As US-Venezuela tensions have long simmered, Trump’s alleged ultimatum may tip relations to boiling point

• Deadly airstrikes and a military buildup: how the US pressure campaign against Venezuela has unfolded in the Caribbean

Weeks of saber-rattling, dark threats and a US military buildup not seen in Latin America since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis led on 21 November, somewhat anticlimactically, to a telephone call, when Donald Trump rang the man he has cast as his arch-adversary, Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela.

By Trump’s own account, it was less an attempt at opening dialogue en route to a mutually beneficial compromise than a bid to up the ante by imparting an ultimatum.