Maduro warns the US: ‘If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle’

Venezuela has deployed troops to the border and called for the enlistment of militia members and Venezuelans to confront a hypothetical foreign military incursion. The move is in response to the deployment in recent weeks of ships, military contingents and a nuclear submarine by the United States in its fight against drug trafficking and drug cartels—which it has linked to members of the Venezuelan government—and coincides with the joint naval exercise Unitas 2025, scheduled to take place off the U.S. coast beginning September 15. “If Venezuela was attacked, we would declare an armed struggle and a Republic in arms,” President Nicolás Maduro warned this Monday at a press conference with international media.

“Venezuela is facing the greatest threat our continent has seen in 100 years,” the head of state said. “There are eight warships with 1,200 missiles, and a nuclear submarine aimed at Venezuela. It’s an extravagant, immoral, and bloody threat. They have sought to advance with maximum military pressure, and we have declared maximum preparedness in Venezuela.”

Diplomatic relations between the United States and Venezuela have shifted in less than a year from official visits and handshakes between Donald Trump’s officials and Maduro in Miraflores to direct accusations by the U.S. that the Chavista leader is part of an alleged drug organization called Cartel of the Suns. The Trump administration has increased the reward for his capture to $50 million.

“If you’re looking for a mobster, look elsewhere. What you can look for here is a revolutionary who has a people and an Armed Forces backing him,” Maduro responded on Monday. “I’m not a magnate, I don’t have a business or wealth, I’m a worker, a fighter, the first Chavista president in history. I’m not a bully; I know politics, political strategy, and now military strategy. I’ve learned a lot in the Bolivarian National Armed Forces, which are a highly trained force. Diplomacy is also based on truth, on words, and on performance.”

Tensions have risen in recent days amid statements by Republican senators like Bernie Moreno, who have indicated that Maduro will not remain in power, echoing the messages of underground opposition leader María Corina Machado, who is pushing for a political transition in Venezuela. “We will not give in to blackmail or threats of any kind. What has been mounted against Venezuela is a move against an entire country, having failed with all forms of hybrid warfare and maximum pressure, comparable only to the October 1962 missile crisis against Cuba. A situation of this nature has never been seen before on our continent. It has never been seen before. We are witnessing how the Miami mafia has seized political power in the White House and the State Department.”

Maduro added that communication channels with the United States are “battered,” but not completely cut off, particularly with Chargé d’Affaires John McNamara and Special Envoy Richard Grennel, with whom the exchange of U.S. prisoners for deported Venezuelan migrants was negotiated. But he focused his criticism on Secretary of State Marco Rubio, not Trump.

“The channels of communication with the United States are battered because gunboat diplomacy is erratic,” the Venezuelan president said. “Mr. Trump, watch yourself, because Marco Rubio wants to stain your hands with Latin American blood, with a massacre and a war against South America and the Caribbean; they want to stain Trump’s hands with blood. He is an intelligent man, he must know what he is doing.”

At an extraordinary meeting of foreign ministers from CELAC (Latin American and Caribbean Economic Community), Venezuela requested the withdrawal of U.S. military assets from the Caribbean. Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yván Gil has said that the fight against drug trafficking is being used as a pretext to destabilize the region. This diplomatic pressure comes on top of Maduro’s requests to United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to intervene to ease tensions in the region.

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