#us-naval-operations

#us-naval-operations

Venezuela's economy may be in tatters, but it is sitting on the world's largest known oil reserves, estimated at more than 300 billion barrels. It can safely be assumed that these mineral resources also play a role in the strategic considerations of the oil-friendly US president, Donald Trump. For his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolas Maduro, they act as a lubricant for foreign relations. But the intensification of the US conflict with Venezuela cannot be explained by oil alone.

Dominican Republic forces have seized hundreds of cocaine packages from a speedboat that was targeted and destroyed by the United States Navy, officials said, amid escalating anti-drug operations in the Caribbean. In a post on X on Sunday, the Dominican Republic's National Directorate for Drug Control (DNCD), the country's drug enforcement agency, said it carried out a joint Dominican-US operation in which they said they recovered 1,000kg (2,200lb) of cocaine in 377 packages.