"It wouldn't be very smart of me to tell you. We're supposed to keep this a little bit secret regarding," Trump said today during an event. in The Oval Office, when asked if he intends to seize more Venezuelan oil assets.

Last Wednesday, the US Coast Guard and Navy intercepted and seized a Guyanese-flagged vessel sanctioned for illicit crude oil transfers that was carrying Venezuelan oil, marking another step in Washington's growing pressure campaign against the government of Nicolas Maduro.

Trump joked about the deployment in the Caribbean

Since the summer, the Pentagon has maintained a massive military deployment in Caribbean waters to summarily destroy boats that the government says are carrying drugs and belong to networks involving the Venezuelan government and military.

“Anyone want to go fishing in that area?” Trump joked, reiterating the success and legitimacy of this operation in preventing illegal drugs from entering US territory.

Since September, Washington has destroyed around twenty of these alleged drug boats and killed around 80 of their occupants.

“Ground attacks on horrible people”

The president reiterated today that his country will soon begin ground attacks, but clarified that “these are not ground attacks on Venezuela, they are ground attacks on horrible people who are bringing drugs and killing our people.”

The Republican reiterated that in recent times the US has lost more than 300,000 people due to drugs and that is why the current situation “is like a war.”