The leaders of the three authoritarian regimes in Latin America – Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua – issued rare messages of support to former President Donald Trump following the failed assassination attempt against him on Saturday evening.
The messages marked a stark departure from their usual belligerent language against the former president, who during his presidential term forcefully condemned the regimes’ rampant human rights abuses and nefarious activity threatening the national security of the United States.
Trump was the target of a failed assassination attempt during a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday after a shooter opened fire at his podium, injuring the former president on one of his ears and killing a rallygoer identified as Corey Comperatore, a former Pennsylvania fire chief attending the event with his family.
The socialist dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, referred to the failed assassination plot against Trump during a Saturday evening “campaign” rally ahead of Venezuela’s upcoming July 28 sham presidential election.
In statements unusual for the socialist dictator, Maduro repudiated the attack against Trump and wished the former President a “speedy recovery.”
“We received news that in the United States there was an attack against former president and presidential candidate Donald Trump. On behalf of Venezuela as a whole, of our people, I want to reject and repudiate the attack against former President Donald Trump,” Maduro said. “I wish him a speedy recovery and may God bless the people of the United States and give them peace and tranquility.”
“We have been adversaries but I wish President Trump health and a long life, and I repudiate that attack,” he concluded.
#ÚLTIMAHORA Nicolás Maduro repudió el atentado contra Donald Trump y le deseó “salud y larga vida” https://t.co/XfkSk8JuTo pic.twitter.com/9Izb6DByO1
— Monitoreamos (@monitoreamos) July 14, 2024
Cuba’s communist regime — a U.S.-designated state sponsor of terrorism — vaguely “condemned” the attack in a social media post by the regime’s figurehead President Miguel Díaz-Canel that did not mention Trump.
Como víctimas de atentados y terrorismo durante 65 años, #Cuba
ratifica su posición histórica de condena a toda forma de violencia. El negocio de las armas y la escalada de violencia política en #EEUU propician incidentes como el que ha tenido lugar este sábado en ese país.— Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez (@DiazCanelB) July 13, 2024
“As victims of attacks and terrorism for 65 years, Cuba reaffirms its historic position of condemning all forms of violence,” the message read. “The arms business and the escalation of political violence in the US lead to incidents such as the one that took place this Saturday in that country.”
In addition to Díaz-Canel’s message, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla had reportedly published a now-deleted message in which he condemned “the attack against former President Donald Trump and repudiate[d] the act of violence committed this afternoon in Pennsylvania.”
Rodríguez Parrilla, like all senior members of the Castro regime, have repeatedly attacked Trump. Following the U.S. Capitol riot on January 6, 2021, Rodríguez accused Trump of urging his sympathizers to violate the U.S. constitution and “disrespect institutions.”
During the administration of former President Donald Trump, the United States once again designated Cuba a state sponsor of terrorism in response to the Castro regime’s deep ties with international terrorist organizations such as the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Shiite jihadist organization Hezbollah, and Colombia’s National Liberation Army (ELN) and Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) Marxist terrorist groups.
Cuba was initially introduced into the list of states sponsors of terrorism in 1982, but was removed from it in 2015 by former President Barack Obama, who maintained a friendly approach towards the rogue communist regime.
Maduro’s words of “solidarity” for Trump after the failed assassination attempt mark a stark contrast from the dictator’s usual antagonistic stance towards the former president, which Maduro maintained throughout Trump’s presidential term.
Maduro went as far as to accuse Trump in the past of having “approved” a purported plot to have a “group of snipers” assassinate him in late 2020. He has similarly accused current President Joe Biden of attempting to kill him. Maduro has never presented evidence to substantiate his accusations.
“Donald Trump approved that they kill me, that they kill me, listen, I am not exaggerating,” Maduro said at the time. “They are trying to move a group of snipers or to buy some snipers in Venezuela to kill me. Donald Trump decided it and activated it, he has no ethics.”
In 2020, U.S. prosecutors charged Maduro and other members of his regime with narco-terrorism for their leading role in the Cartel of the Suns, an intercontinental cocaine trafficking operation run by both high-ranking members of the Venezuelan military and members of the Maduro regime. The United States has accused the Cartel of the Suns of attempting to “flood” the United States with cocaine to harm its population.
As a result of the charges, the United States has a $15 million bounty on Maduro, active since 2020. Maduro responded to the bounty by accusing Trump of being a “racist cowboy” and a “miserable human being.”
The Venezuelan dictator had also publicly celebrated the end of Trump’s presidential term right after President Joe Biden took office on January 20, 2021, claiming that Trump’s departure from the presidency was a “victory” of Venezuela.
“Donald Trump is gone, we defeated him, victory for Venezuela. Trump is gone, he left alone, alone, defeated,” Maduro said at the time. “The culture, the identity and the rebelliousness of Venezuelans have triumphed, Trump is gone, but the empire remains, with many problems.”
In Nicaragua, the communist Ortega regime condemned the failed attack on Trump in a press note published by state-owned media in which it claimed to reject “all forms of terror.”
The communist Nicaraguan regime offered its “strongest rejection and condemnation of all forms of terror.”The Peoples of the World deserve to live in Peace, safety and tranquility, from our Rights to congregate, express ourselves, and be part of a Democracy that we should all be able to exercise,” the Nicaraguan government, which routinely arrests people for exercising said rights, declared. “Our Prayers and hopes for Harmony and Peace for the people and authorities of the United States of America.”
Christian K. Caruzo is a Venezuelan writer and documents life under socialism. You can follow him on Twitter here.