Venezuela has launched a series of military drills, mobilizing more than 2,500 soldiers to the Caribbean island of La Orchila, in response to soaring tensions with the Trump administration over U.S. military attacks and presence in the region. U.S. forces have blown up at least two Venezuelan boats, killing at least 14 people that Trump officials, without providing evidence, claimed were drug traffickers. U.N. experts have condemned the U.S. for carrying out extrajudicial executions. The escalating U.S. military action against Venezuela comes after Trump signed a secret directive approving the Pentagon’s use of military force in Latin America, supposedly to target drug cartels.