Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil said Friday that the deployment of US aircraft threatens the government of Nicolás Maduro, after the US ordered ten F-35 fighter jets to head to an air base in Puerto Rico as part of the operation ordered by Washington under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking in the Caribbean, near the Venezuelan coast.
"No one in their right mind can endorse the irrationality that (Secretary of State) Marco Rubio and his clique are trying to impose, deploying nuclear submarines in a demilitarized zone, deploying warships, deploying aircraft to threaten a free and sovereign government like Venezuela," Gil said.
In a telephone conversation with the state-run Venezuelan Television channel (VTV), the foreign minister reiterated that Rubio justifies the military deployment"using as a pretext a supposed persecution against drug trafficking," including, he mentioned, that the Venezuelan government traffics in drugs, but, he added, this is"the biggest lie."
On the other hand, the Venezuelan official welcomed the statement by a group of countries from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), including Colombia and Brazil, which expressed their concern about the military deployment of the United States, according to the provisional president of the mechanism, Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
"Latin America will not tolerate arms races; Latin America will not tolerate military deployments," Gil said, adding that Venezuela will do"everything necessary" to defend itself.
Other CELAC member countries, such as Argentina and Trinidad and Tobago, did not support the statement, according to Petro, who shared the document on his X account this Thursday.
This Friday, the American network CBS confirmed that The United States ordered the deployment of ten F-35 fighter jets to an air base in Puerto Rico, amid the escalating tension with Venezuela.
A source"familiar with the plans" confirmed to the television station that the Trump administration will send these fighter jets to the Caribbean island to carry out operations against drug cartels.
This would be a new step by the US in its war against cartels after the alleged attack on a boat in Caribbean waters that, according to Washington, killed eleven members of the Venezuelan-born transnational criminal organization Tren de Aragua, which the Trump administration associates with the Maduro government.
The Pentagon called the move a "provocative maneuver."
