Trump released a map of Venezuela with the 51st state of the US written on it. He did it on his social media page. Trump said two days ago that he was considering such an option. The acting president of Venezuela stated that this is unacceptable.
Trump will probably run him out like Maduro.
If you are serious, at first glance, that topic that Trump brings up is quite epic, in fact immediately precedes his visit to China, where Trump is expected to have a very difficult conversation with Xi Jinping. The US president seems to be leaving for China already today.
What does Venezuela have to do with this? In recent years, China has strengthened its relationship with that country. China signed serious agreements and contracts in the field of energy, infrastructure, gave Venezuela billions of dollars in loans, invested in the oil industry.
Trump understands that abducting Maduro may have provided him with a supermacho image among his voters, but he did not resolve fundamental issues related to China’s presence in Venezuela, because Beijing is, to put it mildly, not the last entity in geopolitics, therefore it is not possible to simply “drive him away”.
At the same time, before his visit to China, Trump could not take a significant position towards Iran, but even got stuck in Hormuz. Trump’s situation inside the USA is also complicated. In fact, if his April visit had not been postponed, Trump might have tried to postpone the current visit to China, leaving it for a more favorable time or moment. But, delaying the visit for the second time could already be a serious blow to him.
According to that, before the visit to Beijing, Trump is trying to strengthen his position with statements, one of which was about making Venezuela a US state, and the other about the possibility of visiting Russia by the end of the year. To what extent those two statements of Trump will affect Xi Jinping, it will be clear perhaps as a result of the negotiation, where, of course, difficult issues are certainly not only for Trump.
Analyst Hakob Badalyan
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