In a message on Twitter, the island’s Foreign Minister, Bruno Rodriguez, asserted that this decision “shows that the war declared by the US government against drug trafficking is a farce.” “With this, it intends to justify its costly and extraordinary naval deployment in the Caribbean Sea and the threat of military aggression to overthrow the legitimate government of Venezuela,” he emphasized.

He also considered that it “evidences the complicity of the US government and its agencies with the vast drug market that kills hundreds of thousands of citizens of that nation.”

In March 2024, a Manhattan, New York, court found the former Honduran president guilty of planning to import cocaine into the United States and possessing machine guns and other weapons.

He was later sentenced to 45 years in prison for those crimes in June.

jdt/rc/raj