The United States Armed Forces reduced the volume of the fleet they have maintained in the Caribbean for around four months, after carrying out, last Saturday (3), the operation that captured the dictator of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, and transferred two amphibious transport ships to waters north of Cuba as part of this reorganization, according to The New York Times.
American government officials cited by the newspaper, whose names were not disclosed, indicated that the contingent began to be reduced, despite Donald Trump’s government guaranteeing that it will maintain ships in the region and operations to bomb boats loaded with drugs in the Caribbean.
These moves include the transfer of the USS Iwo Jima and the USS San Antonio, both amphibious landing troop transport ships, to waters north of Cuba in the Atlantic Ocean.
These moves would reduce the number of American troops in the Caribbean by approximately 3,000, leaving them at 12,000.
In turn, at least one of these two ships could return to the base port that both ships have in Norfolk, in the state of Virginia, in the coming weeks, indicated one of the cited officials.
At the end of August, the United States began a military operation against drug trafficking in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean, sending fighter jets, destroyers, amphibious transport ships and the aircraft carrier USS Gerald Ford, the largest in the world.
So far, at least 35 attacks have been carried out on 36 vessels that Washington alleged had links to drug trafficking; at least 115 people died in these actions.
Last weekend, American forces captured Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, to stand trial on drug trafficking-related charges in a New York federal court. The Chavista dictatorship claims that one hundred people were killed in this operation, including civilians.
The United States has maintained an ambiguous position on Cuba. Trump said over the weekend that he does not plan an intervention on the island because, according to him, the communist regime allied with Venezuela was “about to fall”.
However, Secretary of State Marco Rubio suggested in an interview with NBC that this hypothesis has not been ruled out.
“I’m not going to talk about what our next steps will be and what our policies will be at this point in this regard,” Rubio said. “But I think it’s no secret that we’re not big fans of the Cuban regime, which, by the way, was the one that supported Maduro.”
On Saturday, after the press conference in which Trump detailed the operation in which Maduro was captured, the secretary had been more explicit. “If I lived in Havana and were part of the government, I would be at least a little worried,” he threatened.
This Friday, the chancellor of the Cuban dictatorship, Bruno Rodríguez, provoked the United States in statements on social media.
“We Cubans are not willing to sell the country nor to give in to threats and blackmail, nor to renounce the inalienable prerogative with which we build our own destiny, in peace with the rest of the world,” wrote Rodríguez.
“We are going to defend Cuba. Anyone who knows us knows that it is a firm, categorical and demonstrated commitment”, added the chancellor.
