Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino announced on Sunday a significant deployment of military forces in Venezuela’s coastal regions and on its border with Colombia to combat drug trafficking amid soaring tensions in the US, which has built up a significant naval force in the region.
“No one is going to come and do the work for us. No one is going to step on this land and do what we’re supposed to do,” Padrino said in a video posted on social media.
The US says that the purpose of its naval deployment is to crack down on drug trafficking, and it claims that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is the leader of a cartel, allegations he and other Venezuelan officials strongly deny.
Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez held a press conference on Monday, where she rejected US claims of “narcoterrorism,” which she said were being used to justify aggression against Venezuela. Data shows that most cocaine bound for the United States moves through the Pacific, not the Caribbean.
Padrino said that a total of 25,000 Venezuelan troops would be deployed, up from the 10,000 that have already been deployed in the states of Zulia and Tachira, which border Colombia. “Our Commander-in-Chief, President Nicolas Maduro, has called upon us to make a special reinforcement to the existing deployment,” he said.
The US significantly escalated tensions in the region last week when it bombed a boat that departed Venezuela, which it claimed was carrying drugs, an allegation made without providing evidence. The Trump administration is also considering bombing alleged cartel sites in Venezuela for the purpose of weakening Maduro, which could provoke a full-blown war.
The policy toward Venezuela is largely being driven by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has long wanted regime change in Venezuela. In 2019, during the first Trump administration’s attempt at ousting Maduro, Rubio shared a photo on Twitter of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi in the moment he was being brutally murdered in an apparent threat to Maduro.
