Threat looms over Greenland, Colombia and Cuba

WASHINGTON — A day after the US military operation in Venezuela, US President Donald Trump and his top diplomat on Sunday made some comments on Greenland, Colombia, and Cuba, triggering anger in these countries.

The comments came from Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio after the United States forcibly seized Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.

With thinly veiled threats, Trump is rattling hemispheric friends and foes alike, spurring a pointed question around the globe: Who's next?

Trump told reporters as he flew back to Washington from his home in Florida: "We need Greenland from the standpoint of national security, and Denmark is not going to be able to do it."

Asked during an interview with The Atlantic earlier on Sunday what the US-military action in Venezuela could portend for Greenland, Trump replied: "They are going to have to view it themselves. I really don't know."

Trump, in his administration's National Security Strategy published last month, laid out restoring US' "preeminence in the Western Hemisphere" as a central guidepost for his second go-around in the White House.

Saturday's dead-of-night operation by US forces in Caracas and Trump's comments on Sunday heightened concerns in Denmark, which has jurisdiction over the vast mineral-rich island of Greenland.

Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen said in a statement that Trump has "no right to annex" the territory. She also reminded Trump that Denmark already provides the US, a fellow member of NATO, broad access to Greenland through existing security agreements.

"I would therefore strongly urge the US to stop threatening a historically close ally and another country and people who have made it very clear that they are not for sale," Frederiksen said.

Denmark on Sunday also signed onto a European Union statement underscoring that "the right of the Venezuelan people to determine their future must be respected" as Trump has vowed to "run" Venezuela and pressed the acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, to get in line.

Additionally, Trump issued a stark warning to Colombian President Gustavo Petro on Sunday night, saying Petro "is not going to be doing it for very long".

When asked about the possibility of a US military operation against Colombia, Trump replied, "It sounds good to me."

Colombia, which borders Venezuela, is "run by a sick man who likes making cocaine and selling it to the United States," Trump told reporters on Air Force One. "He (Petro) has cocaine mills and cocaine factories. He's not going to be doing it," said Trump, offering no evidence to substantiate the claim. Petro on Saturday called for an urgent meeting of the Organization of American States and the United Nations to address the US attack on Venezuela.

Meanwhile, concerns simmered in Cuba, one of Venezuela's most important allies and trading partners, as Rubio issued a stern new warning to the Cuban government. US-Cuba relations have been hostile since the 1959 Cuban Revolution.

Rubio, in an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press, said Cuban officials were with Maduro in Venezuela ahead of his capture.

"It was Cubans that guarded Maduro," Rubio said.

Trump said that "a lot" of Cuban guards tasked with protecting Maduro were killed in the operation. The Cuban government said in a statement read on state television on Sunday evening that 32 officers were killed in the US military operation.

Trump also said the Cuban economy, battered by years of US embargo, is in tatters and will slide further now with the ouster of Maduro, who provided the Caribbean island with subsidized oil.

"It's going down," Trump said of Cuba. "It's going down for the count."

Cuban authorities called a rally in support of Venezuela's government and rallied against the US military operation, writing in a statement: "All the nations of the region must remain alert, because the threat hangs over all of us."

AGENCIES - XINHUA