Washington, August 20 (RHC)-- U.S. President Donald Trump has proposed deploying navy ships along the Venezuelan coast to prevent deliveries in or out of the country.  According to the Axios news site, Trump seriously discussed the idea of the maritime blockade of Venezuela with his security advisers.

Axios quotes an anonymous source as saying that the Pentagon discarded the proposal because it would mean deploying a large number of U.S. Navy forces and was "inconsistent with the legal framework."  Defense officials also said a total blockade would be extremely difficult to put into place.  The Navy reportedly would need more resources than it can provide to establish a maritime blockade.

As recently as August 1st, Donald Trump responded affirmatively when a reporter asked him if he was considering a quarantine or blockade of Venezuela.  On August 5, Trump signed an executive order to ban all transactions and a total blockade of the assets of the Venezuelan government in the United States.  It also imposes secondary sanctions on foreign individuals and companies that support Caracas.  

In response, Venezuelan authorities organized a mass signature campaign to express their rejection of the total U.S. blockade.  To date, they collected more than one million signatures that will be presented to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres.