US President Donald Trump said on Thursday (27) that efforts against Venezuelan drug traffickers “on the ground” will begin “very soon”, raising tensions with Caracas, which claims that the US anti-drug campaign aims to oust President Nicolas Maduro.
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“We have almost stopped (drug smuggling). About 85% of maritime traffic has been stopped,” Trump said in a video call with US forces on the occasion of Thanksgiving from his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida.
He added: “And we will start stopping them on the ground as well. It’s easier on the ground, but that will start very soon.”
Washington accuses Maduro of leading the alleged Cartel de los Soles, which it designated a terrorist group on Monday. Caracas, in turn, considered this classification a “ridiculous lie.”
Since September, US forces have attacked more than 20 ships allegedly intended for drug trafficking in the Caribbean and Pacific, killing at least 83 people.
The United States has also sent the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, to the Caribbean, accompanied by warships and fighter aircraft, a detachment that Washington claims is used in anti-drug operations.
But Maduro denounced that these military maneuvers aimed to overthrow him so that the United States could seize his country’s oil reserves.
Washington has not published details to support its claims that the people attacked in its bombings are in fact drug traffickers. Venezuela condemns these attacks, describing them as “extrajudicial executions.”
Trump authorized secret CIA actions in Venezuela and said that “at some point” he would talk to Maduro.