The world’s largest plane provider is steaming in direction of the Caribbean supported by the remainder of its “carrier group” so as to add much more muscle to the US forces already threateningly near Venezuela.
The query is straightforward – is that this actually all about President Trump’s conflict on medicine in South America?
I doubt it. A sledgehammer to crack a nut is not even in it.
There are a number of causes to doubt the American authorities’s acknowledged intention of wiping out these so-called “narco terrorist” gangs threatening the US from Venezuela, even after one takes out of the equation the kind of tools the army is deploying – which is not what they would wish for efficient drug smuggling interdiction.
Whereas the president acknowledges that the artificial opioid fentanyl is a large killer within the US (which it’s) and is equipped by drug gangs (which it’s), guilty Venezuela for fentanyl manufacturing is just incorrect.
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1:20
Is Trump tackling cartels or attempting to ‘management’ Venezuela?
Mexican cartels produce fentanyl with precursors largely equipped from China, and it’s from Mexico – America’s neighbour – that the fentanyl is smuggled straight into america throughout its southern border.
Venezuela is not concerned on this fentanyl enterprise in any significant method, and I do know this as a result of I’ve reported from the Sinaloa cartel’s fentanyl manufacturing labs in Mexico.
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The Mexican cartels are very happy with their enterprise, and from my expertise overlaying this story through the years, when the medicine cartels are happy with one thing, and it makes them some huge cash – which fentanyl does – they do not share the market with anybody, and positively not with Venezuela.
President Trump is true that Venezuela is now a big provider of different unlawful medicine, particularly cocaine, however they arrive from international locations like Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, that are the most important producers of the coca leaf on the planet (the coca leaf is what cocaine is made out of).
Picture:
The world’s largest plane provider USS Gerald R Ford. Pic: Reuters
Venezuela, which borders Colombia, is essentially a transit nation to the Caribbean in the identical method that Ecuador, which additionally borders Colombia, is a transit nation to the Pacific.
Picture:
Sailors work on a Venezuelan Navy patrol boat off the Caribbean coast. Pic: Reuters
Neither Venezuela nor Ecuador are vital drug producers.
The medicine enter Venezuela overland, primarily from Colombia, after which primarily go away the nation from ports on the northern coast of the nation – and these are the departure factors of the boats the US authorities has just lately focused and destroyed, together with the crews on board.
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0:32
Hegseth: US forces strike ‘narco-terrorists’
President Trump claims these boats from Venezuela are heading to america, however in actuality they’re primarily heading to the close by islands of Trinidad and Tobago, and from there they largely go to West Africa and Europe – largely Spain and Portugal.
Medicine heading to America both go via Mexico over the border into the US or are transported by way of the Pacific Ocean route via international locations like Ecuador. On this occasion, Venezuela is not concerned.
It is broadly accepted the 2 most exported medicine from South America are cocaine and marijuana – and the quantity of manufacturing is staggering.
However the Centres for Illness Management and Prevention (CDC) within the US says that artificial opioids like fentanyl are answerable for most overdose deaths there – and fentanyl will not be produced in South America, regardless of the president says.
So one can solely conclude he’s both mistaken and misinformed, or he has one other motive. I think it’s the latter, and that regime change in Venezuela is high of the listing.
