Acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the president has remained in close contact with Cabinet officials in monitoring the situation in Venezuela. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Foreign Policy Mulvaney won’t rule out military action in Venezuela

Mick Mulvaney on Sunday refused to rule out U.S. military action to address unrest in Venezuela, following a week where President Donald Trump distanced the U.S. from the country's ruler, Nicolás Maduro, by recognizing an opposition figure as Venezuela's true leader.

"I don't think any president of any party who is doing his or her job would be doing the job properly if they took anything off the table," the president’s acting chief of staff told Fox News chief White House correspondent John Roberts on “Fox News Sunday.“


"I think the president of the United States is looking at this extraordinarily closely."

Trump recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the South American nation’s legitimate interim president on Wednesday, a move Canada, Brazil and several other countries also made. So far, the European Union has declined to follow suit but on Saturday threatened "further actions" if a new presidential election was not announced in the coming days.

Maduro won a second term in May 2018 in what the United States and other independent observers deemed a fraudulent election.

Trump, Mulvaney said, has remained in close contact with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and other top Cabinet officials in monitoring the situation.

Pompeo has sought for the United Nations to recognize Guaidó as Venezuela's president, but Russia and China have opposed such support. Russia has gone so far as to accuse the U.S. of "trying to engineer a coup d’etat" in Venezuela.

On Saturday, Venezuela backtracked on its order for U.S. Embassy personnel to leave the country, after Maduro broke diplomatic relations with the U.S. in response to Trump's decision and moved to expel American diplomats.