the Caribbean — angering nearby Venezuela. Last month, a U.S. guided-missile destroyer docked in Trinidad for four days for another series of training drills — within firing range of Venezuela, which called the move a “provocation.”

Caracas claims that recent U.S. military activity in Latin America is actually a ploy to overthrow its leftist President Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington considers an illegitimate leader and a drug trafficker. Last month, it accused Trinidad and Tobago — a laid-back twin-island nation of 1.4 million people whose prime minister is a fierce Maduro critic and a close Washington ally — of serving as “a U.S. aircraft carrier.”

On Friday, the archipelago’s foreign ministry said that joint training exercises with the U.S. Marine Corps’ 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit will run from Sunday through November 21. The drills form part “of our longstanding history of collaboration,” the ministry said in a statement. It added: “Trinidad and Tobago continues to be burdened by the scourge of gun-related crimes and gang violence. These intensified exercises are part of our coordinated strategy to ensure that our personnel are optimally trained and equipped to address these issues in our domestic environment, which have taken a tremendous toll on our society.” (Bssnews)