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Published : 03 Nov 2025, 08:40 PM
Donald Trump has said Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s “days are numbered”, but downplayed the odds of the United States going to war with Venezuela.
According to a report by The Guardian, Trump made the remarks during a CBS 60 Minutes interview released on Sunday, as the US amasses military units in the Caribbean and has conducted multiple strikes on alleged drug-trafficking vessels.
The report said Trump, when asked if the US was going to war against Venezuela, replied: “I doubt it. I don’t think so.”
However, when asked if Maduro’s days as president were numbered, he said: “I would say yeah. I think so, yeah.”
Maduro, who faces indictment on drug charges in the US, has accused Washington of using drug trafficking as a pretext for “imposing regime change” in Caracas to seize Venezuela’s oil.
More than 15 US strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific have killed at least 65 people in recent weeks, the latest taking place on Saturday, the report noted.
The operations have drawn criticism from governments in the region, while Washington has yet to make public any evidence that its targets were involved in narcotics smuggling or posed a threat.
In the same interview, the report read, Trump also claimed that Russia and China had been conducting underground nuclear tests unknown to the public and said the US would test “like other countries do”.
“Russia’s testing, and China’s testing, but they don’t talk about it,” he told 60 Minutes. “I don’t want to be the only country that doesn’t test.”
He also alleged that North Korea and Pakistan were conducting similar activities.
According to The Guardian, confusion has surrounded Trump’s directive for the US to resume nuclear testing, particularly if it would mean conducting the first nuclear explosion since 1992.
Trump announced the decision on social media on Thursday, minutes before entering a summit with Chinese President Xi Jinping in South Korea, saying he had “instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis”.
No country other than North Korea is known to have conducted a nuclear detonation for decades. The report said Russia and China have not carried out such tests since 1990 and 1996, respectively.
Pressed again, Trump told CBS: “They test way underground where people don’t know exactly what’s happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration.”
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, however, soft-pedalled the president’s comments, telling Fox News: “I think the tests we’re talking about right now are system tests. These are not nuclear explosions.”
The US has been a signatory to the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty since 1996, which prohibits all atomic test explosions for any purpose.
Other topics covered in the interview, according to the report, included Trump’s refusal to be “extorted” by Democrats to reopen the government, his denial of any plans to seek a third term, and criticism that immigration enforcement had not gone far enough in deporting people without legal authorisation.
