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Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro accused President Donald Trump of pushing for war against his country just a day after the Pentagon confirmed it had dispatched the world’s largest aircraft carrier to the region.
In a national broadcast on Friday night, Maduro accused Trump of “fabricating a new eternal war” against Venezuela.
“They promised they would never again get involved in a war and they are fabricating a war that we will avoid,” said Maduro. “They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one.”
Read more: Trump’s Caribbean Bombing Campaign Brings War on Terror to the Americas
Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said Friday that the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, the largest aircraft carrier in the world, was being deployed to “dismantle Transnational Criminal Organizations (TCOs) and counter narco-terrorism in defense of the Homeland.”
Parnell said the deployment would “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States homeland and our security in the Western Hemisphere.”
The deployment represents a significant escalation in the Trump Administration’s military buildup in Latin America, which it claims is targeted at drug cartels. But it comes amid an increase in threats against opposing governments.
During his first term in office, Trump tried unsuccessfully to push Maduro out of power. Since returning for a second term, he has denied that he is seeking regime change—but those denials are becoming less forceful. Trump has accused Maduro of being an illegitimate president after an election that most independent observers believe was stolen. He has also accused him, without providing evidence, of being the leader of the organized crime gang Tren de Aragua, and blamed him for the trafficking of fentanyl-laced drugs to the United States. In August, a reward for information leading to his arrest was raised to $50…
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