While Trump has focused his Venezuela-related efforts on tamping down the flow of narcotics, he is also aware that the nation, which holds the world’s greatest known oil reserves, is “a very resource-rich country”, a senior White House official told Reuters.
“Just because the president is perhaps interested in hearing what Venezuela has to say does not take off his military options from the table,” cautioned the official, who requested anonymity to discuss diplomatic conversations.
The official said there were many advantages that Venezuela could offer US firms, though the main priority now is stopping drugs.
On Sunday, the Trump administration designated the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation. The US has alleged that the group is made up of high-ranking Venezuelan officials, including Maduro.
Some independent researchers have said that while Venezuelan officials are involved in drug trafficking, there is little proof of a top-down, hierarchical organisation that could be traditionally called a cartel.
The Pentagon said on Sunday, before Trump’s latest comments, that the US Navy’s largest aircraft carrier, the Gerald R Ford, with 5,000 military personnel and dozens of warplanes on board, and its strike group moved into the Caribbean. That added to the eight warships, a nuclear submarine, and F-35 aircraft already sent to the region.
So far, the Trump administration has focused its efforts on bombing boats allegedly carrying drugs that have departed from the shoreline of Venezuela and other Latin American countries.
Human rights groups have condemned those strikes as extrajudicial killings of civilians. The White House says the US is at war with drug cartels and courts are not needed in armed conflicts.
