The buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela and a series of deadly attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in waters off its coast has raised the spectre of an invasion of the South American country.

Cubans rallied for Venezuela against U.S. aggression, Bolivia elected its first centrist president in 20 years and Pope Leo XIV canonized Venezuela’s “doctor of the poor” before tens of thousands of people.

Experts call it "21st-century gunboat diplomacy" as U.S. positions strike-capable forces in Caribbean amid tensions with Maduro regime and cartels.

U.S. strikes against Venezuela in international waters are a dangerous escalation and amount to "extrajudicial executions," a group of independent United Nations experts said on Tuesday.

The Trump administration is ratcheting up pressure on the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, while striking vessels that it says are trafficking drugs.

Hezbollah operatives use Venezuelan passports and drug networks to infiltrate Western Hemisphere, turning country into terror group's regional headquarters.

After years of rallying behind President Trump's promise to keep America out of "endless wars," a new divide is growing among his most loyal supporters. The cause: the administration's expanding military campaign against Venezuela.

P resident Donald Trump has expanded his drug war beyond the Caribbean with an attack on a vessel in the eastern Pacific Ocean that his administration charges was carrying narcotics.