“[T]he United States and our partners have invoked the TIAR/Rio Treaty, which facilitates further collective action to confront the threat posed by the former regime of Nicolas Maduro to the Venezuelan people and to the region,” State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus said in a statement on Tuesday.
Earlier, the United States has targeted three individuals and 16 entities in new sanctions against Venezuela, while in in August, the US administration announced tough new measures against the Maduro government, ordering to freeze all Venezuelan government assets in the US and ban transactions with the authorities.
Last week, the US and a number of other American allies invoked a 1947 defence agreement, defining a large-scale Venezuelan military exercise near the Colombian border as a “bellicose” move, which Venezuela did after condemning Colombia for attempting to spark a military conflict.