Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has accused the US of "fabricating a new war", after the deployment of the Gerald Ford aircraft carrier to the Caribbean, as part of the campaign against drug trafficking.
“They promised they would never again get involved in a war, yet they are fabricating one which we will prevent,” the Latin American leader said in a speech broadcast by state radio and television.
Since September, Washington has been carrying out airstrikes against boats it describes as drug traffickers’ vessels, mainly in the Caribbean and now also in the Pacific.
The United States has deployed in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico a fleet of warships, thousands of marines, and fighter jets. On Friday, it was also announced that the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford - the largest in the world - is sailing in the region with its strike group.
The Donald Trump administration has accused Maduro of heading a drug-trafficking cartel. Caracas, in turn, denounces what it calls a pretext to overthrow the Venezuelan government and allow Washington to seize the country’s vast oil wealth.
Maduro said Friday that the US government has invented “an absurd, utterly false narrative”, noting that Venezuela was “a country of peace”. He also said that there was no coca leaf cultivation, or cocaine production in Venezuela and that they have eradicated all remaining transit routes that once came from Colombia.