Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has accused the United States of deploying eight warships armed with 1,200 missiles to the Caribbean with Venezuela in their crosshairs, declaring the nation on “maximum readiness to defend” itself.
Washington has described the naval buildup as part of an anti-drug trafficking operation and has not issued any threat of invasion.
Still, Maduro condemned what he called “the greatest threat seen on our continent in the last 100 years,” warning that Venezuela would resist any aggression.
“Eight military ships with 1,200 missiles and a submarine are targeting Venezuela,” he told international media in Caracas. “In response to maximum military pressure, we have declared maximum readiness to defend our homeland.”
One of the vessels — a guided missile cruiser — was reported to have transited the Panama Canal into the Caribbean on Friday night.
Maduro claimed that more than eight million Venezuelans have enlisted as reservists and announced intensified naval patrols of the country’s territorial waters.
The United States has accused Maduro of running a drug cartel and recently doubled its bounty for his capture to $50 million. Washington has also refused to recognize his re-elections in 2018 and 2024, citing widespread allegations of fraud and voter suppression.
At Monday’s press conference, Maduro accused U.S. leaders of plotting bloodshed.
“Lines of communication with the United States have broken down. Venezuela will never give in to blackmail or threats of any kind,” he said, warning that U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was pushing former President Donald Trump “into a bloodbath… with a massacre against the people of Venezuela.”
The American military presence has been welcomed in neighboring Guyana, where President Irfaan Ali said any action that eliminates “threats to our security” was positive.
Venezuela and Guyana remain locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the oil-rich Essequibo region, which constitutes two-thirds of Guyana’s landmass and has been under Georgetown’s administration for more than a century.
Tensions have intensified since ExxonMobil discovered vast offshore oil reserves there a decade ago.
Maduro has long accused Washington of seeking regime change through sanctions and isolation, including Trump’s “maximum pressure” campaign and an oil embargo. Analysts, however, suggest the U.S. deployment is more about tightening the squeeze than launching a direct attack.
Caracas last week appealed to the United Nations, urging it to demand “the immediate cessation of the U.S. military deployment in the Caribbean.”
“If Venezuela is attacked,” Maduro warned, “we are prepared for a period of armed struggle in defense of our national territory.”
