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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro said the United States was pointing “1,200 missiles” at his country during a news conference Monday, and issued a stark warning that he was prepared to “constitutionally declare a republic in arms” should the US attack.

The US is set to raise the number of military vessels deployed near Venezuela to eight this week, which Maduro described as “the greatest threat that has been seen on our continent in the last 100 years.”

Following an authorization by Trump to use military force against Latin American drug cartels, the Associated Press and CBS News report that “the US Navy now has two Aegis guided-missile destroyers — the USS Gravely and the USS Jason Dunham — in the Caribbean, as well as the destroyer USS Sampson and the cruiser USS Lake Erie in the waters off Latin America.”

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This week, an anonymous Defense Department official told the AP that, “three amphibious assault ships — a force that encompasses more than 4,000 sailors and Marines — would be entering the region this week.”

“In response to maximum military pressure,” Maduro told the international press, “we have declared maximum readiness to defend Venezuela,” adding that the country “will never give in to blackmail or threats of any kind.”

Though the US has not made any public threats to invade Venezuela, an unnamed official told Axios........

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