Trump: Venezuela was about to collapse, we would have taken over it

Former US President Donald Trump asserted that when his term ended "Venezuela was about to collapse" and added: "We would have taken over it, we would have kept all that oil."

The controversial statement occurred during a political rally that he offered in North Carolina and went viral on social networks this Sunday, June 11.

In his first public speech after his indictment on federal charges, he added that the United States could keep Venezuelan oil, but "now we buy it from the dictator and make him richer."

Trump, who aspires to occupy the presidential chair again, warned that if there is no change of government, the United States "will end up being Venezuela on steroids." "Our country is going to hell," he declared.

Trump and the invasion of Venezuela

In 2018, the international news agency Associated Press (AP) revealed that President Donald Trump would have pressured his advisers to invade Venezuela militarily.

The AP reported that sources close to Trump claimed that the president posed a disturbing question to his advisers in the Oval Office in August 2017: "Why can't the United States just invade the troubled country?"

The proposal stunned those present at the meeting and would have led to the departure of former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and former national security adviser HR McMaster from the administration.

Both McMaster and Tillerson warned that military action would be counterproductive and would risk Trump losing the support of Latin American governments.

Venezuela condemns the statements

Venezuela's Minister of Foreign Relations, Yván Gil, affirmed that the former president confessed that the objective has always been to steal Venezuela's resources.

"Trump confesses that his intention was to seize Venezuelan oil. All the damage that the US has done to our people, with the support of its lackeys here, has had a single objective: to steal our resources!" he said.

"They were and will not be able to do it. We will always win!"

Venezuela's ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, for his part, tweeted: "Trump removes the mask to 60 satellite countries, to the international propaganda and to all the politicians and intellectuals who supported a puppet to govern Venezuela. The sole purpose has been to loot oil from the Venezuelan people. What a shame! Here the confession of the criminal."