WASHINGTON\u00a0\u2014\u00a0Venezuela risks \u201ca second strike\u201d if its interim government doesn\u2019t acquiesce to U.S. demands. Cuba is \u201cready to fall,\u201d and Colombia is \u201cvery sick, too.\u201d <\/p>\n
Iran may get \u201chit very hard\u201d if its government cracks down on protesters. And Denmark risks U.S. intervention, as well, because \u201cwe need Greenland,\u201d President Trump said.<\/p>\n
In just 37 minutes while speaking with reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One, Trump threatened to attack five countries, both allies and adversaries, with the might of the U.S. military \u2014 an extraordinary turn for a president who built his political career rejecting traditional conservative views on the exercise of American power and vowing to put America first<\/a>.<\/p>\n The president\u2019s threats come as a third of the U.S. naval fleet remains stationed in the Caribbean, after Trump launched a daring attack on Venezuela<\/a> that seized its president, Nicol\u00e1s Maduro, and his wife over the weekend.<\/p>\n The goal, U.S. officials said, was to show the Venezuelan government and the wider world what the American military is capable of \u2014 and to compel partners and foes alike to adhere to Trump\u2019s demands through intimidation, rather than commit the U.S. military to more complex, conventional, long-term engagements.<\/p>\n It is the deployment of overwhelming and spectacular force in surgical military operations \u2014 Maduro\u2019s capture, last year\u2019s strikes against Iranian nuclear facilities<\/a>, assassinations of Islamic State leadership and Iran\u2019s top general in Iraq \u2014 that demonstrate Trump as a brazen leader willing to risk war, thereby effectively avoiding it, one Trump administration official said, explaining the president\u2019s strategic thinking.<\/p>\n Yet experts and former Trump aides warn the president\u2019s approach risks miscalculation, alienating vital allies and emboldening U.S. competitors.<\/p>\n At a Security Council meeting Monday at the United Nations in New York \u2014 called by Colombia, a long-standing and major non-North Atlantic Treaty Oranization ally to the United States \u2014 Trump\u2019s moves were widely condemned<\/a>. \u201cViolations of the U.N. Charter,\u201d a French diplomat told the council, \u201cchips away at the very foundation of international order.\u201d<\/p>\n Even the envoy from Russia, which has cultivated historically strong ties with the Trump administration, said the White House operation was an act of \u201cbanditry,\u201d marking \u201ca return to the era of illegality and American dominance through force, chaos and lawlessness.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s threats to annex Greenland, an autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark with vast natural resources, drew particular concern across Europe on Monday, with leaders across the continent warning the United States against an attack that would violate the sovereignty of a NATO ally and European Union member state.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s enough now,\u201d Greenland\u2019s prime minister, Jens-Frederik Nielsen, said after Trump told reporters that his attention would turn to the world\u2019s largest island in a matter of weeks.<\/p>\n \u201cIf the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop,\u201d Denmark\u2019s prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, told local press. \u201cThat includes NATO, and therefore, post-World War II security.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump also threatened to strike Iran, where anti-government protests have spread throughout the country in recent days. Trump had previously said the U.S. military was \u201clocked and loaded\u201d if Iranian security forces begin firing on protesters, \u201cwhich is their custom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe United States of America will come to their rescue,\u201d Trump wrote on social media on Jan. 2, hours before launching the Venezuela mission. \u201cWe are locked and loaded and ready to go. Thank you for your attention to this matter!\u201d<\/p>\n