Venezue­lan Pres­i­dent Nicolás Maduro has warned that Chav­is­mo would re­spond with an “in­sur­rec­tionary gen­er­al strike” if the Unit­ed States takes mil­i­tary ac­tion against his gov­ern­ment, El Na­cional re­port­ed.

Speak­ing at a meet­ing with the na­tion­al lead­er­ship of the Unit­ed So­cial­ist Par­ty of Venezuela (PSUV) and mem­bers of the PSUV Youth, Maduro said the work­ing class would paral­yse the coun­try’s pro­duc­tive ac­tiv­i­ties “un­til Chav­is­mo is re­turned to pow­er” in the event of a coup or for­eign in­ter­ven­tion.

“That if im­pe­ri­al­ism were to strike a blow and do dam­age, from the very mo­ment the or­der for mo­bi­liza­tion and com­bat op­er­a­tions of all the peo­ple will be de­creed (…) and the Venezue­lan work­ing class will ini­ti­ate an in­sur­rec­tionary gen­er­al strike,” he said.

Maduro’s re­marks come amid ris­ing ten­sions be­tween Venezuela and the Unit­ed States, as in­ter­na­tion­al con­cerns grow over po­lit­i­cal sta­bil­i­ty and po­ten­tial for­eign in­volve­ment in the coun­try.