A US missile warship arrived on Sunday in Trinidad and Tobago, a small archipelago off the coast of Venezuela, as US President Donald Trump increases pressure on his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro.

The ship was visible on Sunday morning off the coast of the capital, Port of Spain, according to AFP journalists.

The arrival of the USS Gravely, along with a unit of Marines, for exercises with the Trinidad and Tobago military had been announced on Thursday by the government of this English-speaking country of 1.4 million people. The destroyer will remain docked in Port of Spain until Thursday.

Washington has deployed warships to the Caribbean since August and has been conducting an air campaign against vessels of alleged drug traffickers since early September.

The United States has also announced its intention to send the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the world's largest, to the Caribbean. This represents a significant increase in US military assets in the region, which Maduro denounced on Friday as an attempt to "invent a new war."

Trump accuses the Venezuelan president of leading alleged drug trafficking networks, which Maduro categorically denies. He asserts that Washington is using drug trafficking as a pretext to impose regime change and seize Venezuela's vast oil reserves. (CubaSí)