BOGOTA – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s YouTube account was unavailable on Saturday, with Venezuelan state-run channel Telesur stating via X that it had been “eliminated” the prior night without explanation.

Google, the parent company of YouTube, did not promptly provide comments on the removal of the Venezuelan president’s account. This development occurs amidst growing hostilities between Venezuela and the United States over the deployment of U.S. naval and air forces in the southern Caribbean.

Prior to its closure on Friday, Maduro’s YouTube account had accumulated more than 200,000 followers, featuring the Venezuelan president’s speeches and segments from his weekly broadcast on Venezuelan state TV.

According to YouTube’s policies, accounts may be terminated for “repeated violations of community guidelines,” which encompass spreading misinformation, hate speech, and content that disrupts democratic procedures.

Maduro has faced widespread allegations of election fraud in last year’s Venezuelan presidential race, which independent tally sheets indicated he lost by a significant margin. However, the nation’s election agency, dominated by the ruling socialist party, still has not released tally sheets to corroborate its assertion of Maduro’s victory.

In 2020, a federal court in New York indicted Maduro, charging him with conspiring to traffic cocaine into the United States. Recently, the U.S. increased a reward for his capture to $50 million, with U.S. officials frequently labeling Maduro as a narco-trafficking leader who must be held accountable.

While Venezuela continues to sell oil to the United States and take deportation flights, relations between the two nations have worsened with the deployment of eight U.S. warships last month to an area of the southern Caribbean near Venezuela’s coast.

The Trump administration says the ships, which are fitted with long-range missiles and are also transporting a landing force of 2,000 Marines, are on an anti-drug trafficking mission.

But Venezuela’s government has described the deployment as an attack on the nation’s sovereignty and part of an effort to overthrow Maduro’s government.

The U.S. flotilla has destroyed three speedboats allegedly carrying drugs so far, according to the White House, killing more than a dozen people on board the small vessels.