Venezuela’s No. 2 man, Minister of Interior & Justice, Diosdado Cabello, remains defiant in the face of mounting U.S. pressure in recent months, as a growing blockade of U.S. military assets in the South Caribbean halts Venezuelan oil exports.
The U.S. presence, which includes unrelenting strikes on suspected “narco-terrorists”, reportedly killing almost 100 people, has also resulted in the seizure of three oil tankers with alleged links to the Venezuelan regime of Nicolás Maduro.
The seizures have halted the flow of Venezuelan oil exports, a critical source of revenue for the Venezuelan government, with experts assessing oil sales contributing up to 80%-90% of the nation’s GDP.
Cabello stated on Monday that U.S. actions in the Caribbean will not deter the Venezuelan government in Caracas, warning:
“They are not going to ruin our Christmas or New Year’s, they can’t, because of how much we have endured, how many things they have tried against this people,” said Cabello.
Cabello, Maduro’s assumed No. 2 in command, also accused the U.S. of harassment and “imperial madness”, declaring U.S. actions of recent seizures of oil tankers carrying Venezuelan oil as “theft” and “acts of piracy”, echoing a narrative by Maduro himself, who has accused the United States of attempting to “steal” his nation’s wealth of natural resources in both oil and gold.
On Monday, President Trump confirmed a U.S. strike targeting an alleged drug facility along the Venezuelan coast, calling the hit a “major explosion” during a brief presser at Mar-a-Lago, the president’s private residence in West Palm Beach, Florida.
CNN is reporting that the Christmas Eve strike on a facility that is reportedly located in San Francisco, Maracaibo, in the western state of Zuila, was carried out by the CIA.
Cabello continued to denounce the threat of U.S. aggression, saying to supporters:
“They don’t like dignified peoples, they don’t like peoples who make themselves respected and who demand respect, they like the submissive, they like the groveling, and the Venezuelan people, for the most part, were not born on that day, the Venezuelan people were born on the day of the libertarians.”
Diosdado Cabello made no mention of a reported Christmas Eve strike, nor has the Maduro government made any acknowledgement of any strike on Venezuelan territory.
