THE FINAL WORD
The North Koreans have to go fill the promise that Chairman Kim made. He promised that he would denuclearize his country. He did so publicly in a written document; he said so to President Trump. He has told me that half a dozen times personally. They have to make a decision that they’re prepared to go execute that. In exchange for that, President Trump’s been very clear: We’re prepared to provide a set of security arrangements that gives them comfort that if they disband their nuclear program, that the United States won’t attack them in the absence of that; and second, a brighter future for the North Korean people. That’s the outlines of the agreement that Chairman Kim and President Trump have made. We now need the North Korean negotiators to begin to build out on those principles that the two leaders have set forward.
into power someone the Venezuelan people have already – the parliament has already decided should be in power with Guaidó? SECRETARY POMPEO: Two things, Buck. First, the transformation – you saw a little bit of it yesterday when we were in Ecuador together. The transformation here in South America – in Brazil, in Ecuador, in Paraguay – is enormous, moving towards freedom, moving towards democracy, trying to get their economies back on free market footings. That’s closely related to what we’re trying to do in Venezuela. We’re trying to get Venezuela back to that same place. You can see what socialism did there. A decade of destruction has now put the Venezuelan people in a place where as many as 5 million Venezuelans will have fled their country by the time we get to the end of this year. Our mission set is to work with allies. We have almost 60 countries now who have recognized the correct, proper, duly elected leader of Venezuela, Juan Guaido. We have the OAS and the Lima Group each working towards the same objective. One, Maduro leaving is important. He needs to leave. He’s not the duly elected leader and there can’t be free and fair elections while he’s there in Venezuela, but second, while that’s necessary, the Cubans need to leave as well. A new leader with thousands of Cuban intelligence and defense officials still inside the country won’t have the capacity to deliver for the Venezuelan people. So we’re using tools in the American arsenal that cause the incentive system to change so that we can get to that objective.
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A decade of destruction has now put the Venezuelan people in a place where as many as 5 million Venezuelans will have fled their country by the time we get to the end of this year.
Q: And if I could just bring us back to Latin America quickly, Venezuela, a place where people have been thinking for a while maybe there would be a shift in who’s ruling the country... who the president of the country is obviously still in dispute with. What has the U.S. been doing recently and what should our role be trying to help oust somebody who is illegitimate, Maduro, and push
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August 2019
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