Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino announced on September 7 the deployment of 15,000 additional troops to coastal regions to curb drug trafficking, following a U.S. military strike that killed 11 people aboard a boat allegedly carrying narcotics.
The troops will be sent to Zulia’s Guajira region and the Paraguaná Peninsula in Falcón, areas close to Colombia and the Dutch Antilles. Military presence will also expand in Nueva Esparta, Sucre, and Delta Amacuro.
“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 message.
The announcement comes days after Trinidad and Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar backed the U.S. operation, saying: “The pain and suffering the cartels have inflicted on our nation is immense. I have no sympathy for traffickers…The U.S. military should kill them all violently.”
Tensions between Washington and Caracas have escalated since U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his anti-narcotics campaign upon returning to the White House in January.
Trump labeled the Tren de Aragua cartel a foreign terrorist organization, authorized military strikes, and doubled the reward for Nicolás Maduro’s arrest to $50 million.
Maduro, in turn, accused the United States of plotting regime change, declaring his country at “maximum preparedness.” He warned that if Venezuela were attacked, he could constitutionally proclaim a “republic in arms.”
In a Truth Social post, Trump reiterated his stance, calling Tren de Aragua “a designated Foreign Terrorist Organization, operating under the control of Nicolas Maduro, responsible for mass murder, drug trafficking, sex trafficking, and acts of violence and terror across the United States and Western Hemisphere.”—Dan Dojillo, Contributor