The United States is reportedly deploying three guided missile-destroyers off the coast of Venezuela, warships equipped with sophisticated weaponry to take down enemy targets.

The White House has signalled that it wanted to use the military to go after drug gangs in Latin America that have been designated as terrorist organisations by the United States.

This comes after the Trump administration announced earlier this month, a doubling of a reward to $50 million for the arrest of Venezuela’s President, Nicolas Maduro, accusing him of being a narco-trafficker and working with cartels trafficking in fentanyl-laced cocaine.

The United States has ordered naval movements in international waters off Venezuela and the Caribbean with the deployment of three US Navy destroyers and up to 4 000 military personnel that could arrive imminently off Venezuela’s territorial waters to counter narcotics movements.

White House Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, explains: “What I will say with respect to Venezuela, President Trump has been very clear and consistent. He’s prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice. The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela. It is a narco-terror cartel and Maduro – it is the view of this administration – is not a legitimate president, he is a fugitive head of this cartel who has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.”

Maduro was announced the winner of the July 2024 Presidential election despite a widely held view that opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez won the election.

Additionally, a United Nations panel of experts report found that the election fell short of the basic transparency and integrity measures that were essential to holding credible elections and that the National Electoral Council did not publish any results to support its oral arguments that Maduro had won.

US authorities have since seized 700 million dollars in assets it says are associated with Maduro and doubled a reward for information leading to his arrest to some 50 million dollars.

Attorney General Pam Bondi says, “The Department of Justice and State Department are announcing a historic $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Nicolas Maduro. Maduro uses foreign terrorist organizations like TDA, Sinaloa and Cartel of the Suns to bring deadly drugs and violence into our country. To date, the DEA has seized 30 tons of cocaine linked to Maduro and his associates with nearly 7 tons linked to Maduro himself, which represents a primary source of income for the deadly cartels based in Venezuela and Mexico. Cocaine is often laced with fentanyl, resulting in the loss and destruction of countless American lives. The DOJ has seized over $700 million of Maduro-linked assets, including two private jets, nine vehicles, and more. Yet Maduro’s reign of terror continues. He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security. Therefore, we doubled his reward to $50 million. Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”

President Maduro announced on Monday that he was deploying some 4.5 million militia throughout the country in response to new US “threats” – militias he said were prepared, activated and armed while the country’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez slammed the US reward linked to Maduro’s arrest.

These fanciful, illegal, and desperate offers in the best style of a Hollywood western, represent yet another act of internal interference in the nation that flagrantly violates international law and the principles of self-determination of peoples.

Those same immoral people are trying to say here that our commander-in-chief (Nicolas Maduro) is a drug trafficker, that the Minister of Defence is a drug trafficker. It is disrespectful to the people of Venezuela.

Maduro and 14 current and former Venezuelan officials were in March 2020 charged by the US Government in relation to narco-terrorism, corruption and drug trafficking – a rare US action against a foreign head of state.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said in a statement earlier this month that Maduro had been the leader of Cartel de los Soles for over a decade, a group Rubio says was responsible for trafficking drugs to the United States.