In October, Donald Trump declared the United States was engaged in an armed conflict with Venezuelan drug cartels. Since then, at least 87 people have died in 21 US strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that, according to officials in Washington, were carrying drugs.
But so far, the Trump administration has presented no evidence that the targeted boats were transporting drugs. Legal experts argue the attacks are illegal, and Congress has begun investigating the operations.
Meanwhile, Venezuela finds itself cornered by a US policy that raises several questions: what is Trump aiming for? How far is his government willing to go in Venezuela? Will there be a ground invasion, will only specific targets be struck, or is this all a game of threats?
These questions matter because this is the largest US military deployment in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis.
In recent years, US administrations have responded to Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro’s repression of opposition groups primarily with economic sanctions, particularly on PDVSA, Venezuela’s state oil company, and the Central Bank of Venezuela. The Venezuelan oil sector is extremely vulnerable due to its absolute dependence on PDVSA, a company weakened by ageing infrastructure due to chronic underinvestment. In addition, Venezuela’s reserves consist largely of heavy and extra-heavy crude, which is difficult to refine due to its density and viscosity.
This year, the Trump administration further tightened economic pressure. Yet Maduro’s government has not yielded. On the contrary, it has adopted methods to evade sanctions that are similar to those used by China, Russia, Iran, and North Korea. So will the US president now order a territorial invasion?
It is worth noting, as author Edward Luttwak did years ago, that American families do not want to receive body bags from wars that do not affect their daily lives. This idea that citizens will not support another war was central to a recent speech by general Fabien Mandon, the head of France’s armed forces, to a congress of French mayors.
Mandon urged the French public to support the country’s military effort, warning that the West’s security is rapidly deteriorating and the greatest risk is to appear weak to enemies. He called on authorities to “explain to our citizens the defence challenges we face”. One can infer from these statements that Western militaries are considering interventions in various parts of the world to defend ‘Western values’ – and need to secure public approval to do so.
How far will Trump go now with Venezuela? A look at the sanctions imposed during his first term may help answer this question.
In 2017, he signed Executive Order 13808, which restricted the Venezuelan government and PDVSA from accessing US financial markets. Sanctions and asset freezes were also imposed on Maduro and other regime figures such as Delcy Rodríguez, Tareck El Aissami, and Diosdado Cabello.
His administration then imposed sanctions on Venezuelan gold trading in 2018, before tightening sanctions on PDVSA by freezing its assets in US territory the following year. Between 2019 and 2020, all Venezuelan government assets in the US were frozen, and American companies were prohibited from doing business with Venezuelan public entities.
Since returning to the White House at the start of this year, Trump has intensified this pressure. In March, he imposed a 25% tariff on all countries that buy Venezuelan oil or gas. He has also revoked some concessions that his presidential predecessor, Joe Biden, had granted to allow certain foreign companies to operate in Venezuela, and on 29 November, Trump declared that Venezuelan airspace should be considered shut. Although Venezuela has said the US president does not have the authority to legally close its airspace, international airlines have since suspended flights to the country.
Meanwhile, as Trump plays war in Venezuela’s territorial waters and threatens a land invasion, the International Monetary Fund estimates that inflation in Venezuela will reach 269% this year and up to 680% in 2026. Last year, the independent Venezuelan Finance Observatory estimated that 86% of the population lives in poverty.
More than three-quarters of Venezuelans are worried about running out of food, according to the 2024 National Survey of Living Conditions, which is carried out by three Venezuelan universities. Some 41% of respondents reported that at some point during the year, they actually had no food.
In the 2024 presidential election, Maduro found himself facing the fact that 10 Latin American countries refused to recognise his victory and three others demanded a transparent vote recount.
It is possible – and likely the best option – that the US military build-up is the prelude to a diplomatic offer guaranteeing Maduro refuge in Turkey, China, Russia, or North Korea. Trump may be seeking a negotiated exit for Maduro, his family, and several collaborators and top military commanders. Restoring democracy in Venezuela through nonviolent means could appeal to Trump as an incentive to win the Nobel Peace Prize that he has made clear he so desires.
But one cannot ignore that Maduro still retains the loyalty of roughly one-third of the population and maintains control over the armed forces and their monopoly on the use of force.
Despite numerous attempts by the opposition to sway them, Maduro’s armed forces have refused to defect. They are not willing to give up the privileges the regime has granted them (as we explained in a previous article). Meanwhile, many citizens live in fear, as repression and imprisonment have been effective, long-standing tools of the regime. The human rights group Foro Penal, which assists victims of arbitrary detention, reported 887 political prisoners this month.
If Trump’s goal is to secure US interests in the region, returning to the negotiating table would be far more sensible than gambling on the chaos a regime change attempt could unleash. Yet negotiating with the Venezuelan dictatorship carries a high political cost.
Opposition leader María Corina Machado, awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize in October, expresses confidence in Maduro’s imminent fall. She has openly backed US military pressure on the Venezuelan government and stressed that in a future democratic transition, she aims to unite the country, assuring that there will be no revenge or retribution.
Yet both Trump and Machado seem to recognise that ousting Maduro could trigger a civil war. Moreover, even with Maduro and military leaders in exile, any new government will have to reconcile a society deeply polarised, divided, and impoverished.
In this context, it is important to remember that efforts to promote democracy after a foreign-imposed regime change rarely succeed – as the US interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya have painfully shown.
There are too many doubts and possible scenarios to predict what might help Venezuela begin a democratisation process. In 2015, Luttwak observed that in politics, “strategy is about being unpredictable”. It’s certainly true that in this conflict, Trump and Maduro’s strategies are unpredictable. The ending is, too.
Rut Diamint
