The United States has acknowledged carrying out at least five strikes on vessels near Venezuela that it says were transporting drugs, killing at least 27 people.

According to the reported plan, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro would step down from power in three years and cede authority to his vice president

The U.S. Embassy in Trinidad and Tobago is cautioning Americans to stay away from U.S. government facilities on the twin-island nation.

ABC News' Alex Presha spoke with Eric Farnsworth, from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, about the United States' evolving war on drugs in Venezuela and the Caribbean.

Trump has moved significant U.S. military assets, including eight warships, about 10,000 troops, a nuclear-power submarine and fighter jets, to the southern Caribbean, close to Venezuela. Earlier this week, the president confirmed he authorized the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to carry out covert operations in Venezuela.

It looks like Donald Trump's beefing up his hands-on approach to Venezuela ... because he confirmed he'd authorized covert C.I.A. activity in the country's territory on Wednesday.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez on Thursday rejected as “false” a Miami Herald report that said a group of senior regime officials — led by her and her brother Jorge Rodríguez — had twice offered Washington a plan to replace Nicolás Maduro in an effort to ease tensions with the United States.

On Wednesday, at least two B-52 bombers from Louisiana flew for several hours off the Venezuelan coast in international air space in what one senior U.S. official on Thursday called “a show of force.” The B-52s can carry dozens of precision-guided bombs.

Venezuela’s government said this past week that it had launched a sweeping military mobilization and begun training civilians for combat, portraying the moves as defensive steps against what it called an escalating threat from the United States.

A group of senior Venezuelan government officials, led by Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, who is president of the National Assembly, have quietly promoted a series of initiatives in recent months aimed at presenting themselves to Washington as a “more acceptable” alternative to Nicolás Maduro’s regime,