US President Donald Trump authorised the deployment of F-35 stealth fighter jets to Puerto Rico while considering options for strikes against drug cartels operating within Venezuela, reports stated.
Ten of the cutting-edge fighter jets are being delivered to a Puerto Rican airport as part of operations against Latin American drug gangs that Washington has identified as “narco-terrorist” groups, US sources informed news agencies on Friday.
The Trump administration is considering attacking drug cartels inside Venezuela, CNN reported on Friday, citing several sources. This would represent a major escalation of the already high tensions between Washington and Caracas.
On Friday, Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, demanded that the United States “abandon its plan of violent regime change in Venezuela and in all of Latin America.”
Maduro said that the US needs to “respect sovereignty, the right to peace, to independence.”
“I have respect for Trump. He asserted that none of the disagreements he has with Trump could result in a war.
“Venezuela has always been willing to converse, to dialogue,” Maduro added.
In response to weeks of US threats, Maduro mobilised Venezuela’s military, which consists of roughly 340,000 soldiers, as well as reservists and militia members, which he said total more than eight million.
Earlier this week, he told reporters, “If Venezuela were attacked, it would immediately enter a period of armed struggle.”
Trump claimed on Friday that the US was “not talking” about regime change in Venezuela.
With reference to Maduro’s return to office in January after allegations of vote tampering in the nation’s presidential election, Trump remarked, “But we are talking about the fact that you had an election which was a very strange election, to put it mildly.”
The claims of F-35 aircraft deployment follow a US naval build-up in the southern Caribbean, where a nuclear-powered fast-attack submarine, American warships, and several Marines have been stationed just outside Venezuelan territorial waters.
The US Department of Defense accused Venezuela on Thursday with committing a “highly provocative” act by deploying two F-16 fighter aircraft to fly close to the USS Jason Dunham, a guided-missile destroyer.
With over 4,500 sailors and Marines on board, the Dunham is one of at least seven US warships sent to the Caribbean.
Trump subsequently issued a warning to Venezuela, stating: “If they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down.” The US military was authorised to shoot down the jets if ship commanders felt they posed a threat to their vessels.
A request for comment regarding the reported deployment of F-35s and US allegations that Venezuelan fighter jets flew over a US warship was not answered by the country’s communications ministry.
US military destroyed a speedboat in the Caribbean on Tuesday, claiming it belonged to Tren de Aragua, a criminal group in Venezuela that Trump has linked to Maduro.
Trump claimed that the US attack, which Caracas called an “extrajudicial killing” of civilians, and which experts have questioned was legal, killed 11 people.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday defended Trump’s use of force against groups Washington refers to as “narco-terrorists.”
“What will stop them is when you blow them up, when you get rid of them,” Rubio said of drug cartels, in Mexico on Wednesday.
“If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”