Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has urged his US counterpart Donald Trump not to lead the country into an Afghanistan-style ‘permanent war’, in the context of Washington increasing its military presence in the Caribbean.
Sharing with CNN outside the Miraflores presidential palace in Venezuela’s capital Caracas, Mr. Maduro called on Mr. Trump to “create peace, not war” after the world’s largest aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford arrived in the area.
“No more permanent war. No more unjust war. No more Libya. No more Afghanistan. Long live peace!”, the Venezuelan President declared as he walked through the crowd to a rally in support of the government.
According to the Guardian newspaper, a few hours after Mr. Maduro’s speech, US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth sought to put more pressure on the Venezuelan leader by announcing the promotion of Operation “Southern Spear”.
“The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood and we will protect this region,” Mr. Hegseth wrote on Twitter. This official emphasized that the mission of the US Southern Command will be “to protect the homeland from drugs that are killing our people”.
The move came after the US Navy’s Southern Command announced it was about to launch a campaign in which it would use “a heterogeneous combination of robotic and automated systems to support the detection and monitoring of illegal drug trafficking” in the Caribbean. Over the past several months, US troops have attacked many boats accused of transporting drugs from Venezuela, killing dozens of people.
According to Washington, the large-scale deployment of US troops in the region is part of President Donald Trump’s administration’s war on drugs to prevent Latin American criminal gangs from smuggling cocaine and fentanyl into the United States. However, Venezuela accused Washington of plotting regime change in Caracas.
Caracas’ defenders insist Venezuela is not a cocaine-producing country because that activity takes place almost entirely in Bolivia, Colombia and Peru. Venezuela is also not part of the fentanyl smuggling network, which is focused on Mexico.