President Nicolás Maduro is calling on Venezuelans to enlist in national militias ahead of the potential arrival of US warships in the Caribbean.

The U.S. deployed three Navy missile destroyers and around 4,000 military personnel to the waters off Venezuela in effort to thwart cartels.

Beijing is likely to increase its economic support for Venezuela, its only all-weather strategic partner in South America, as tensions rise between Washington and Caracas. However, analysts suggest that China will hold back on direct military aid or actions that could provoke a direct confrontation with the United States.

A U.S. court auction of Venezuelan-owned U.S. refiner Citgo is heating up after delays as bidders raise their offers, good news for creditors seeking compensation from the South American nation for debt defaults and a wave of nationalizations under late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

Tuesday's massive operation marks a dramatic escalation in Trump's push to block fentanyl and drug pipelines fueling America’s overdose crisis. It also comes as the administration called Venezuela’s regime a "narco-terror cartel" and demanded that President Nicolás Maduro be held accountable.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced on Monday the deployment of 4.5 million militiamen throughout the country after the United States doubled the reward for information leading to his arrest and increased the number of troops sailing around Latin America and the Caribbean.

The president has "pushed for using the U.S. military to thwart cartels he blames for the flow of fentanyl and other illicit drugs," said The Associated Press. As part of this military force, Trump dispatched a trio of U.

The United States is deploying three guided-missile destroyers to the waters off Venezuela as part of President Donald Trump’s effort to combat threats from Latin American drug cartels

China Concord Resources Corp has begun developing two Venezuelan oilfields, planning to invest more than $1 billion in a project to produce 60,000 barrels per day of crude oil by end-2026, an executive directly involved in the project said.

The post on X showed the State Department's "wanted" posters for both men, but with Cabello's image altered so that he appears to look at Maduro with jealousy, because the amount asked for his bounty