United States President Donald Trump is considering military strikes on the Venezuelan drug Cartel amid soaring tensions between Caracas and Washington in recent weeks, reports said on Saturday.
The reportedly disturbing deliberations come as the Pentagon has deployed at least eight Navy warships and one submarine in the eastern Caribbean in the past two weeks. The Trump administration has blamed Nicolás Maduro for allegedly aiding and facilitating an international drug cartel (Cartel de Soles) in their drug trafficking across the United States.
Trump, who doubled the bounty to $50 million on the Venezuelan president, believes that he and cartel gangs have a nexus that is destroying the US generations. According to reports, Tuesday’s missile strikes on the cartel boat were just the beginning of Trump’s efforts to neutralise the drug trafficking and also topple the Maduro government.
During his first term in office, Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on the socialist-ruled South American nation, targeting its oil trade and financial sector. Though Trump has denied plans of regime change in a country which looks at Washington through the prism of hostilities rather than as a peace-making regime.
Also Read: Venezuela deploys 15,000 troops to Colombian border
Trump described the country’s 2024 elections as “very strange”. While Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this week that the US would “take on drug cartels wherever they are.” Maduro, however, has denied accusations of involvement in the alleged illicit drug trafficking and vowed to declare Venezuela a “Republic in Arms” if threatened by the US.
A move aimed at toppling the government in Venezuela is hard to come by, since Maduro has an estimated 3.4 million militia men and women working for him. “Just as it wasn’t true that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, what they’re saying about Venezuela isn’t true either,” Maduro said on Friday.
Maduro added that they lied about every war they got in; it is their way of destroying the countries: first label under false pretext, and then invade the countries.
Also Read: Venezuelan jets fly close to US warships amid rising tensions
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