Trump says US ‘knocked out’ facility. Was there a Venezuela strike?
The Pentagon referred USA TODAY to the White House, which did not immediately return a request for comment. The Venezuelan government has not commented publicly.
Trump’s comment set off swirling rumors after local news reports and videos on X circulated of an explosion at an industrial zone in Maracaibo, a city in northwestern Venezuela.
Primazol, a chemical production company, said in a public statement that a warehouse it owned in the area had caught fire in the early hours of Dec. 24, and in a later statement, that it “categorically rejects” the rumors on social media.
During the interview, Trump also touted the dozens of strikes the administration has launched on Venezuelan boats suspected of carrying drugs in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that have killed more than a hundred people. The Coast Guard has also seized two oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, and it is pursuing a third that refused to be boarded.
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