Brazil, Mexico keep up pressure against Venezuela

BRASILIA- Brazil intends to defend the suspension of Venezuela from Mercosur on Saturday at a meeting of the bloc's foreign ministers, "until democracy returns."

Writing on Twitter, Brazil's Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes said it was "intolerable that we have a dictatorship on the South American continent. There has been a breakdown of the democratic order in Venezuela and, as a consequence, Brazil will propose that (Venezuela) will be suspended from Mercosur until democracy returns."

The foreign ministers of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay will meet in Sao Paulo to discuss their response to the Venezuela crisis.

The foreign ministry also issued a statement, saying the meeting would "evaluate the absence of concrete measures for the return of normal democracy by the Venezuelan government."

If the Mercosur ministers decide that the bloc's democratic clause applies to Venezuela, the country will find itself fully barred from the group, instead of its current temporary suspension. Mercosur, or Southern Common Market, is a subregional trade bloc in South America aimed to promote free trade and the fluid movement of goods, people and services.As Venezuela swore in its controversial National Constituent Assembly on Friday, many countries kept up the pressure.

Mexico's foreign minister, Luis Videgaray, responded to insults lobbed at Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto by Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro.

On Thursday, Maduro insulted Nieto, calling him shameful and cowardly, accusing him of being "a mistreated employee" to U.S. President Donald Trump.Writing on Twitter, Videgaray fired back. "President Nicolas Maduro: a coward is he who uses state power to dismantle democracy and lash out against his own people."