The drums of war are beating once again — but this time, not in the Middle East, but in the Caribbean. In October 2025, President Donald Trump deployed America’s largest aircraft carrier off the coast of Venezuela, under the guise of a drug interdiction operation. The alleged culprits are Venezuelan “narco-terrorists” led by President Nicolás Maduro. Yet, to many observers, it looks increasingly like Washington is preparing to overthrow the Venezuelan government. Trump may have campaigned on ending “endless wars,” but when it comes to Venezuela, his rhetoric has been the opposite. His policy has been all about war.
From Sanctions to Gunboats
During his first term, Trump sought to push Maduro from power — accusing him of stealing elections, stripping the US’s recognition of his government, imposing sweeping sanctions, and rallying allies to isolate Caracas. When Maduro claimed victory in the 2024 national election with 51.2% of the vote, opposition candidate Edmundo González insisted he had actually won with 67%. The Carter Center declared the election failed to meet international standards and “cannot be considered democratic.”
Soon after, González fled into exile in Spain in September 2024, hiding for thirty-two days inside the Dutch embassy before escaping on a Spanish military aircraft. Opposition leader María Corina Machado warned that González’s life was in danger from “growing threats, legal citations, arrest orders, and blackmail attempts.”
Since beginning his second term, Trump’s response has been unequivocally military. From September 2025, US forces have launched multiple deadly strikes against alleged drug vessels, killing over fifteen people. The administration has even sent Congress a confidential notice declaring that Venezuelan drug cartels are engaged in an “armed attack” against the United States — a sweeping legal claim asserting war powers without Congressional approval and redefining counternarcotics operations as armed conflict.
This confrontation did not arise overnight. It is the culmination of nearly three decades of US intervention in Venezuela
History of Confrontation
This confrontation did not arise overnight. It is the culmination of nearly three decades of US intervention in Venezuela — a cycle of regime-change attempts that have consistently failed to achieve their stated goals.
The breakdown began with Hugo Chávez’s 1999 election. While relations between Caracas and Washington had remained stable throughout the 1990s, Chávez’s self-proclaimed “socialist” and “anti-imperialist” revolution marked a rupture. This coincided with the rise of American neoconservatism and its pursuit of “full-spectrum dominance.”
The first major crisis came in April 2002, when Venezuelan military officers briefly overthrew Chávez for forty-seven hours, installing business leader Pedro Carmona as interim president. Carmona immediately dissolved the National Assembly and Supreme Court. The George W. Bush administration’s swift recognition of the coup regime devastated US credibility across Latin America, even after officials reversed course when the coup collapsed.
This episode established a pattern that would echo for decades: US-backed regime-change efforts, followed by failure and denial. The 2002–2003 oil strike — which paralyzed production for two months with tacit US backing — failed to unseat Chávez but crippled Venezuela’s economy.
Relations deteriorated further through a cascade of diplomatic expulsions. Chávez expelled US Ambassador Patrick Duddy in 2008 after uncovering an alleged coup plot. Maduro followed suit, expelling three US diplomats in 2013, three more in 2014, and another wave in 2018. The final diplomatic rupture came in 2019 when Washington recognized opposition leader Juan Guaidó as interim president — prompting Venezuela to expel all remaining US personnel.
The Sanctions War
Since 2005, Washington has imposed twelve distinct rounds of sanctions — one of the most comprehensive economic warfare campaigns in the Western Hemisphere.
Trump’s “maximum pressure” strategy between 2017 and 2020 blocked Venezuela from US financial markets and targeted its state oil giant, PDVSA. Sanctions also hit the gold, mining, and banking sectors. Oil export revenues collapsed from $4.8 billion in 2018 to just $477 million by 2020.
Yet Maduro remains in power. The Biden administration briefly lifted some sanctions in October 2023 in exchange for electoral reforms, only to reimpose them in April 2024 when Caracas failed to comply. Trump’s second administration has since gone further, implementing secondary sanctions — targeting any nation purchasing Venezuelan oil — and raising the bounty on Maduro’s head to $50 million.
