The President of the United States on Sunday confirmed to reporters traveling on Air Force One that he had a phone conversation last week with Nicolas Maduro, the president of Venezuela, who the United States considers the leader of the Suns Cartel, an organization the State Department has just designated as a terrorist organization. “I don’t want to comment on that. The answer is yes,” Trump admitted when he returned by plane from spending a few days at Mar-a-Lago, his Florida estate, where he escapes on weekends to play golf.
Phone conversation, I made New York Times Last Friday, there was a complete verbal and military escalation between the United States and Venezuela. President Trump has ordered a war against drug trafficking that comes from Latin America. It has set its main target in Venezuela. The White House considers the Caribbean nation a drug state and Maduro is the leader of an alleged criminal group called the Suns Cartel. The American authorities did not provide evidence for these accusations.
The phone call could open a diplomatic path to a long-term conflict. During Trump’s first term, between 2016 and 2020, Maduro actually threatened to take action if he did not relinquish power. Trump considers the Venezuelan president to be an illegitimate president after alleged irregularities in the 2014 presidential elections.
The president downplayed the importance of the message he published Saturday on the social networking site Truth, through which he expressed his views, and in which he warned against a complete closure of Venezuelan airspace. “Don’t give it more importance,” he replied when asked about it. He warned that commenting on the closure of Venezuelan airspace does not mean an imminent attack by the US military on the territory of the Caribbean country. “Don’t read anything between the lines,” he insisted.
President Trump loves to threaten the idea of imminent military intervention. In his Thanksgiving address last Thursday, he took the opportunity to warn that the United States would “very soon” begin arresting “drug traffickers” in Venezuela. “It’s easier on the ground,” he said. “We warned them: Stop sending poisons into our country,” he added, referring to drug trafficking that he blames on Chavez’s regime.
On September 2, the United States launched Operation Southern Spear against drug trafficking gangs. The Trump administration places, without evidence, the center of activity of these alleged groups in Venezuela, a country that the White House considers a drug state. Since then, the US military has launched 21 attacks on drug boats sailing through Caribbean and eastern Pacific waters, killing 83 people. These military operations, ordered by Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense, did not receive judicial support or approval from the United States Congress.
Specifically, the first of these operations will be investigated by both houses of the US Congress on suspicion of war crimes. According to the information he provided The Washington PostOn September 2, there was an explosion on a drug boat with 11 crew members on board. Two of them survived the first collision, but, according to the American publication, another attack was ordered in compliance with the directives of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. He denies these accusations.
The United States’ harassment of the Maduro regime does not have many precedents in history. Perhaps the closest was the overthrow of Panamanian dictator Manuel Antonio Noriega in 1989, although US military forces have not yet reached that point.
However, President Trump ordered the largest troop deployment to the region in decades. There are thousands of soldiers ready alongside Venezuela, with air and naval support. A few weeks ago, the US Navy’s largest and most advanced aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, along with other warships. The pressures on the Maduro regime are stifling. In addition to economic sanctions, military harassment is added.