US President Donald Trump announced plans to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking by land "very soon." Photo / Getty Images
US President Donald Trump said today that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon”, further ratcheting up tensions with Caracas, which claims the anti-drug campaign aims at regime change.
Trump made the remarks during a video-conference address to deployed US troops to mark the Thanksgiving holiday.
Several of the US military groups Trump addressed were actively participating in his anti-drug operation, dubbed “Southern Spear”, which has involved a large military build-up in the Caribbean.
Addressing a Texas-based Air Force bombing unit, Trump, reading from prepared remarks, said: “In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers, of which there are many.”
It was not immediately clear what actions Trump was specifically referencing.
The US military has carried out a series of airstrikes against boats it claims were trafficking drugs in international waters, without offering evidence to back up its claims.
Those strikes in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific have killed at least 83 people, according to an AFP tally of publicly released figures.
Washington has also carried out multiple shows of aerial force in the region in recent weeks, with B-52 and B-1B bombers flying near Venezuela’s coast.
Elaborating on US efforts to halt drug trafficking, Trump said: “We’ve almost stopped – it’s about 85% stopped by sea.
“You probably noticed that people aren’t wanting to be delivering by sea, and we’ll be starting to stop them by land,” he said.
“Also the land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon,” he added.
The remarks come as Trump’s administration continues to pile pressure on Venezuela, despite the US President saying in recent days that he was open to dialogue with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.
With an aircraft carrier group and numerous other assets in the Caribbean, Washington on Tuesday designated an alleged Venezuelan drug cartel a foreign terrorist organisation, while top US military officials also travelled to the region this week.
Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth and his wife spent today’s Thanksgiving holiday with troops aboard the aircraft carrier.
The Pentagon released a video showing him serving up turkey dinners in the mess and expressing gratitude to the troops for “interdicting cartels” and “defending the American people”.
A day earlier, the Dominican Republic, a US ally in the Caribbean, told Hegseth that Washington could use an air base and an airport for its counter-narcotics operations.
Leftist Maduro, whose re-election last year was widely rejected by the international community as fraudulent, believes the operation is secretly aimed at overthrowing him.
He has reacted defiantly, staging military exercises and mass rallies aimed at projecting strength and popular support.
The tensions have now led to major disruptions in air travel to and from Venezuela.
Last week, six airlines that account for much of the air travel in South America suspended flights to Venezuela following safety warnings from the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The FAA cited the “worsening security situation and heightened military activity in or around Venezuela”.
In response, Venezuela’s aviation authority yesterday said it had banned the airlines – Spain’s Iberia, Portugal’s TAP, Colombia’s Avianca, Chile and Brazil’s LATAM, Brazil’s GOL and Turkish Airlines – for “joining the actions of state terrorism promoted by the United States Government”.
Portuguese Foreign Minister Paulo Rangel accused Venezuela of a “disproportionate” reaction.
Portugal has “no intention of cancelling our routes to Venezuela, and that, obviously, we only did so for security reasons”, he said.
A source from Iberia told AFP the company hoped to resume flights to Venezuela “as soon as possible, as soon as full security conditions are met”.
They said the Spanish airline “cannot operate in areas where there is a high security risk” and added that Spain’s aviation authority had recommended not flying to Venezuela at this time.
The flight suspension has so far affected more than 8000 passengers on at least 40 different flights, according to the Venezuelan Association of Travel and Tourism Agencies.
A small number of Venezuelan companies, including Avior and Laser, continue to offer a limited number of flights to Spain and regional cities.
– Agence France-Presse