President Trump spent months issuing blunt warnings to Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, and those warnings were not empty rhetoric. Over and over, Trump made it clear that the United States would no longer tolerate Venezuela serving as a launchpad for international drug trafficking. The message was simple: stop the flow of narcotics or face direct consequences.
For a time, those consequences stayed offshore.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration authorized aggressive naval action in the Caribbean, targeting drug-smuggling vessels linked to Venezuela. U.S. forces destroyed more than 30 trafficking boats operating across the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific, disrupting major smuggling routes used by criminal networks tied to the Maduro regime.
But Trump made it clear that the maritime strikes were only phase one.
Speaking openly to his Cabinet on December 2, the president escalated his rhetoric and removed any ambiguity about what might come next.
“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land too,” Trump told his Cabinet on December 2. “The land is much easier.”
>> Click Here To Continue Reading <<
