A string of recent statements from US President Donald Trump, coupled with American naval deployments this month, makes for a compelling case. But could this just be psychological warfare?
All signs are pointing toward a major potential military escalation between the US and Venezuela. Not only has the US military carried out multiple drone strikes on what it says are Venezuelan drug vessels in the Caribbean. Sea, but American warships have been patrolling its waters since 13 September in a show of force that points to a looming confrontation between Washington and Caracas.
On Friday, 24 October, Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the Navy’s most advanced aircraft carrier strike group, currently stationed in Europe, to the Caribbean amid a massive buildup of US forces there. And on Saturday, 25 October, three US officials told CNN that President Donald Trump was mulling plans to target cocaine facilities and drug trafficking routes inside Venezuela, but that he hadn’t yet made a decision.
Earlier this month, Trump authorised the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela aimed at clamping down on illegal flows of migrants and drugs, but stopped short of saying they would have the authority to remove President Nicolás Maduro, although this appears to be the aim. But his designs could still be far greater. He may be looking to curb the expanding influence of China and Russia in Latin America, as well as to usurp Venezuela’s vast oil and mineral reserves.
A woman walks past a mural painted on the wall of a house by members of the La Piedrita group supporting Russian President Vladimir Putin in the La Piedrita community in the 23 de Enro neighbourhood of Caracas, on 7 September 2023.
The first US strike on a boat in the Caribbean, carried out in early September, killed 11 individuals whom the Trump administration identified as members of the Tren de Aragua gang, recently classified as a terrorist organisation. A second strike on 15 September targeted a vessel carrying three individuals whom Trump described as Venezuelan drug traffickers. However, Colombian President Gustavo Petro contested this account, stating that one of the victims was a Colombian fisherman and accusing the United States of committing an act of terrorism. Subsequent strikes have caused additional casualties, including nationals from Colombia, Trinidad and Tobago, and Ecuador.
The Trump administration defends the strikes by citing the escalating death toll from drug overdoses in the United States, although much of the crisis is driven by fentanyl abuse, with substantial quantities of the drug trafficked through Mexico, alongside Colombia, a major source of cocaine. But the scale of military force deployed to the Caribbean suggests the operation is unlikely to remain solely focused on narcotics enforcement. Hardliners within the administration have openly advocated for regime change in Venezuela.
Leading this charge are Secretary of State and National Security Adviser Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe. In recent weeks, officials have increasingly called for intensified military pressure to dismantle the Maduro government, which Rubio has denounced as an illegitimate regime directly orchestrating the flow of narcotics into the United States, framing it as an urgent national security threat.
The US military deployment in the Caribbean could be a form of psychological warfare aimed at pressuring Maduro into relinquishing power
Rubio at the wheel
Rubio is currently steering a hardline policy agenda, supported by Trump's domestic policy adviser Stephen Miller. The Pentagon has already deployed some 10,000 troops to the region, alongside a fleet of warships, aircraft, and bombers. For Rubio and his allies, ousting Maduro is a cornerstone of the broader anti-narcotics strategy—a position reinforced by the US Department of Justice's 2020 indictment of Maduro and several senior officials on drug trafficking charges. For Washington, Maduro is a fugitive from justice, the head of a terrorist organisation, and the leader of a criminal syndicate that has commandeered the Venezuelan state.
The United States currently shelters several prominent Venezuelan opposition figures, most notably former presidential candidate and parliamentary speaker Juan Guaidó, whom Washington and several European nations recognise as the rightful winner of the 2020 presidential election. The most recent opposition candidate, Edmundo González, also recognised by the US and its allies as the victor in the 2024 election, now lives in exile in Spain, having fled Venezuela amid charges of treason.
Last August, the United States announced it was doubling its reward to $50mn for information leading to the arrest of the Venezuelan president, whom it considers the leader of the world's largest drug trafficking syndicate. Although President Trump expressed frustration at not receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, he congratulated Venezuelan opposition leader and former presidential candidate María Corina Machado on receiving it. She, in turn, affirmed that he was deserving of the honour and praised his strong support for efforts to remove Maduro from power.
Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado waves a national flag during a protest called by the opposition on the eve of the presidential inauguration, in Caracas on 9 January 2025.
Grander objectives
The deployment of military frigates, long-range B-52 bombers equipped with precision-guided missiles, and the recent flyover of special operations aircraft near Venezuela's coastline, combined with Trump's directives authorising the CIA to initiate covert operations, strongly indicate that the scope of the mission extends well beyond counter-narcotics efforts. Trump himself has publicly stated he is considering direct military strikes within Venezuelan territory.
In Washington, debate persists regarding the legality of these US military killings in the Caribbean. The White House maintains that Trump now considers the country to be engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels, yet it has refused to provide any legal analysis or supporting evidence, nor has it demonstrated that the situation meets the legal threshold of hostilities required for unilateral military action without Congressional consent.
Traditionally, anti-drug campaigns fall within the jurisdiction of law enforcement agencies. Nonetheless, the Justice Departments of both Democratic and Republican administrations have maintained that the president, as commander-in-chief, may authorise limited military operations without Congressional approval, provided they do not escalate into a full-scale war as defined by the Constitution.
Trump has offered two primary justifications for his campaign against Venezuela. Firstly, he accuses the regime of deliberately releasing criminals from its prisons and enabling their entry into the United States. Secondly, he contends that the Venezuelan government is deeply complicit in the international drug trade, thereby posing a serious threat to US national security.