Today, Washington maintains 431 sanctions designations on Venezuelan individuals and entities, including 88 individuals and 46 companies. The humanitarian cost has been catastrophic, but regime change remains as elusive as ever.
Today, Washington maintains 431 sanctions designations on Venezuelan individuals and entities, including 88 individuals and 46 companies. The humanitarian cost has been catastrophic, but regime change remains as elusive as ever
“Drug Lord” Diplomacy
In his second term, Trump has changed tactics. While still declaring Maduro illegitimate, he now frames Venezuela’s leader less as a dictator and more as a criminal — a drug lord threatening American lives.
The new campaign has labelled several Venezuelan groups as terrorist organizations, carried out strikes against alleged drug boats, and further cut off diplomatic contact with Caracas.
Since 2002, the US has supported or been directly involved in at least five coup attempts or military operations. The most notable include Operation Freedom (April 2019), when Guaidó’s attempted uprising collapsed within hours, and Operation Gideon (May 2020), when former US Green Beret Jordan Goudreau led a botched mercenary invasion with sixty Venezuelan dissidents and two American ex–Special Forces operators. Venezuelan forces swiftly crushed the assault — dubbed the “Bay of Piglets” — killing six and capturing the rest.
Now, in 2025, the Trump administration has gone further than ever before — deploying eight warships, over 4,000 personnel, and a nuclear submarine to the Caribbean, marking the largest American military buildup near Venezuela in decades.
Parallel to this, Washington continues to fund opposition movements through the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and related organisations. Legally, the administration justifies its escalating posture by classifying Venezuelan officials as “narco-terrorists.” The 2020 US federal indictment of Maduro accused him of leading the “Cartel de los Soles” — allegedly using cocaine “as a weapon against America.”
Since 2002, the US has supported or been directly involved in at least five coup attempts or military operations
After Thirty Years of Failure
Three decades on, Maduro still rules Venezuela. The country’s alliances with Russia, China, and Iran have deepened, while its economic collapse and humanitarian crisis have only worsened. Each US intervention — from coups to sanctions — has tightened Maduro’s control rather than weakened it.
The Dissent Within
Not everyone in Washington agrees with Trump’s aggressive approach. Senior US officials have questioned both the scale of Venezuela’s role in the global drug trade and the justification for military action. Many dissenting officials have resigned or been dismissed.
Trump insists that military force is essential to stopping “narco-terrorists” smuggling a “deadly weapon poisoning Americans.” He claims that “every boat” sunk off Venezuela’s coast is “stacked with bags of white powder — mostly fentanyl — that kills 25,000 on average.”
But US intelligence and drug agencies dispute this narrative. Most of the vessels targeted operate between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago — a route used primarily for marijuana and cocaine shipments bound for West Africa and Europe, not the United States. According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), 90% of cocaine entering the US comes through Mexico, and Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl.
The 2025 UNODC World Drug Report confirms that Venezuela “has consolidated its status as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, cannabis, and similar crops,” with only 5% of Colombian drugs transiting through its borders.
Senior US officials have questioned both the scale of Venezuela’s role in the global drug trade and the justification for military action. Many dissenting officials have resigned or been dismissed
Moreover, a classified memorandum from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), dated April 7, 2025, contradicts the administration’s narrative. Summarizing assessments from all 18 US intelligence agencies, it concludes that “the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with the TDA (Tren de Aragua) cartel and is not directing its movements.”
In short, US intelligence itself disputes Trump’s claim that Maduro leads the Cartel de los Soles or directs narcotics operations against the US — making the administration’s case for military escalation even weaker.
A War Waiting to Happen
Trump may continue to present himself as an anti-war president, but his actions tell another story. His Venezuela policy blurs the line between counter-drug operations, coercive diplomacy, and outright war.
With aircraft carriers stationed off the Venezuelan coast, sanctions tightening, and domestic dissent within his own government mounting, Trump now faces a pivotal choice: to pull back from another quagmire or repeat the cycle that once turned Iraq into America’s longest mistake. If history is any guide, Washington’s road to war often begins with just such denials.