The Trump administration has indicted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on charges of narcoterrorism and international cocaine trafficking. Attorney General William Barr laid out the charges Thursday, claiming Maduro’s Socialists United of Venezuela party partnered with dissident factions of Colombia’s FARC rebel movement “to flood the United States with cocaine” while using the drug trade as a “weapon against America.” The State Department has offered a $15 million reward for information that could lead to Maduro’s arrest.
In a nationwide address Thursday, President Maduro dismissed the charges as another attempt by Washington to stage a coup d’état. Maduro blasted President Trump as a “racist cowboy” and fired back at the United States’ handling of the coronavirus crisis.
President Nicolás Maduro: “The United States has become a public health threat to the public health of Latin America, the Caribbean and the world. There is no public health system in the United States. There is no public health system. The entire system is private.”