Cuban President Fidel Castro speaks on 13 April 2004, in Havana, commemorating the return to power of President Hugo Chávez two years earlier, after the Venezuelan leader was briefly ousted from power in a failed coup.
Poor track record
However, Trump's own admission that he authorised covert CIA operations in Venezuela undermines the secrecy typically associated with such missions. Analysts warn that US interventions in Latin America have historically produced poor results and often backfired, including repeated attempts to overthrow Fidel Castro's regime in Cuba. Castro personally survived the efforts of numerous US presidents and administrations to remove him. Even in cases where interventions succeeded, such as the 1954 coup in Guatemala, they often installed repressive regimes and led to widespread civilian casualties.
Proponents of military intervention, particularly among segments of the Venezuelan opposition, often cite the 1989 US invasion of Panama as a successful precedent. In that operation, American forces captured the country's leader, Manuel Noriega, on charges of drug trafficking and posing threats to US interests and citizens in the region. Noriega was later imprisoned in the United States until his extradition to France in 2010. However, the justification for that intervention was seen as more substantial, given the United States' critical interests in Panama, particularly its control of the Panama Canal. At the time, Washington also maintained a large military base in the country, a presence it lacks in Venezuela. Noriega had also been listed as a CIA asset, a detail that cast doubt on the legitimacy of the intervention, along with the widespread destruction and the deaths of hundreds of civilians under US bombardment.
Additionally, Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves and the largest gold reserves in Latin America, calling into question claims that the regime relies on drug trafficking for survival. Experts warn that numerous armed groups and criminal gangs exert control over various regions of the country, potentially complicating any effort to overthrow the government and raising the risk of widespread regional instability.
Members of the Bolivarian National Militia participate in a military training at Fuerte Tiuna in Caracas on September 13, 2025.
President Trump has claimed that Nicolás Maduro offered significant concessions in an attempt to ease pressure from Washington, stating that the Venezuelan leader "does not want to play games with the United States." According to the Miami Herald, officials within the Venezuelan government presented a proposal in which Maduro would eventually step down. The report indicated that Vice President Delcy Rodríguez and her brother Jorge, Speaker of the National Assembly, submitted the plan via Qatari intermediaries, positioning themselves as more palatable figures to Washington. The White House, however, has not publicly acknowledged any interest in the offer.
Some observers believe that the deployment of thousands of US troops, warships, and aircraft to the Caribbean, along with targeted strikes on vessels, may serve as a form of psychological warfare, intended to fracture the Venezuelan military or pressure Maduro into relinquishing power. This interpretation is reinforced by Trump's vague remarks regarding the possibility of a full-scale military intervention.
At the same time, the decision to label Maduro as the head of a global drug cartel and place a substantial bounty on his capture may have cornered Washington into a position from which it cannot easily retreat, unless Maduro steps down. If the stated aim of these Caribbean operations is to dismantle international drug trafficking networks, then by that logic, their leader must be the first to fall.
Broader geopolitics
Yet broader geopolitical dynamics are also fuelling the sudden escalation of US military activity against Venezuela, chief among them the country's emergence, along with several other Latin American states, as a gateway for Chinese and Russian influence into what Washington has long considered its strategic backyard. Maduro has actively deepened military and economic ties with both Beijing and Moscow, granting them increasing commercial and military privileges, though these have not yet been formalised into a formal alliance. Instruments of this growing foreign presence include military training programmes and scholarships, arms sales, reciprocal high-level visits, and joint exercises. China is currently the largest purchaser of Venezuelan oil.
A woman walks past a mural depicting late former Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro in Caracas, Venezuela July 27, 2024.
Trump appears determined to curtail, or eliminate entirely, this expanding axis, particularly with China, whose ties with Venezuela date back to the presidency of Hugo Chávez in 1999. Analysts warn that the continuation and deepening of this partnership could pose significant strategic risks, particularly as China seeks to assert itself within traditional US spheres of influence and challenge American dominance in its own turf. What accelerated the current military push, some believe, was the repeated shows of solidarity, and at times, coordinated alignment, between Venezuela and countries openly hostile to the United States, including Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba.
Dissenting voices
Not all elements within the US administration are aligned on the issue of intervention in Venezuela or the continuation of strikes on vessels in the Caribbean. In a notable sign of internal discord, Admiral Alvin Holsey, commander of US Southern Command, which oversees operations in the region, submitted his resignation following disputes with Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, who had accused him of a sluggish response to the drug trafficking threat and of withholding key operational information. US media have also reported unease within Southern Command regarding the legal basis for the ongoing military actions.
Concerns have also emerged among Republican lawmakers over the secrecy surrounding these operations and the apparent marginalisation of Congress. Senator Todd Young, Republican chair of the National Security Subcommittee on Emerging Biotechnologies (NSCEB), has requested a meeting with Secretaries Hegseth and Rubio to assess the campaign's legal grounding and strategic consequences. Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, have condemned the military operations outright, declaring them unlawful.
In keeping with Trump's transactional approach to diplomacy, it is plausible that he would accept a proposal from Maduro granting the United States a significant share of Venezuela's wealth in oil, iron, bauxite, gold, and natural gas. This would depend on the Venezuelan leader implementing reforms acceptable to the American right, which seeks to make Venezuela an example to other countries in the region that challenge US dominance.
