(CNN) — US President Donald Trump stated on Friday that it is not true that he has decided to attack Venezuela.
“No, that’s not true,” the president told reporters aboard Air Force One when asked if he was considering attacking Venezuela and if he had already made a decision.
CNN previously reported that the president is considering plans to target cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes within Venezuela, though he has not yet decided whether to implement them, according to three U.S. officials.
The president has also not ruled out a diplomatic approach with Venezuela to stem the flow of drugs into the United States, two officials said, even after the administration severed active talks with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in recent weeks. Venezuela is not known to be a major source of cocaine, but the Trump administration has been aggressively trying to link Maduro to drug trafficking.
Since September, the U.S. military has attacked 15 vessels in international waters in the Caribbean and Pacific that were suspected of carrying narcotics, resulting in a total of 61 deaths.
The Trump administration has not presented Congress with evidence to support its claims that the boats were carrying drugs and known traffickers.
During a classified briefing on Capitol Hill this week, Pentagon officials also told lawmakers that they do not know how to measure the success of the ongoing military operation, according to a source familiar with the closed-door meeting.
On October 24, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ordered the deployment of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group, the Navy’s most advanced carrier strike group and considered the largest warship ever built, to the Caribbean region.
Two days later, the USS Gravely, a U.S. Navy destroyer, arrived in Trinidad and Tobago to conduct military exercises for several days. The small Caribbean nation is located very close to Venezuela: the island of Trinidad is just eleven kilometers from the Venezuelan coast at its closest point.
Weeks earlier, Trump announced that he had authorized U.S. forces, as well as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), to conduct ground operations in Venezuela to stem the flow of drugs and undocumented migrants.
Trump has also said that ground operations in Venezuela will begin “soon.”
“The ground is going to be next, and we may go to the Senate, we may go to Congress and tell them about this,” he said.
Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro rejects the U.S. military deployment in Latin America. He says it is not actually aimed at combating drug trafficking, but rather at exerting pressure on his government and threatening Venezuela’s sovereignty.
Trump has asserted that he can continue launching attacks against suspected drug traffickers without first obtaining a formal declaration of war from Congress.
“I’m not necessarily going to ask for a declaration of war,” he said. “I think we’re just going to kill people who are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them, you know, they’re going to be dead.”
The president said he would notify Congress before beginning any ground operations, but maintained that the plan would not face resistance from lawmakers.
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