U.S. guided-missile cruiser spotted crossing the Panama Canal after warships deployed to Venezuela

A U.S. guided-missile cruiser, USS Lake Erie, was seen crossing the Panama Canal from the Pacific to the Caribbean Friday night, after the Trump administration deployed warships near the coast of Venezuela.

AFP journalists saw the naval vessel passing through one of the canal’s locks at around 9:30 pm and navigating east toward the Atlantic.

The United States has said the deployment of warships to the southern Caribbean, near Venezuela’s territorial waters, was an anti-drug trafficking operation.

“I didn’t know the ship was going to pass… I was surprised,” Alfredo Cedeno, a 32-year-old health technician, who took photos of the cruiser, told AFP.

The Lake Erie had been moored for the past two days at the Port of Rodman, at the canal’s Pacific entrance.

Washington has accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and has doubled the bounty for his capture to $50 million.

The United States has, however, made no public threat to invade Venezuela.

Caracas announced on Monday the deployment of 15,000 security forces to the Colombian border for anti-drug trafficking operations.

A day later, Venezuela announced that it would patrol its territorial waters with drones and navy ships.

Maduro also claimed to have mobilized more than four million militia members in response to what he called “outlandish threats” by the U.S. Thousands of civil servants, housewives and retirees lined up in Venezuela’s capital last weekend to join the country’s militia.

Since returning to power in January, Mr. Trump’s attacks on Venezuela have focused chiefly on its powerful gangs, some of which operate inside the United States. But his policy of maximum pressure on Venezuela, including an oil embargo still in effect, failed to dislodge Maduro from power.  Last year, the U.S. seized a plane belonging to Maduro and brought it to the U.S.

On Thursday, Maduro said there was “no way” American troops could invade Venezuela after Washington deployed the warships to the region.

The 567-foot-long USS Lake Erie displaces 9,800 tons and is based in the port of San Diego, California.

President Trump has directed the Pentagon to use military force against Latin American drug cartels deemed terrorist organizations, a source familiar with the matter confirmed to CBS News earlier this month. It’s not clear if or when the military could take action.

For its part, Mexico stressed that it “would not accept the participation of U.S. military forces on our territory.” Earlier this month, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum insisted that there would be “no invasion of Mexico.”

In February, the Trump administration designated eight drug trafficking groups as terrorist organizations. Six are Mexican, one is Venezuelan, and the eighth originates in El Salvador.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio said earlier this month the administration could use the designations to “target” cartels.

“It allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever … to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it,” Rubio said. “We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug dealing organizations.”

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