“We’re not talking about that,” Trump told reporters Friday. He asked if the US was trying to drive away Maduro. Local US media reported this.
The Trump administration says military accumulation in the Caribbean is aimed at stopping cartels from smuggling drugs into the United States. The Pentagon first launched military action on Tuesday against what it claimed to be a target of the cartel, killing 11 people on a boat that it said was departing from Venezuela and carrying drugs to the United States.
But Trump officials are increasingly accusing Maduro of alliance with the cartel, sparking fear that he may be the target of his current campaign.
Maduro accused the United States of seeking a “change of government due to military threats.” He previously rejected the US allegations as false.
Maduro says that if US troops deployed in the Caribbean attack a South American country, they will constitutionally declare a “republic.”
MNA