Donald Trump has claimed that US forces struck a “big facility” in Venezuela last week – but the president did not specify what it was, or where, and the White House has not commented further.
“We just knocked out – I don’t know if you read or you saw – they have a big plant, or a big facility, where the ships come from. Two nights ago, we knocked that out. So we hit them very hard,” Trump told Republican donor and New York supermarket owner John Catsimatidis on Friday.
If a US strike is confirmed, it will mark the first land strike on Venezuela since the Pentagon began a buildup of US strike forces in region to interdict drug traffickers operating – the Trump administration claims – under the direction of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro.
However, the initial, stated purpose of the military buildup has morphed into a blockade to disrupt the country’s oil exports that uses a global shadow fleet of oil tankers outside of Chevron, the single licensed exporter of Venezuelan oil.
Trump has for weeks warned that US forces are ready to expand the military campaign by striking targets inside Venezuela, a tactic that would in theory require congressional authorization.
Video footage posted online on 24 December appeared to show an explosion said to be from the industrial zone of the San Francisco municipality in Zulia state.
However, the video or the facility has not been independently verified. An administration official told CNN that the president was describing a drug facility in his comments to Catsimatidis.
The buildup of US military in the region – a posture the White House calls a maritime “quarantine” around Venezuela – marks the most expansive maritime enforcement action of Trump’s presidency.
Administration officials have stopped short of describing the action as a blockade but have acknowledged that about 15,000 personnel are positioned across the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, including a carrier strike group, F-35s and Coast Guard cutters to enforce existing sanctions.