Washington.- The president of the U.S., Donald Trump, assured this Monday that he spoke “very recently” with his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, but that the conversation was not fruitful to reduce pressure from Washington, which, according to the American president, included Wednesday’s attack on a pier allegedly used by drug traffickers.
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Trump’s statements, which occurred at the beginning of his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his residence in Florida, come hours after media reported statements by the president last Friday, when he claimed that the U.S. attacked a “large facility” used for drug transportation. Trump did not specify then whether that objective was in Venezuelan territory or not, nor did he do so today. “It was along the coastline,” Trump simply said about the operation, which took place last Wednesday and in which he assured that “there was a big explosion in the area of the pier where the ships load with drugs.” “They load the ships with drugs. So we attack all the ships, and now we attack the area. It’s the operations zone, that’s where they operate and that zone no longer exists,” he added. Although neither the Pentagon nor any instance of the US Federal Government nor Caracas has confirmed that attack, it could be the first US incursion into Venezuelan territory. For several weeks, Trump has been warning that, within the framework of his pressure campaign against the Maduro Administration —which, according to Washington, has included the destruction of some thirty boats accused of transporting drugs and the death of more than a hundred of their occupants—, the U.S. would begin to attack targets on land linked to drug trafficking. The Trump administration claims that Maduro and the leaders of his Executive and the Venezuelan Armed Forces lead the so-called Cartel of the Suns, an organization that Washington has declared a terrorist group, a claim that Caracas denies.
