The U.S. Trump administration made its first public remarks on Venezuela earlier today, since the Pentagon deployed various air and sea assets to the South Caribbean waters.
The White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt issued a stern response when asked about “potential boots on the ground” in Venezuela after reports of 4,000 U.S. Marines being deployed to the region, stating, “President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice.”
Leavitt went on to reiterate the administration’s stance in refusing to acknowledge the Maduro regime as a “legitimate government”, labeling President Maduro a “fugitive head of this [Cartel de Los Soles] cartel and has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.”
On the 7th of August, the U.S. State Department issued a revised reward of $50 million for information leading to the arrest and capture of Nicolás Maduro, who the Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses of running a criminal enterprise (in the Cartel de Los Soles) to facilitate the trafficking of drugs and human smuggling operations into the United States.
The U.S. government also claims that the Maduro regime and members of the top brass of the Venezuelan Armed Forces of overseeing this criminal enterprise, and colluding with other drug cartels operating in the region, namely the prominently influential Mexican Sinaloa Cartel.
The State Department also increased the bounties on other heads of the Venezuelan government, including the Venezuelan Minister of the Interior Diosdado Cabello, who issued a speech in front of Venezuelan miliary officials earlier this week in which he declared that Venezuelan territory is “free territory”, free of production and free of distribution of illicit narcotics, and condemning the accusations made by the United States government.
The second Trump administration has taken a different approach to the drug trafficking scourge that torments Latin America.
An approach that no longer resemble the “hands-off” approach that defined previous administrations. Instead, the Trump White House has elected to strike at the source of these criminal drug organizations, and the Latin governments that allegedly collaborate, or acquiesce to them.
On the 8th of August, President Trump quietly signed an executive directive that authorized the Pentagon in the “use of military force” against Latin American drug organizations previously designated as Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTOs).
Earlier this year, the Trump administration signed off on a slew of executive orders that classified multiple drug cartels as FTOs, including the Sinaloa Cartel and the Venezuelan ‘Cartel de Los Soles’, or the ‘Cartel of the Suns’.
On Friday, CNN reported on the deployment of 4,000 U.S. Marines and sailors to South Caribbean waters, according to “two defense officials”.
The deployment included a broad array of assets, including the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit; a nuclear-powered attack submarine; “additional P8 Poseidon drone reconnaissance aircraft, several destroyers, and a guided-missile cruiser” as part of a repositioning of U.S. SOUTHCOM regional assets.
According to the CNN reporting, one of the defense officials stated that the deployment is “mostly a show of force, aimed more at sending a message than indicative of any intention to conduct precision targeting of cartels.”
However, the U.S. deployment caught the attention of officials in Caracas, who have been on standby in case of any unauthorized entry of U.S. military assets into Venezuelan territory.
President Nicolás Maduro appears to be readying his people to repel any U.S. onslaught. Maduro has made several speeches challenging the U.S. government to “intervene in Venezuelan affairs” and denounced the “extravagant, bizarre and outlandish threats” from Washington.
On the night of Monday, the 18th of August, Maduro spoke publicly to party officials, stating that his government was preparing to activate a 4.5 million-man territorial militia, and that “even the Macaws (the nation’s indigenous birds) will be activated” in the defense of the homeland.
Regional opposition to the Maduro government in Caracas is mounting. Earlier today, the Guyanese government and Anti-Narcotics Chief James Singh echoed U.S. claims, condemning the Venezuelan regime as a terrorist “narco-state” and stating that most drugs entering Guyanese territory come from Venezuela via plane and boat.
These remarks from the Guyanese government, embroiled in its own territorial dispute with the Venezuelan government over oil right off the Guyanese coast, come as other nations in Latin America, including Ecuador, El Salvador, and Paraguay, have also backed U.S. opposition to the Venezuelan government, feeding into growing suspicions of a planned and coordinated regional intervention into the South American nation in an attempt to displace the Maduro government.
