A DANCING Nicolas Maduro took the stage in Caracas this week and declared Venezuela ready to fight.
Daring Washington to make its next move, the desperate dictator has rejected Donald Trump’s ultimatum to step down and flee the country.
It comes as the US president held crisis talks with his top generals and is preparing for a classified US Navy briefing on Thursday.
At a rally in the capital, the tyrant cast himself as a besieged patriot, telling supporters Venezuela was ready “to defend [the country] and lead it to the path of peace” as the US weighs land strikes.
He said: “We have lived through 22 weeks of aggression that can only be described as psychological terrorism.”
In a short clip, Maduro is seen energetically dancing onstage on Monday, surrounded by red-clad loyalists waving flags.
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The video came hours after Trump’s national security team huddled in the Oval Office to decide next steps, and ahead of a separate behind-closed-doors Navy briefing on Thursday expected to outline the next phase of America’s Caribbean build-up.
It’s his latest bizarre stunt after he swung a sword in the air and vowed to defy the United States in separate video.
And days beforehe made a last-ditch peace plea by belting out John Lennon’s Imagine.
Ultimatum snubbed
Maduro has rejected multiple pressure campaigns from the White House, including a blunt ultimatum delivered in a phone call last month offering him and his family safe passage if he quit immediately.
Trump later described the call as neither “well or badly.”
But US officials say Caracas demanded global amnesty, control of the armed forces, and the right to remain in power, which have all been rejected by Washington.
Maduro also sought a second call after Trump declared Venezuelan airspace “closed in its entirety,” but the White House did not respond.
At Monday’s rally, Maduro escalated his rhetoric, insisting Venezuela does not want a “slave’s peace.”
He told the crowd: “We want peace, but peace with sovereignty, equality, freedom! We do not want a slave’s peace, nor the peace of colonies.”
Land action
Tensions have surged amid America’s largest military deployment to the region in decades, including the USS Gerald R Ford, dozens of aircraft and thousands of personnel.
Trump has warned land strikes would start “very soon,” and the White House says “many options” remain on the table.
Trump convened his generals and senior advisers on Monday evening to discuss the crisis, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declining to say whether the president had reached a decision.
“There’s many options at the president’s disposal that are on the table — and I’ll let him speak on those,” she said.
The US says the mission targets narcotics traffickers.
Washington claims to have hit at least 21 drug-carrying boats in recent months, though it has provided no photos of seized contraband.
Caracas insists the operations are murder dressed up as counter-narcotics, accusing Trump of angling for regime change and Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.
It comes after the US designated Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organisation, accusing Maduro of heading a state-embedded criminal empire that has corrupted the military, intelligence agencies, the courts and parliament.
Experts say the Cartel de los Soles is not a traditional cartel but a vast patronage web inside the Venezuelan state.
From generals to intelligence chiefs, they tax, protect and transport cocaine using military aircraft, diplomatic channels and state institutions.
Trump, meanwhile, has closed diplomatic space and escalated threats, including declaring Venezuelan airspace off-limits.
Caracas blasted the move as a “colonialist threat” and “illegal, and unjustified aggression.”
Trump’s war on drugs
By Harvey Geh, Foreign News Reporter
DONALD Trump has launched his full-scale war on drugs – favouring missiles over law enforcement.
The first day of Trump’s second term kicked off with the designation of narcotraffickers as terrorists – giving him the right to kill them before they can reach American shores.
This is the argument he has used in the face of law experts warning that his decision to strike a suspected drug-smuggling boat on Tuesday was illegal.
Washington-watchers claim that the gangsters should have been arrested – but the White House says that law enforcement is ineffective.
Trump vowed after the blitz: “There’s more where that came from.”
The US President has long spoken of his desire to enact force to take on drug cartels, which he accuses Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of actively backing.
Maduro has denied the allegations, and the last few months have seen teetering escalations deteriorate into a tense standoff.
The US has positioned naval destroyers and soldiers around Maduro’s waters, while the Venezuelan dictator has ordered mass mobilisation of troops.