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US President Donald Trump says efforts to halt alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking “by land” would begin “very soon”, amid increasing tensions with the South American country.
Trump has sent a large deployment of US military to the region, including an aircraft carrier group, with a stated mission of tackling transnational crime and drug trafficking.
But Venezuela claims it is really a ploy to overthrow leftist President Nicolas Maduro, whom the United States considers an illegitimate leader and a drug lord — a charge he denies.
“We’ve almost stopped — it’s about 85 per cent stopped by sea,” Trump said in a Thanksgiving video call with US troops from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.
“We’re also planning to intercept them by land soon. Land operations are simpler, and we’ll be initiating those shortly,” said a source.