US President Donald Trump will meet next Wednesday, 25, with Latin American leaders to discuss the crisis in Venezuela. The meeting will be held in parallel to the working sessions of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly. In principle, President Jair Bolsonaro will not attend because he will address the plenary and return to Brazil on Tuesday, 23.
"The president will have the opportunity to speak with leading hemispheric leaders about the lobbying campaign on Nicolás Maduro," said a US government official who requested anonymity.
The White House did not want to detail who the meeting participants were. But the meeting would hardly be revived without the presence of the president of Colombia, Iván Duque, and of Peru, Martín Vizcarra. Due to medical restrictions due to recent surgery, Bolsonaro will no longer be in New York, according to the schedule released by the Planalto Palace.
The meeting will take place two days after another meeting, also in New York, between the foreign ministers of the signatory countries of the Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance (TIAR), a kind of mainland NATO, triggered to pave the way for possible military intervention in Venezuela. Separately, there will also be a meeting of the Lima Group, created in 2017 to accompany the Venezuelan political crisis and propose peaceful solutions.
In principle, the countries present will have to decide what step to take to pressure Maduro: to break diplomatic and economic relations with the Chavista regime or to decree a blockade on naval and air transport to Venezuela. Military intervention, as Trump himself said, remains on the table. Maduro will not be present this year at the General Assembly.
Difficulties in applying TIAR, however, are already visible due to resistance from various nations. Chancellor Ernesto Araújo, who will be at the Lima Group meeting in the morning, has not yet confirmed his participation in the afternoon TIAR meeting.
Trump will also meet alone with El Salvador's new president, Nayib Bukele. The meeting will take place shortly after the two governments have signed an agreement that will allow the United States to send refugees arriving on the American border back to Salvadoran territory. Bukele has organized economic development and anti-crime projects deemed conducive to creating opportunities for those in desperate pursuit of the United States.
