WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is considering adding Venezuela to its list of state sponsors of terrorism but no final decision has been made, a person familiar with the deliberations said on Monday. 
 
 FILE PHOTO: Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro speaks during a meeting with ministers at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela November 2, 2018. Miraflores Palace/Handout via REUTERS 
 
 Adding Venezuela to the list could limit U.S. economic assistance and impose financial restrictions on a country already suffering from hyperinflation, mass migration and shortages of food and medicine. 
 
 Discussions on the issue have moved forward in recent days with strong lobbying from Republican Senator Marco Rubio, who has long pressed the administration to take a tougher stand against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, the source said. 
 
 A time frame for a decision on whether to add Venezuela to the terrorism list had not yet been determined, the source said. 
 
 A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it would be a challenge for the Trump administration to provide concrete proof linking the Maduro government to terrorism if it decides to put Venezuela on the list. 
 
 The four countries currently on the list - North Korea, Iran, Sudan and Syria - have been found to “have repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.” 
 
 Rubio and two other Republican senators sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in September urging him to name Venezuela a state sponsor of terrorism and accusing it of links to Lebanon’s Hezbollah militant group and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but they offered no proof. 
 
 The Trump administration has levied several rounds of sanctions against Maduro’s Socialist-led government since 2017, accusing it of undermining democracy. On Nov. 1, President Donald Trump signed an executive order aimed a disrupting Venezuela’s gold exports. 
 
 Venezuela’s Information Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment. 
 
 Maduro, who denies limiting political freedoms, has said he is the victim of an “economic war” led by the United States. 
 
 The Washington Post, which first reported that the Trump administration was considering the designation, said the U.S. State Department had been asking for feedback on the proposed move from various agencies in recent days. 
 
 A State Department spokesperson said it “consistently and on an ongoing basis reviews available information and intelligence, from many sources, on possible state-level involvement in terrorism, evaluating all credible, verified, and corroborated information in its entirety.” 
 
 The White House declined to comment. 
 
 A senior U.S. official told Reuters earlier this month that the Trump administration was “looking at all potential avenues” to pressure Maduro’s government. 
 
 “We believe his presidency to be illegitimate,” the official said, reiterating Washington’s rejection of the outcome of Venezuela’s elections earlier this year. Maduro won a new six-year term in May but his main rivals disavowed the election and alleged massive irregularities. 
 
 “The regime really understands that the world is getting smaller for them. And that’s the kind of pressure that is needed to really change minds in the regime. The sanctions are having an effect,” the official said. ||||| President Trump on Friday refused to rule out a U.S. military intervention in Venezuela, where civil strife has turned violent. 
 
 "I'm not going to rule out a military option," he told reporters at his New Jersey golf club. 
 
 “Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering and they’re dying,” he said. “We have many options for Venezuela, including a possibile military option if necessary.” 
 
 Trump declined to say whether American troops would lead a possible military effort in Venezuela, saying: “We don’t talk about it.” 
 
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 “But a military operation, a military option is certainly something that we could pursue,” he said. 
 
 Tensions in Venezuela have boiled over in recent months, with widespread protests against the increasingly autocratic government of President Nicolas Maduro. 
 
 According to a statement by White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders late Friday night, Maduro called and requested a call with Trump on Friday, but the White House refused. 
 
 "Since the start of this Administration, President Trump has asked that Maduro respect Venezuela’s constitution, hold free and fair elections, release political prisoners, cease all human rights violations, and stop oppressing Venezuela’s great people," Sanders said in a statement. "The Maduro regime has refused to heed this call, which has been echoed around the region and the world. Instead Maduro has chosen the path of dictatorship." 
 
 "The United States stands with the people of Venezuela in the face of their continued oppression by the Maduro regime," the statement continued. "President Trump will gladly speak with the leader of Venezuela as soon as democracy is restored in that country." 
 
 The Trump administration imposed fresh sanctions on Maduro in late July after questions about the legitimacy of an election to rewrite the country’s constitution. 
 
 The vote was boycotted by the opposition, who accused Maduro of using the vote to consolidate power. Maduro went ahead with the vote, which created a new pro-government assembly that will rewrite the country’s constitution. 
 
 Venezuela has also been roiled by shortages of food and medicine, intensifying the unrest. 
 
 Ahead of the election last month, the State Department ordered the families of U.S. diplomats out of Venezuela’s capital Caracas amid concerns about “social unrest, violent crime, and pervasive food and medicine shortages.” 
 
 Updated 9:50 p.m. ||||| "If the U.S. soils the homeland, the rifles would come to New York and take the White House," Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the son of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, said. Maduro's son threatens to 'take the White House' with guns in case of U.S. intervention 
 
 Nicolás Maduro Guerra, the son of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, threatened to "take the White House" with guns if President Donald Trump followed through with a military intervention in the country, a possibility he said he would not rule out on Friday. 
 
 "If the U.S. soils the homeland, the rifles would come to New York and take the White House," Maduro Guerra said according to reports from Venezuelan media. 
 
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 Trump on Friday said he would not rule out the U.S. pursuing “a military option” against Venezuela, which has come under increased pressure for its human rights abuses. 
 
 Speaking to reporters from his golf resort in Bedminster, N.J., after meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley, Trump said he has “many options” for Venezuela, “including a possible military operation, if necessary.” 
 
 The White House later condemned the Maduro regime for its human rights abuses in a statement released late Friday, saying the Venezuelan leader had “refused to heed” the White House's calls for the country to “hold free and fair elections” and instead “chosen the path of dictatorship.”
– As many fret over the increasingly tense relationship between the US and North Korea, President Trump threw another country into the mix Friday: Venezuela. Speaking to reporters Friday from his New Jersey golf club, flanked by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley, and National Security Adviser HR McMaster, Trump offered what Reuters calls a "surprise escalation" on the US response to Venezuela's current political upheaval, in which more than 120 people have been killed and thousands arrested over the past four months. "Venezuela is not very far away, and the people are suffering and they are dying," Trump told reporters, per the Hill. "We have many options for Venezuela, including a possible military option if necessary." When pressed by reporters on whether that meant the US would lead an operation in the South American country, Trump replied, "We don't talk about it, but a military operation—a military option—is certainly something that we could pursue." The US just hit Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro with financial sanctions in late July, with a statement from Trump noting: "Maduro is not just a bad leader. He is now a dictator." The Pentagon told Reuters it has yet to receive any instructions from the president regarding Venezuela. Meanwhile, one reporter circled back to North Korea during Trump's appearance, asking, "Is the US going to go to war?" after Trump mentioned a possible "bad solution" to the Korea problem, per CBS News. "I think you know the answer to that," the president replied.