Trump Attempted Coup Operations in Venezuela, Maduro Accuses

Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in his administration’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Trump further suggested he was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory, a dramatic step that would go beyond a series of recent lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean, which Democrats and United Nations experts have forcefully condemned as unlawful.

Maduro decried what he called “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA” after Trump’s comments.

“No to war in the Caribbean … No to regime change … No to coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA,” the leftist leader said in an address to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the Caribbean for what it said was an anti-drug operation.

Experts have repeatedly cast doubts on some of the president’s claims about the threats Venezuelans pose in the US.

Early this month, the Trump administration said the US was now in “armed conflict” with drug cartels, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

The move has spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorization.