Trump has moved significant U.S. military assets, including eight warships, about 10,000 troops, a nuclear-power submarine and fighter jets, to the southern Caribbean, close to Venezuela. Earlier this week, the president confirmed he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.

The U.S. Senate is poised to take up a bipartisan bill aimed at preventing the Trump administration from launching a full-on war with Venezuela over alleged ties to the international drug trade.

An elite Army unit capable of inserting some of the American military’s most deadly special operations forces into a fight has been deployed to the Caribbean as President Trump exerts an increasing show of force in Venezuela.

US President Trump indicated Wednesday he had authorised covert CIA operations against Venezuela and was considering attacks on land against alleged drug-cartels in the country.

The U.S. military has carried out a new attack against a suspected drug boat in Caribbean waters. The operation, which this time was not initially announced by either President Donald Trump, by his Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, or by administration spokespersons, was instead confirmed by a U.S. official to Reuters.

President Trump will do “whatever it takes” to defend the United States from Venezuela-based “terrorist” drug gangs, United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz vowed Thursday. Waltz doubled down after Trump revealed he had authorized the CIA to start engaging in clandestine anti-government operations within Venezuela as he pushes ahead his anti-drug-smuggling crackdown.

The United States struck another small boat accused of carrying drugs in the waters off Venezuela, killing six people, President Donald Trump said Tuesday. It’s the fifth deadly strike in the Caribbean as Trump's administration has asserted it's treating alleged drug traffickers as unlawful combatants who must be met with military force.

Venezuela’s UN Ambassador, Samuel Moncada, accused the U.S. of being "bloodthristy" and urged the Security Council to take action.