Portside

Donald Trump said on Wednesday he had authorized the CIA to carry out covert operations in Venezuela, marking a sharp escalation in his administration’s pressure campaign against Nicolás Maduro’s government.

Trump further suggested he was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory, a dramatic step that would go beyond a series of recent lethal attacks on boats in the Caribbean, which Democrats and United Nations experts have forcefully condemned as unlawful.

Maduro decried what he called “coups d’etat orchestrated by the CIA” after Trump’s comments.

“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.

Trump’s remarks about the CIA confirmed an earlier story from the New York Times, which had reported on a classified directive about the secretive operation in Venezuela.

Trump said his administration was “looking at land” as it considers continued strikes in the region, but declined to answer when pressed on whether the CIA had the authority to execute Maduro.

“I think Venezuela is feeling heat,” the president added.

Trump justified the CIA’s intervention by repeating his claims that Venezuela had been releasing prisoners into the US, including individuals from mental health facilities – echoing baseless assertions that became one of his common refrains on the campaign trail last year. He also claimed that Venezuela was bringing large volumes of drugs into the US by sea.

Experts have repeatedly cast doubts on some of the president’s claims about the threats Venezuelans pose in the US.

Early this month, the Trump administration said the US was now in “armed conflict” with drug cartels, justifying the military action as a necessary escalation to stem the flow of drugs.

The move has spurred anger in Congress from members of both major political parties that Trump was effectively committing an act of war without seeking congressional authorization.

On Wednesday, Jeanne Shaheen, the ranking Democratic senator on the Senate foreign relations committee, said while she supports cracking down on trafficking, the administration has gone too far.

“The Trump administration’s authorization of covert CIA action, conducting lethal strikes on boats and hinting at land operations in Venezuela slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight or apparent guardrails,” Shaheen said. “The American people deserve to know if the administration is leading the US into another conflict, putting servicemembers at risk or pursuing a regime-change operation.”

At least 27 people have been killed in the US Caribbean attacks so far.

After another boat was struck, Maduro on Wednesday ordered military exercises in the country’s biggest shantytowns and said he was mobilizing the military, police and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets”.

Trump has claimed they are “narcoterrorists” without providing evidence. He has also said the strikes were targeting members of the Tren de Aragua gang, claims the White House has not supported with concrete proof.

UN experts said in September that the strikes on vessels violated international law, and a Democratic congressman said over the weekend that the attacks were “illegal killings” that “wouldn’t stand up in a single court of law”.

The Trump administration earlier this year cited unsubstantiated claims of affiliation with the Tren de Aragua gang to fast-track deportations of Venezuelans to a notorious El Salvador prison. Trump has also pushed to end the temporary legal status of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans.

Trump has accused Maduro of heading a drug cartel – charges he denies. In August, Washington doubled a bounty for information leading to Maduro’s capture to $50m.

The Venezuelan leader is widely accused of having stolen elections last year.

Sam Levin is a correspondent for Guardian US, based in Los Angeles. Click here for Sam's public key. Twitter @SamTLevin