CARACAS: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on Wednesday decried what he called “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA” shortly after US counterpart Donald Trump said he was considering strikes against Venezuelan cartels on land. “No to war in the Caribbean...No to regime change...No to coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA,” the leftist leader said in an address to a committee set up after Washington deployed warships in the Caribbean for what it said was an anti-drug operation.

But the president would not be drawn on whether the CIA had been told to topple Nicolas Maduro.

Move by US marks sharp escalation in efforts to pressure Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s regime