PALM BEACH, United States, Nov 28, 2025 (BSS/AFP) - US President Donald Trump said Thursday that efforts to halt Venezuelan drug trafficking "by land" would begin "very soon," further ratcheting up tensions with Caracas, which claims the anti-drug campaign aims at regime change.

Trump has sent a large deployment of US military to the region, including an aircraft carrier group, with a stated mission of tackling transnational crime and drug trafficking.

But Caracas claims it is really a ploy to overthrow leftist president Nicolas Maduro, whom the United States considers an illegitimate leader and a drug lord -- a charge that he denies.

"We've almost stopped -- it's about 85 percent stopped by sea," Trump said in a Thanksgiving video call with US troops from his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida.

"And we'll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that's going to start very soon," he said.

Several of the US military groups that Trump addressed were actively participating in his anti-drug operation, dubbed "Southern Spear."

As part of the operation, the US military has so far only announced the targeting of alleged drug traffickers in international waters, killing at least 83 people, according to an AFP tally of publicly released figures.

The United States has released no details to back up its claims that the people targeted in both the Caribbean and eastern Pacific in the more than 20 strikes were actually traffickers.