On September 1, local time, President Maduro held a press conference and said Venezuela was facing the biggest threat on the South American continent in a hundred years.
According to U.S. media reports on August 20, U.S. President Donald Trump decided to deploy a large-scale naval force in the southern Caribbean and nearby waters in order to "fight Latin American drug traffickers" in the Caribbean waters near Venezuela, citing sources who said that three of them included two attack ships and a boat landing ship carrying about 2200 Navy troops. President Maduro condemned U.S. attempts to subvert the regime in Venezuela with terrorism and military means.