Drug trafficking. Boat strikes. Suspended airspace. CIA operations.
It might sound like something out of a political thriller or the events of the early 1900s, but this is the unfortunate reality and state of relations between the U.S. and Venezuela today.
What happened –
Citing concerns over drug smuggling in the Pacific and Caribbean, the Trump administration authorized strikes targeting suspect vessels, beginning in early September.
Since the first attack on Sept. 2, according to NPR, 22 strikes have occurred with a death toll of 86 individuals and only 3 survivors. A large majority of these strikes unfolded in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific regions, with a few unfolding in the U.S. Southern Command Area of Responsibility (essentially most of Latin America and adjacent water bodies).
In addition to the U.S.’s already fraught relationship with Latin American nations historically speaking (think banana republics, Iran-Contra scandal, CIA-orchestrated coups, and more), the recent strikes have heightened tensions between the U.S. and Venezuela.
Beyond just the strikes on alleged drug smugglers, the U.S has deployed an aircraft carrier: the USS Gerald R Ford (which happens to be the largest aircraft carrier globally), F-35 jets, and 15,000 troops to the Caribbean with U.S. President Donald Trump remarking that “land strikes inside Venezuela could come imminently”, according to Al Jazeera.
On Nov. 29, Trump ordered the closing of the airspace “above and surrounding Venezuela”, according to Politico and his own Truth Social.
In addition to the escalated military action, the Trump administration has also “secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials,” according to the New York Times. This authorization, according to the Times, would allegedly allow the CIA “to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela[,]…conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean[, and]…take covert action against… [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro or his government.”
Why it’s happening and what it means –
Some suggest that Trump’s recent actions in Venezuela are part of a wider gambit for the Latin American nation’s vast oil repositories, something Maduro himself accused his American counterpart of. For reference, Venezuela, according to Al Jazeera, contains the “world’s largest proven oil reserves” and was estimated to hold 303 billion barrels of oil in 2023, despite only exporting $4 billion dollars of crude oil that year.
Some have taken the idea a step further to suggest that Trump is looking to oust Maduro, according to Politico, even while Trump “claims [to] not [be] pursuing ‘regime change.’”
Regardless of Trump’s true ambitions in Latin America, his recent actions continue to highlight the ramping up of tensions and conflicts on a global scale, especially with the deploying of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, and are somewhat eerily reminiscent of the proxy wars and government destabilization efforts the U.S. engaged in during the Cold War, tying back into the phenomenon International Insight examined last week.
Nevertheless, whatever may be his underlying motivations, it’s certain that Trump’s end goal with Venezuela will have tremendous ramifications. The reach of those ramifications and their potential for positive change, however, is yet to be determined.
