Trump Sends Warships Near Venezuela

The United States is deploying three Aegis guided-missile destroyers near Venezuela amid threats posed by drug cartels.

The USS Gravely, the USS Jason Dunham, and the USS Sampson are expected in the region soon, an official familiar with the matter told the Associated Press.

Earlier this month, the Department of Justice announced a $50 million reward for information leading to the arrest of Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro. Officials previously offered a $25 million reward for the dictator. Attorney General Pam Bondi said at the time that Maduro uses “foreign terrorist organizations like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa, and Cartel of the Suns that bring deadly drugs and violence into our country.”

“He is one of the largest narco-traffickers in the world and a threat to our national security,” she explained. “Therefore, we’ve doubled his reward to 50 million dollars. Under President Trump’s leadership, Maduro will not escape justice and he will be held accountable for his despicable crimes.”

Maduro said in response to the U.S. developments that he will “activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory — militias that are prepared, activated, and armed.”

“Rifles and missiles for the peasant force! To defend the territory, sovereignty, and peace of Venezuela,” he declared.

In January, President Trump issued an executive order labeling the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as a foreign terrorist organization. The gang’s campaign of “violence and terror” in the United States is “extraordinarily violent, vicious, and similarly [threatens] the stability of the international order in the Western Hemisphere,” the order said.

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