NEW YORK, December 19. /TASS/. US President Donald Trump is not ruling out a possibility of war with Venezuela, he told NBC News in an interview.

"I don’t rule it out, no," he said, addressing the corresponding question.

At the same time the US leader declined to clarify whether US strikes on Venezuelan vessels could directly lead to war. But he confirmed that the US intends to carry out new seizures of tankers. "If they’re foolish enough to be sailing along, the tankers will be sailing along back into one of our harbors," he noted when asked to specify the timing of possible seizures.

Washington has baselessly accused Venezuelan authorities of not doing enough to combat drug smuggling. According to the New York Times newspaper, Trump has allowed the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

As reported by The New York Times in August, Trump signed a classified directive on the use of military force against Latin American drug cartels. After this significant additional US military forces were deployed to the Caribbean Sea.

Subsequently, Washington began conducting airstrikes on boats that, according to US government data, are transporting drugs towards the US in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific Ocean. In November, the Pentagon announced that the US Navy led by the aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford had entered the area of responsibility of the US Southern Command to combat drug smuggling in the region.

Over recent months, under the pretext of fighting drug smuggling, the US Armed Forces destroyed more than 20 boats off the coast of Latin America, resulting in nearly 100 casualties. After one of these strikes, Colombian President Gustavo Petro stated that a fisherman from his country, not a drug trafficker, was killed as a result of the US operation.