Venezuela President Calls Trump’s Government “Gang Of Extremists”

Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro has described the administration of President Donald Trump as a “gang of extremists”  who caused the crisis in his country.

Maduro said he would not allow humanitarian aid into Venezuela as it was a way for the US to justify an intervention.

“They are warmongering in order to take over Venezuela,” he said.

The US and most Western governments have recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president.

Maduro is under growing internal and international pressure to call early presidential elections amid a worsening economic crisis and accusations of widespread corruption and human rights violations.

Meanwhile, Guaidó has called for new anti-government protests later on Tuesday.

Relations between the US and Venezuela were already fraught before President Trump backed Guaidó as a leader. Venezuela broke off diplomatic relations in response while Trump said the use of military force remained “an option”.

The Trump administration was one of the first to support Guaidó as interim president and declared Maduro’s re-election last year “illegitimate”.

In a rare interview, Maduro said he hoped “this extremist group in the White House is defeated by powerful world-wide public opinion”.

Speaking in the capital Caracas, he told the BBC’s Orla Guerin: “It’s a political war, of the United States empire, of the interests of the extreme right, that today is governing, of the Ku Klux Klan, that rules the White House, to take over Venezuela.”

The US has also imposed a raft of economic measures on Venezuela, including against the state-owned oil company, PDVSA, aiming to hit the country’s main source of revenue.