LIMA, Peru — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on Tuesday defended his second-in-command, who has been sanctioned by the United States over allegations that he is a narcotics trafficker, and said he would demand a public apology from the American government.
Vice President Tareck El Aissami was blacklisted on Monday by the Treasury Department, which said that Mr. El Aissami and an associate had moved drugs within Venezuela and had helped protect international kingpins.
The moves blocked Americans from doing business with Mr. El Aissami, 42, and froze his assets in the United States, which American officials said totaled in the tens of millions of dollars. Sanctions against such a high-ranking Venezuelan represented what analysts considered a first salvo against the Maduro government by the Trump administration at the urging of many in Congress.
On Tuesday, Mr. Maduro went on national television to express his anger.
“Venezuela will respond, step by step, with balance and force,” he said, adding that he had ordered his foreign minister to call the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Caracas to issue a formal complaint. “They will retract and apologize publicly to our vice president,” Mr. Maduro said. (The two countries have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals for nearly a decade.)
The president also offered a spirited defense of Mr. El Aissami, saying that in previous posts in the government, including at the Interior Ministry, he had led campaigns against drug trafficking in Venezuela. More than 100 kingpins have been caught in Venezuela during Mr. El Aissami’s tenure in the government, the president said, with many extradited to the United States.
Mr. El Aissami “delivered the strongest blows against the heads of drug trafficking,” Mr. Maduro said.
The sanctions, announced on Monday by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, described Mr. El Aissami as a “drug trafficker” and a “kingpin” who had used his past positions of power, which also included a state governorship, to move large quantities of narcotics.
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Among the accusations were that he had protected a Colombian drug lord and coordinated shipments to the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. He also “facilitated shipments of narcotics from Venezuela, to include control over planes that leave from a Venezuelan air base, as well as control of drug routes through the ports in Venezuela,” the office said.
On Twitter on Tuesday, Mr. El Aissami called the accusations “infamy and aggression,” but he said he would focus his attention on fixing Venezuela’s economic collapse.
“May we not be distracted by these miserable provocations,” he wrote. “Our principal job is to work with @NicolasMaduro in the economic recovery.”
Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday saying the sanctions were meant to undermine the government. “What’s more, they constitute an infamy against the highest authority of the state, and constitute without doubt a false positive against a decent and dignified Venezuelan,” the statement said.
In its later years, the Obama administration avoided antagonizing Venezuela with new sanctions, often preferring to ignore officials entirely, a policy it said gave the leftist government fewer opportunities to seize on American actions for its own propaganda.
LIMA, Peru — President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela on Tuesday defended his second-in-command, who has been sanctioned by the United States over allegations that he is a narcotics trafficker, and said he would demand a public apology from the American government.
Vice President Tareck El Aissami was blacklisted on Monday by the Treasury Department, which said that Mr. El Aissami and an associate had moved drugs within Venezuela and had helped protect international kingpins.
The moves blocked Americans from doing business with Mr. El Aissami, 42, and froze his assets in the United States, which American officials said totaled in the tens of millions of dollars. Sanctions against such a high-ranking Venezuelan represented what analysts considered a first salvo against the Maduro government by the Trump administration at the urging of many in Congress.
On Tuesday, Mr. Maduro went on national television to express his anger.
“Venezuela will respond, step by step, with balance and force,” he said, adding that he had ordered his foreign minister to call the chargé d’affaires of the United States Embassy in Caracas to issue a formal complaint. “They will retract and apologize publicly to our vice president,” Mr. Maduro said. (The two countries have not had ambassadors in each other’s capitals for nearly a decade.)
The president also offered a spirited defense of Mr. El Aissami, saying that in previous posts in the government, including at the Interior Ministry, he had led campaigns against drug trafficking in Venezuela. More than 100 kingpins have been caught in Venezuela during Mr. El Aissami’s tenure in the government, the president said, with many extradited to the United States.
Mr. El Aissami “delivered the strongest blows against the heads of drug trafficking,” Mr. Maduro said.
The sanctions, announced on Monday by the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, described Mr. El Aissami as a “drug trafficker” and a “kingpin” who had used his past positions of power, which also included a state governorship, to move large quantities of narcotics.
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An error has occurred. Please try again later.
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Among the accusations were that he had protected a Colombian drug lord and coordinated shipments to the Zetas drug cartel in Mexico. He also “facilitated shipments of narcotics from Venezuela, to include control over planes that leave from a Venezuelan air base, as well as control of drug routes through the ports in Venezuela,” the office said.
On Twitter on Tuesday, Mr. El Aissami called the accusations “infamy and aggression,” but he said he would focus his attention on fixing Venezuela’s economic collapse.
“May we not be distracted by these miserable provocations,” he wrote. “Our principal job is to work with @NicolasMaduro in the economic recovery.”
Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry issued a statement on Tuesday saying the sanctions were meant to undermine the government. “What’s more, they constitute an infamy against the highest authority of the state, and constitute without doubt a false positive against a decent and dignified Venezuelan,” the statement said.
In its later years, the Obama administration avoided antagonizing Venezuela with new sanctions, often preferring to ignore officials entirely, a policy it said gave the leftist government fewer opportunities to seize on American actions for its own propaganda.
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