Overview

• Pentagon-assigned assets include the USS Gravely, USS Jason Dunham and USS Sampson with roughly 4,000 Marines, and a Defense Department official says no orders have been given to approach Venezuela’s territorial waters.
• President Nicolás Maduro announced a nationwide activation of about 4.5 million militia members, vowing to defend Venezuelan sovereignty and unveiling plans for expanded worker and campesino militias.
• Leaders of ALBA countries publicly condemned the U.S. naval moves as a threat to regional peace, and officials in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil voiced concerns over sovereignty and potential destabilization; China also opposed the deployment.
• The administration raised the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million and reported seizures of about $700 million in assets it links to him, while U.S. officials allege he protects the Cartel de los Soles.
• U.S. officials frame the operation as countering drug cartels and say the ships remain in international waters consistent with high-seas navigation rights under maritime law.