DORAL, Fla. — As U.S.-Venezuela tensions increased, Venezuelans visiting El Arepazo on Thursday in Doral said they had hope that President Donald Trump was going to bring down Nicolás Maduro soon.
On Wednesday, at the White House, Trump said he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency’s action in Venezuela because the Maduro regime had “emptied their prisons” into the U.S.
“We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea,” Trump said at the Oval Office.
As the U.S. military has been conducting fatal strikes to stop drug smugglers in the Caribbean, Trump confirmed The New York Times’s report that his administration had authorized “covert C.I.A. action” in Venezuelan territory.
Trump designated transnational gangs and drug cartels as foreign terrorist organizations in February.
The State Department offered $50 million for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Maduro for drug trafficking.
“We are looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump said about U.S. operations in the southern Caribbean.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced there was an armed conflict against narcoterrorists. Trump said the U.S. naval operations in the southern Caribbean were effective.
“They have faster boats. They are world-class speedboats, but they are not faster than missiles,” Trump said.
In a televised speech on Wednesday, Maduro criticized the U.S. for failed regime changes that have turned into “eternal wars” in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya.
“No to the coups carried out by the CIA,” Maduro said while referring to political violence in the 1970s and 80s in Argentina and Chile.
Maduro said Latin America “repudiates” CIA coups and added that he rejects “war in the Caribbean” and in South America and “yes to peace.”
Yván Gil, Venezuela’s foreign minister, released a statement on Telegram, accusing that an intervention would be “a very serious violation of international law and the United Nations’ Charter.”
Earlier this month, Jorge Rodríguez, the head of the National Assembly announced Maduro’s administration had warned the Trump administration about a “false-flag operation” at the U.S. Embassy in Caracas by “extrimists” who oppose Maduro.
The U.S. has also sanctioned El Cártel de los Soles, which officials have described as a narcotrafficking organization that involves the Venezuelan military and that continues to support the Maduro regime.
The cartel, also described as a network of corruption, allegedly collaborates with leftist guerrillas that are also involved in narcotrafficking in Colombia.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro, an economist who was a member of a leftist guerrilla, lashed out over Trump’s military actions in the southern Caribbean and said the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly needed to act on human rights violations.
“There is no war against smuggling,” Petro said in Spanish earlier this month. “It’s a war for oil and it must be stopped by the world.”
Colombia’s next presidential election is on May 31, 2026. Miguel Uribe Turbay, an opposition candidate, was fatally shot on Aug. 11 in Bogotá. In September, Petro said Trump was in search of a ”puppet president" and Colombians should not “kneel” to the U.S. and allow farmers who grow coca plants to get “beaten up.”
More related stories
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- Trump says US strikes another boat accused of carrying drugs in waters off Venezuela, killing 6
- Trinidad and Tobago secures US permission to negotiate gas deal with neighboring Venezuela
Más informes en español
- Maduro pide expandir milicias indígenas en Venezuela, en medio de tensiones con EE.UU.
- En medio del silencio oficial, opositores resaltan Nobel de la Paz otorgado a Machado en Venezuela
- Venezuela realiza nuevo ejercicio militar en zonas estratégicas en medio de tensión con EEUU
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