You can “do things the easy way … or the hard way” was Donald Trump’s warning to Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro, this week amid growing tensions between Washington and Caracas.
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For weeks, the US has used the “war on drugs” to justify its escalating military presence – its largest in the Caribbean since the 1989 invasion of Panama.
Officials in Washington have said a “new phase” in the administration’s pressure campaign against Maduro was about to begin.
And Venezuela’s authoritarian leader responded by urging followers to prepare to defend “every inch” of the South American country.
This is the latest stage in an intensifying campaign that has been going on for months.
It has included strikes on fast boats in the Caribbean, which has resulted in 83 deaths that the UN has called extrajudicial executions, and Maduro being accused of running the “Cartel of the Suns” drug-trafficking organisation, which the US designated a terrorist group this week.
But the Guardian Latin America correspondent, Tom Phillips, says that while Trump’s administration has largely used the “war on drugs” to justify its presence in the region, the evidence does not quite support this.
Watch the video to find out more from @tomphillipsin about why the US’s claims don’t appear to add up – and learn more in our visual guide via the link ►
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