WASHINGTON has ramped up its military push against Venezuela’s narco regime – and Spain has been left out in the cold.
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio is in talks to get Mexico, Canada, Italy, Britain and France on board for a huge Caribbean operation targeting the so-called Cartel of the Suns, a drugs empire Washington claims is run by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Diplomatic sources told ABC the plan is to beef up the American naval deployment already patrolling off Venezuela with thousands of troops and warships – and now Europe’s big hitters are being asked to send forces too.
Spain, however, has been frozen out. The Sanchez government’s cosy ties with China – arch-rival of Donald Trump’s White House – have soured relations with Washington. US lawmakers have even slammed Madrid for letting Chinese giant Huawei handle sensitive police data.
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To make matters worse, ex-PM Jose Luis Rodríguez Zapatero – now a key adviser to Sanchez – is accused of being far too close to Maduro and Latin America’s hard-left.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is piling on the pressure. Two more US warships – the guided-missile cruiser USS Lake Erie and nuclear sub USS Newport News – will steam into the Caribbean next week to join the fleet already stationed off Venezuela.
France has confirmed it will send ships from its Caribbean territory of Guadeloupe.
Trinidad and Tobago is even offering its waters and ports to help the mission.
Rubio, who has branded the cartels ‘terrorist organisations’, told Trump in a White House meeting: “For the first time in modern history we are on the offensive against the gangs flooding our streets with poison.”
The US has put a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head – double what was once offered for Osama bin Laden.
Maduro is hitting back with a show of force. His regime says it has mobilised 15,000 security forces and 4.5 million civilian militiamen, backed by drones, gunboats and navy patrols in the Gulf of Venezuela and Lake Maracaibo.
The Venezuelan strongman has even urged civilians to take up arms to defend the revolution.
The stand-off in the Caribbean is now being seen as the most serious escalation yet in Washington’s bid to topple the chavista regime and smash its alleged billion-dollar narco lifeline.
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