Escalating tensions between the United States and Venezuela
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has said he deployed 25,000 troops along the Caribbean coast and the border with Colombia amid soaring tensions with US President Donald Trump.
In a message Sunday night on social media, Maduro said he had deployed 25,000 men and women from our glorious National Bolivarian Armed Forces to the frontier with Colombia and the northeast coast, where the country’s biggest oil refineries are situated.
The deployment aimed to ensure the defence of national sovereignty, the security of the country and the fight for peace, he added.
Tensions between Venezuela and the U.S. have escalated in the wake of President Donald Trump’s new approach to fighting the war on illegal narcotics. Maduro has accused the U.S. of seeking a regime change.
Last week, US forces blew up a suspected drug boat with 11 people aboard in the Caribbean.
Trump said the boat belonged to the Venezuelan crime gang Tren de Aragua but provided scant proof of the claim.
The US leader has also threatened to shoot down Venezuelan military jets if they endanger US forces after two Venezuelan planes flew near a US Navy vessel in international waters.
The US has undertaken a substantial military build-up, deploying eight Navy ships.
This includes missile-equipped destroyers with a range of hundreds of miles, vessels carrying over 4,500 marines, and F-35 fighter jets, marking the largest demonstration of US military force in the region in decades.
Trump said on Friday that the United States is not talking about a regime change, but compared the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans in overdoses to war dead, as he sought to justify the muscular military activity in the Caribbean.
The U.S. president is weighing options for further strikes, including potentially attacking suspected drug cartel targets inside Venezuela, CNN reported on Friday, citing multiple sources briefed on the administration’s plans. Such a strike would mark a major escalation.
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