to grant asylum to those fleeing the country.
First Published February 19, 2019, 4:54 a.m.
