President Donald Trump said today he authorized the CIA to operate inside Venezuela to clamp down on illegal flows of migrants and drugs from the South American nation, but stopped short of saying they would have authority to remove President Nicolas Maduro.

CARACAS, Venezuela (AP) — Personnel from a U.S. warship boarded a Venezuelan tuna boat with nine fishermen while it was sailing in Venezuelan waters, Venezuela’s foreign minister said on Saturday, underlining strained relations with the United States. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a letter to the 15-member Security Council, dated Wednesday, Venezuela's U.N. Ambassador Samuel Moncada accused Washington of killing at least 27 people in the strikes on "civilian vessels transiting international waters.

Venezuela's government on Thursday requested an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council focused on the U.S. military actions in recent weeks in the waters off the South American country. Caracas cited "mounting threats" from the U.S., which has conducted multiple military strikes on alleged drug boats off Venezuela.

Toppling Maduro means invading Venezuela. Are we ready? Maximum pressure has long been President Donald Trump’s stance towards the government of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela — he slapped crippling sanctions on the country during his first term — but in recent days the administration has pushed the stakes even higher.

Venezuela announced on Monday it would close its embassy in Oslo, days after opposition leader María Corina Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. In a statement, the Venezuelan government did not comment on Machado's prize, saying that the closure was part of a restructuring of its foreign service.

Venezuela's government said on Monday it will close its embassies in Norway and Australia and open new ones in Burkina Faso and Zimbabwe in a restructuring of its foreign service, after weeks of growing tensions with the U.

The hit-style shooting of two Venezuelan activists in Colombia's capital is fueling fears among Venezuela's diaspora that a crackdown on dissent by the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is seeping beyond the South American nation's borders.