US Special Representative for Venezuela Elliott Abrams criticised the detention of executives from US refiner Citgo in Caracas and warned Russia over its support for Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
Many private transportation groups heeded the strike call, while students, neighbours and activists hauled rubbish and furniture into streets to erect makeshift barriers.
Trump's warning came as the opposition coalition in Venezuela called a nationwide strike for Thursday to kick off a "final offensive" aimed at forcing Maduro from office through early elections.
The July 30 election will choose 545 delegates to the special body that will rewrite late President Hugo Chavez's 1999 constitution. But the opposition is angry and is calling for early presidential elections.
Opposition leaders accuse the socialist government of President Nicolas Maduro of delaying elections to avoid losing power amid an economic crisis marked by triple-digit inflation and chronic food shortages.
The excrement-filled containers are a way for the anti-government resistance to highlight the discrepancy in the force used by the police and the protesters. At least 36 people have been killed in civil unrest over the last six weeks.
The opposition says it will not allow President Nicolas Maduro to change Venezuela's constitution "by act of force."
Amid another day of nationwide opposition rallies, the worst trouble in Caracas on Wednesday occurred when National Guard troops and police blocked off a highway where several thousand demonstrators were marching downtown.
The opposition is demanding that elections be held to improve the country's deteriorated economy.
A Supreme Court sympathetic to President Maduro has basically annulled the National Assembly where the opposition holds majority.
Getting cash in Venezuela is nearly impossible. Many banks have restricted customers to small withdrawals that do not even meet their needs.
Some 50 animals have starved to death at Caricuao Zoo as food shortages cripple Venezuela, some say a ‘metaphor for Venezuelan suffering'
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