The Trump administration on Friday denied reports from Caracas alleging that the United States had abruptly halted deportation flights to Venezuela. Venezuelan authorities said the U.S. government had unilaterally suspended a scheduled deportation flight that was due to land on December 12.

The U.S. seized a Venezuelan oil tanker this week after months of maintaining that ongoing military operations in the Caribbean were focused on fighting drug trafficking.

Venezuela is bracing for a possible land attack after President Donald Trump said, “It’s going to be starting on land pretty soon,” following the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker.

Venezuela’s foreign affairs minister denounced the seizure, calling it a “blatant theft” and “an act of international piracy.”

President Donald Trump has said the U.S. will carry out imminent strikes on Venezuela to intercept alleged narcotics shipments from the country. "It's going to be starting on land pretty soon," Trump said, without specifying further. Newsweek has contacted the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry for comment outside office hours.

Now, President Donald Trump wants Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro out of power. Maduro’s “days are numbered,” Trump told Politico in an interview released on Dec. 9. His Administration considers Maduro the head of a government-sponsored cocaine smuggling syndicate.

So why is opposition leader María Corina Machado backing President Donald Trump’s moves against Venezuela’s authoritarian leader Nicolás Maduro, including the deployment of a big US naval task force in the Caribbean and the seizure this week of a sanctions-hit oil tanker?

The favourite in Chile's election on Sunday is the right-wing José Antonio Kast. A Kast victory would be the latest rightward political shift in South America, as U.S. President Donald Trump and the White House try to coax or force the socialist leader of Venezuela from office.