Trump warns Venezuela that its planes will be shot down if they pose a threat.

Venezuelan aircraft that pose a danger to forces in the Caribbean risk being "shot down," President Donald Trump declared Friday, after fighter jets sent by Caracas flew over a U.S. ship in the area.

The United States decided to send 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico amid tensions with Venezuela, which, for its part, called for dialogue and said that no differences between the two justified an armed conflict.

The deployment of the fighter jets, reported to AFP on Friday by sources close to the matter, occurred just hours after the flyover, a "highly provocative move," according to the Pentagon.

"If they put us in a dangerous situation, they will be shot down," Trump declared shortly after renaming the Department of Defense the War Department by executive order.

"If they fly into a dangerous position, they can make whatever decisions they think are appropriate," Trump added, addressing his current Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth.

Conflict is not justified

Washington accuses Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of leading a drug trafficking network and recently raised the reward for his capture to $50 million.

When asked in the Oval Office if he wants regime change in Caracas, Trump sidestepped the demand: "We don't want drugs that kill our people."

U.S. forces deployed off the Venezuelan coast launched a missile Tuesday at a vessel suspected of transporting drugs.

In the attack, unprecedented in the region, 11 "narco-terrorists" were killed , in Trump's words.

"With all due respect, I say to President Trump: here Venezuela is respected, and Venezuela respects so that it is respected," Maduro said at an event with military personnel. "Those intelligence reports you're being given aren't true. Venezuela today is a country free of coca leaf and cocaine production, and is a country combating drug trafficking."

"None of the differences we have and have had can lead to a military conflict," he continued. "Venezuela has always been willing to talk, to engage in dialogue."

Although the UN's annual reports do not classify Venezuela as a producer country, its status as a distribution platform for drug trafficking is highlighted by specialists.

Rubio's Tour

For decades, the United States has relied on routine law enforcement operations rather than lethal force to seize drugs in the Caribbean.

Trump said that " boat traffic in that area has decreased substantially" since the attack.

The rise in tensions coincided with a tour of Mexico and Ecuador by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, where he signed new alliances to strengthen the fight against organized crime and illegal migration and warned that his administration would not back down.

Washington's allied governments in the region "will help us find these people and blow them up if necessary," Rubio said at a joint press conference with Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Gabriela Sommerfeld on Thursday in Quito.

In Mexico, Rubio had stated that the only thing that will stop drug cartels is physical elimination because they have already assumed that losing merchandise is part of the business and that doesn't stop them from continuing to traffic.

Rubio emphasized that the U.S. president designated the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua as "narco-terrorists," as well as the Cartel of the Suns, an alleged drug organization linked to Maduro.

Mobilization

The Venezuelan president, for his part, has mobilized the army, which has around 340,000 troops, and reservists, who he claims number more than eight million, denouncing what he calls "the greatest threat our continent has seen in the last 100 years."

Registration was also opened for the Bolivarian Militia, a branch of the Armed Forces made up of civilians and highly ideologically charged.

A colorful and bustling caravan of unarmed civilians on motorcycles traveled along Caracas' highways as part of the "people in arms" mobilization.

Other demonstrations were replicated in other cities.

By designating drug trafficking groups as terrorist threats, the United States is drawing on its entire legislative arsenal passed after the September 11, 2001, attacks, which greatly expanded its ability to monitor potential targets and lethally strike around the world.