By Michelle Nichols
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 23 (Reuters) - The United States told the United Nations on Tuesday it will impose and enforce sanctions "to the maximum extent" to deprive Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of resources as Russia warned other Latin American countries could be next.
U.S. President Donald Trump's administration has for months waged a campaign of deadly strikes against suspected drug trafficking boats off the Venezuelan coast and the Pacific coast of Latin America. He has threatened strikes on Venezuelan land.
"The single most serious threat to this hemisphere, our very own neighborhood and the United States, is from transnational terrorist and criminal groups," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz told the U.N. Security Council.
The U.S. has ramped up its military presence in the region and Trump announced a blockade of all vessels subject to U.S. sanctions. So far this month, the U.S. Coast Guard has intercepted two tankers in the Caribbean Sea, both fully loaded with Venezuelan crude. The Coast Guard is also pursuing a third empty vessel that was approaching the OPEC country's shore.
"The reality of the situation is that sanctioned oil tankers operate as the primary economic lifeline for Maduro and his illegitimate regime. The sanctioned tankers also fund the narco-terrorist group Cartel de Los Soles," Waltz said.
Washington designated Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns, as a foreign terrorist organization late last month for the group's alleged role in importing illegal drugs into the U.S. It accuses Maduro of leading Cartel de los Soles. Venezuela's government rejected what it called a "ridiculous" move to designate the "non-existent" group.
"This intervention which is unfolding can become a template for future acts of force against Latin American states," Russia's U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia told the Security Council, citing a recent strategy document from Trump that said the U.S. will reassert its dominance in the Western Hemisphere.
Waltz spoke after Nebenzia and did not directly respond to his remark.
China urged the United States to “immediately halt relevant actions and avoid further escalation of tensions,” China’s Deputy U.N. Ambassador Sun Lei told the council.
Venezuela, backed by Russia and China, requested Tuesday's meeting, the second held on the escalating tensions. The Security Council first met in October, when the United States justified its actions as consistent with Article 51 of the founding U.N. Charter, which requires the Security Council to be immediately informed of any action states take in self-defense against armed attack.
"Let it be clear once and for all that there is no war in the Caribbean, there is no international armed conflict, nor is there a non-international one, which is why it is absurd for the U.S. government to seek to justify its actions by applying the rules of war," Venezuela's U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada told the council.
"The threat is not Venezuela The threat is the U.S. government," he said.
(Reporting by Michelle Nichols; Editing by Alistair Bell)
