Overview

• White House spokesperson Karoline Leavitt said the administration is prepared to use any element of U.S. power to curb drug trafficking from Venezuela, declining to rule out military action.
• U.S. deployments place roughly five warships and about 4,000 personnel in the southern Caribbean for counternarcotics operations, with the USS Lake Erie reported near the Panama Canal.
• Venezuela’s UN mission denounced the maneuvers as hostile and warned that the reported arrival of a U.S. nuclear attack submarine would violate the 1967 treaty establishing a nuclear‑weapon‑free zone.
• U.S. authorities raised the reward for information leading to Nicolás Maduro’s capture to $50 million and portrayed him as tied to narcotrafficking networks.
• President Nicolás Maduro called for militia enlistment and military drills, asserted there is no prospect of a U.S. invasion, and regional reactions ranged from Mexico’s opposition to intervention to U.S. claims that some neighbors applauded the deployment.