Washington – US President Donald Trump indicated Wednesday he had authorized covert CIA action against Venezuela and said he was considering strikes against alleged drug cartels on land in the South American country.
Trump’s comments triggered outrage from leftist Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro, who decried “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA” and ordered military exercises following a fresh US strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean.
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?”
Trump added that he was weighing up whether to expand US military actions against alleged Venezuelan drug cartels to the land after a series of deadly naval strikes on boats.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office.
At least 27 people have been killed in recent US attacks on boats in the Caribbean.
Trinidad and Tobago, which is located off the coast of Venezuela, is investigating whether two of those killed were its citizens, officials said Wednesday.
Colombia’s president Gustavo Petro recently called on the United Nations to open a “criminal process” against Trump for the strikes, which he believes have also killed Colombians.
Experts have questioned the legality of using lethal force in foreign or international waters against suspects who have not been intercepted or questioned.
‘No to regime change’
Trump’s comments come amid a major US naval build-up in the Caribbean that Washington says is part of an anti-drug operation.
But the moves have been widely condemned in Latin America and fears are mounting in Caracas that Trump is seeking regime change.
“No to war in the Caribbean… No to regime change… No to coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA,” Maduro said in an address Wednesday to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the region.
Maduro earlier ordered military exercises in the country’s biggest shantytowns after the latest alleged drug-boat strike on Tuesday, which Trump said had killed six “narcoterrorists.”
Under Maduro’s direction, exercises were conducted across the entire Atlantic Caribbean coast of Venezuela, and other military activities are planned in the states on the border with Colombia.
In a message on the social network Telegram, Maduro said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets.”
Trump accuses Maduro of heading a drug cartel — charges Maduro denies.
Ahead of ramping up military actions, the US Justice Department in August doubled a bounty for information leading to Maduro’s capture to $50 million.
Trump has previously said that he is not looking at regime change in Venezuela, while at the same time accusing Maduro of stealing last year’s presidential election and being “illegitimate.”
The pressure on Maduro inched higher last week when US-backed opposition leader Maria Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for leading peaceful resistance to his 12-year rule.
Machado dedicated the award to Trump, who had campaigned for the award for himself.
