A US warship has arrived in Trinidad and Tobago for joint exercises near the coast of Venezuela, as Washington increases pressure on drug traffickers and the Venezuelan leader, Nicolas Maduro.
The USS Gravely, whose arrival was announced by the Trinidadian government on Thursday, docked in the capital, Port of Spain, on Sunday.
It is set to remain in the small Caribbean nation until Thursday, during which time a contingent of US Marines will conduct joint training with local defence forces.
The exercises are part of a mounting military campaign by US President Donald Trump against alleged drug-traffickers in Latin America, which has targeted Venezuelan President Maduro in particular.
US forces have blown up at least 10 boats they claimed were smuggling narcotics, killing at least 43 people, and Trump has also threatened ground attacks on suspected cartels in Venezuela.
President Maduro has accused the United States of "fabricating a war" aimed at toppling him.
Biggest military build-up in the area
The standoff escalated sharply on Friday, when the Pentagon ordered the deployment of the world's biggest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, to the region.
Trump has also authorised CIA operations against Venezuela.
The standoff has pulled in Colombia's Gustavo Petro, a sharp critic of the American strikes who was sanctioned by Washington on Friday for allegedly allowing drug trafficking to flourish.
Washington has accused both Maduro and Petro of being "narcoterrorists," without providing any proof of the allegations.
In August, Washington deployed a fleet of eight US Navy ships, 10 F-35 warplanes, and a nuclear-powered submarine to the region as part of what it calls anti-narcotics efforts — the biggest military build-up in the area since the 1989 US invasion of Panama.
'Getting a lash'
In Trinidad and Tobago, a laidback twin-island nation of 1.4 million people, some welcomed their government's show of support for the US campaign, but others worried about getting caught up in a conflict between Washington and Caracas.
"If anything should happen with Venezuela and America, we as people who live on the outskirts of it ... could end up getting a lash any time," 64-year-old Daniel Holder, said, "I am against my country being part of this," he added.
Trinidad and Tobago, has itself been caught up in the US campaign of strikes on suspected drug boats.
Two Trinidadian men were killed in a strike on a vessel that set out from Venezuela in mid-October, according to their families. The mother of one of the victims insisted he was a fisherman, not a drug trafficker. Local authorities have not yet confirmed their deaths.
