CARACAS: US President Donald Trump confirmed on Sunday he had recently spoken with Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro amid soaring tensions between the two countries, while Caracas slammed what it called US preparations for an attack. The United States is piling the pressure on Venezuela, with a major military buildup in the Caribbean, the designation of an alleged drug cartel run by Maduro as a terrorist group, and an ominous warning from Trump that Venezuelan airspace is &quot;closed.&quot; Washington says the aim of the military deployment launched in September is to curb drug trafficking in the region, but Caracas insists regime change is the ultimate goal. &quot;I wouldn&#39;t say it went well or badly. It was a phone call,&quot; Trump told reporters Sunday aboard Air Force One. The New York Times reported on Friday that Trump and Maduro had discussed a possible meeting, while The Wall Street Journal said on Saturday that the conversation also included conditions of amnesty if Maduro were to step down. Republican Senator Markwayne Mullin said Sunday on CNN&#39;s &quot;State of the Union&quot; talk show that the United States has offered Maduro the chance to leave his country for Russia or elsewhere. The United States accuses Maduro, the political heir to Venezuela&#39;s late leftist leader Hugo Chavez, of heading the &quot;Cartel of the Suns&quot; and has issued a $50 million reward for his capture. But Venezuela and countries that support it insist no such organization even exists. Several Venezuela experts say what Washington calls the Cartel of the Suns refers to the corruption of senior officials by criminal gangs. The United States also does not recognize Maduro as the legitimate winner of last year&#39;s presidential election. Though Trump has not publicly threatened to use force against Maduro, he said in recent days that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking &quot;by land&quot; would begin &quot;very soon.&quot; Aid from OPEC? Venezuela says it has requested assistance from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), of which it is a member, to help &quot;stop this (American) aggression, which is being readied with more and more force.&quot; The request came in a letter from Maduro to the group, read by Vice President Delcy Rodriguez, who is also Venezuela&#39;s oil minister, during a virtual meeting of OPEC ministers. Washington &quot;is trying to seize Venezuela&#39;s vast oil reserves, the biggest in the world, by using military force,&quot; Maduro wrote in the letter. Since September, US air strikes have targeted alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing at least 83 people. Trump&#39;s administration has offered no concrete evidence to back up the allegations behind its campaign, and numerous experts have questioned the legality of the operations. US media reported on Friday that in one strike in September, the US military conducted a follow-up strike that killed survivors of an initial attack. The Washington Post and CNN said Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had issued a directive to &quot;kill everybody,&quot; but Trump said Sunday that Hegseth had denied giving such an order. &quot;We&#39;ll look into it, but no, I wouldn&#39;t have wanted that &mdash; not a second strike,&quot; Trump told reporters. &quot;Pete said he did not order the death of those two men.&quot; &#39;Extrajudicial executions&#39;The head of Venezuela&#39;s legislature, Jorge Rodriguez, said he met on Sunday with relatives of Venezuelans killed in the strikes. He would not comment on a possible Trump-Maduro call. But when asked about the report about the Hegseth order, he said: &quot;If a war had been declared and led to such killings, we would be talking about war crimes.&quot; &quot;Given that no war has been declared, what happened...can only be characterized as murder or extrajudicial executions,&quot; he added. The steady US military buildup has seen the world&#39;s largest aircraft carrier deployed to Caribbean waters, while American fighter jets and bombers have repeatedly flown off the Venezuelan coast in recent days. Six airlines have canceled services to Venezuela, but on Sunday, the airport in Caracas was functioning as usual.

Americas

The US is piling the pressure on Venezuela, with a major military buildup in the Caribbean, the designation of an alleged drug cartel run by Maduro as a terrorist group, and an ominous warning from Trump that Venezuelan airspace is "closed."


Trump confirms call with Maduro, Caracas slams US maneuvers

WASHINGTON: Donald Trump suggested on Sunday that future talks with Venezuelan counterpart Nicolas Maduro could be on the table, as a regional US military buildup has whipped up tensions between the nations. The US president spoke after Washington further upped the ante by announcing plans to designate as a terrorist group a cartel that it claims Maduro runs. &quot;We may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we&#39;ll see how that turns out,&quot; Trump told reporters in Florida, adding: &quot;They would like to talk.&quot; Pressed for more details, he replied: &quot;Venezuela would like to talk. What does it mean? You tell me, I don&#39;t know... I&#39;d talk to anybody.&quot; Earlier Sunday, the US State Department said it would classify Cartel de los Soles (Cartel of the Suns) &mdash; which it claims is headed by Maduro &mdash; as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). &quot;Cartel de los Soles, by and with other designated FTOs, including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, are responsible for terrorist violence throughout our hemisphere as well as for trafficking drugs into the United States and Europe,&quot; Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement. The designation, effective from November 24, follows a huge US military mobilization in the Caribbean which Washington states is necessary to prevent drug smuggling into the United States. But Caracas claims it is really a ploy to overthrow its leftist President Maduro, who the United States considers an illegitimate leader and a drug lord &mdash; a charge that he denies. Deadly US strikes Rubio reiterated an established US stance on Sunday that Cartel de los Soles is led by Maduro and other high-ranking officials &quot;who have corrupted Venezuela&#39;s military, intelligence, legislature, and judiciary.&quot; &quot;Neither Maduro nor his cronies represent Venezuela&#39;s legitimate government,&quot; he added. The US Treasury in July announced sanctions against Cartel de los Soles after it was classified as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity for allegedly providing &quot;material support&quot; to other Latin American crime groups. Rubio also said on Sunday the United States &quot;will continue using all available tools to protect our national security interests and deny funding and resources to narco-terrorists.&quot; Since launching the anti-trafficking military campaign in September, US forces have killed at least 83 people accused of ferrying drugs in international waters, according to an AFP tally of publicly released figures. The United States has released no details to back up its claims that the people targeted &mdash; in both the Caribbean and eastern Pacific &mdash; in the more than 20 strikes were actually traffickers. Experts say the deaths amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers. The US military also on Sunday confirmed the USS Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier was now in the Caribbean Sea for the anti-smuggling campaign &mdash; dubbed &quot;Operation Southern Spear&quot; &mdash; along with two guided-missile destroyers and other support vessels and aircraft. The arrival announcement came a day after the latest US strike in the eastern Pacific, which killed three people.

