 "US President Donald Trump. File image/AP")
US President Donald Trump has said that he is considering striking the Venezuelan land to target drug cartels, potentially expanding the military activity beyond the seas.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked if he was weighing strikes on land. His comments triggered outrage and orders for large-scale military exercises from his counterpart, Nicolas Maduro.
Tensions between the US and Venezuela have reached a tipping point, with Trump already hitting Venezuelan “drug” boats off the coast, in a move that he claims will prevent the entry of narcotics into the US.
Will CIA swing into action now?
Trump indicated Wednesday he had authorised covert CIA action against Venezuela and said he was considering strikes against alleged drug cartels on land in the South American country.
Republican Trump declined to comment in detail about a New York Times report that he had secretly approved the CIA to conduct covert action in Venezuela against Maduro.
“But I authorized for two reasons really,” he said, before listing familiar talking points accusing Maduro of leading a “narco-terrorist” regime and of releasing prisoners from jails and sending them to the United States.
Asked if he had given the CIA authority to “take out” Maduro, Trump replied: “That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer?”
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Meanwhile, Venezuelan President Maduro has slammed Trump over his actions and decried what he called “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA.”
“No to war in the Caribbean…No to regime change…No to coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA,” the leftist leader said in an address to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the Caribbean for what it said was an anti-drug operation.
At least 27 people have been killed in the US Caribbean attacks so far.
After another boat was struck, Maduro on Wednesday ordered military exercises in the country’s biggest shantytowns and said he was mobilising the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets.”
With inputs from agencies