Cuba has publicly accused the United States of moving special forces to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and other Caribbean islands as part of a covert plan to topple the Venezuelan government. U.S. special envoy Elliott Abrams accused Cuba of lying. Meanwhile, at the United Nations, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza announced a group of about 50 nations have joined a new coalition to oppose U.S.-backed efforts to topple the Venezuelan government.

Jorge Arreaza: “Thank you. Yes, indeed, those so-called sanctions are not sanctions, because the U.S. has no moral, no authority, in order to impose sanctions to anyone. So, it’s in breach of this charter. So we are going to compel and to convince humanity and the world that no government in the world can take such decisions. Only the group of measures, if they were adopted by the U.N. organisms, by the Security Council, can be legal. The rest are unilateral actions that must be rejected by all the peoples of this world.”