US president’s comments come after Washington upped the ante by announcing plans to designate as a terrorist group a cartel that it claims Maduro runs.

Trump signals possible US talks with Venezuela's Maduro

CARACAS: A US aircraft carrier strike group arrived in Latin America on Tuesday, escalating a military buildup Venezuela has warned could trigger a full-blown conflict as it announced its own &quot;massive&quot; deployment. The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world&#39;s largest aircraft carrier, entered an area under control of the US Naval Forces Southern Command, which encompasses Latin America and the Caribbean, the command said in a statement. The vessel&#39;s deployment was ordered nearly three weeks ago, with the stated goal of helping to counter drug trafficking in the region. Its presence &quot;will bolster US capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere,&quot; Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said. President Donald Trump&#39;s administration is conducting a military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, deploying naval and air forces for an anti-drugs offensive. Caracas fears the deployment, which also includes F-35 stealth warplanes sent to Puerto Rico and six US Navy ships in the Caribbean, is a regime change plot in disguise. President Nicolas Maduro, whose last two reelections were dismissed as fraudulent by Washington and dozens of other countries, has accused the Trump administration of &quot;fabricating a war.&quot; On November 2, Trump played down the prospect of going to war with Venezuela but said the days of Maduro &mdash; whom he accuses of being a drug lord &mdash; were numbered. US forces have carried out strikes on about 20 vessels in international waters in the region since early September, killing at least 76 people, according to US figures. The Trump administration says the United States is engaged in &quot;armed conflict&quot; with Latin American drug cartels, which it describes as &quot;terrorist&quot; groups. Washington has not provided any evidence the stricken vessels were used to smuggle drugs, and human rights experts say the attacks amount to extrajudicial killings even if they target known traffickers. &#39;Unacceptable&#39; Venezuela announced on Tuesday what it called a major, nationwide military deployment to counter the US naval presence off its coast. The defense ministry in Caracas spoke in a statement of a &quot;massive deployment&quot; of land, sea, air, river and missile forces as well as civilian militia to counter &quot;imperial threats.&quot; Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino said 200,000 troops participated in an exercise, though no military activity was observed in the capital Caracas. Padrino sought to assure Venezuelans the country was &quot;safeguarded, protected, defended.&quot; &quot;They are murdering defenseless people, whether or not they are drug traffickers, executing them without due process,&quot; the minister added of the US operation. Experts have told AFP that Venezuela, with an ill-disciplined fighting force and outdated arsenal, would be at a serious disadvantage in a military standoff with the United States. On Tuesday, Russia denounced US strikes on boats from Venezuela &mdash; an ally of Moscow &mdash; as &quot;unacceptable.&quot; &quot;This is how, in general, lawless countries act, as well as those who consider themselves above the law,&quot; Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in televised remarks, questioning what he described as a &quot;pretext of fighting drugs.&quot; Maduro relies heavily on the Kremlin for political and economic support. US-Russia relations have soured in recent weeks as Trump has voiced frustration with Moscow over the lack of a resolution to the Ukraine war. The United Kingdom, meanwhile, would not comment on Tuesday on a CNN report that it had stopped sharing intelligence with the United States about suspected drug-smuggling vessels in the Caribbean. A spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer told reporters in London: &quot;We don&#39;t comment on security or intelligence matters.&quot; He underlined that &quot;the US is our closest partner on defense, security, intelligence,&quot; and would not be drawn on reported UK concerns about the strikes.

President Trump's administration is conducting a military campaign in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, deploying naval and air forces for an anti-drugs offensive.

Articles tagged with "US Venezuela"

Trump confirms call with Maduro, Caracas slams US maneuvers

Trump signals possible US talks with Venezuela's Maduro

Arrival of US aircraft carrier fuels Venezuelan fears of attack

Trump confirms call with Maduro, Caracas slams US maneuvers