President Trump says U.S. is ready to intervene in Venezuela

President Trump said Monday the U.S. is prepared to “take further action” to intervene in Venezuela’s democratic collapse — apparently hinting once again at a possible military campaign there.

At a dinner with Latin American leaders on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, Trump called the burgeoning crisis in Venezuela “totally unacceptable” and said the U.S. was ready to ensure its democracy could be restored.

“The Venezuelan people are starving,” Trump said.

“The country is collapsing, their democratic institutions are being destroyed.”

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has been pushing the country toward autocracy as he struggles to turn around an unprecedented financial crisis spurred by a drop in global oil prices. Venezuela is a major oil producer and supplies 10% of the oil consumed by the U.S.

RELATED: See the brutal unrest in the country

This year, Maduro has cracked down on his political opponents, tossing protesters in jail and deploying security forces that have killed nearly 50 people at demonstrations. Maduro held a rigged election in July that replaced the country’s parliament with a body of his supporters, who are now pushing to rewrite the constitution to expand his executive powers.

Trump said the U.S. had to “take important steps to hold the regime accountable,” though he avoided specifics.

Soon after midnight, he tweeted, “We call for the full restoration of democracy and political freedoms in Venezuela, and we want it to happen very, very soon!”

Trump in August dropped his first reference to a “military option” for Venezuela — an unexpected comment that raised alarms there and in America. He has not appeared to take any steps since then to begin a military intervention in Maduro’s crisis.

See Trump's speech to the UN: