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Trump Stumbling Into War In Venezuela, The Ending Won’t Be Good

In his scattershot, incoherent planning for a likely military attack to overturn the regime in Venezuela, trump is taking a path that has proven disastrous for U.S. and South American interests in past years.

Given trump’s abysmal track record for being truthful, it is impossible to decipher his motives in trying to overthrow Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro. In the bizarre trump world, it is plausible that the whole Venezuelan saber rattling was cooked up to divert attention from trump’s role in the pedophile sex scandal of Jeffrey Epstein.

For much of the 20th Century, the U.S. has provided funding and military support for various coups and purges. Even when the U.S. has been able to upend leaders, the results have ranged from developing uncertain allies to wholesale killings and have led to deep resentments that remain simmering to this day. In any event, trump is likely not to attack as it would further dampen his phantasmagorical hopes of being knighted next year with the Nobel Peace Prize.

Trump has a history of belligerence and plotting to overthrow Maduro. In August 2017, trump spoke of possible military intervention in Venezuela, after CIA director Mike Pompeo claimed that Venezuela was victimized by Iranian- and Russian-backed groups.

Trump has said the latest actions against Venezuela are justified because “№1, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. And the other thing, the drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.”

But, fentanyl, the drug that causes the most deaths in the U.S., is almost entirely synthesized in Mexico and trafficked north over land. There also has been no evidence that Maduro regime’s has deliberately sent convicts to America.

As usual, trump is a bundle of contradictions wrapped in a blurry political strategy. For example, it made no sense when in August trump approved a license for Chevron to pump oil in Venezuela, bringing revenues to the hated Maduro administration.

And while he threatens Venezuela, he imposed 50 percent tariffs on neighboring Brazil in a hamhanded effort to stop the trial of Brazil’s former president Jair Bolsonaro, a trump ally. Trump further soured relations with Colombia by threatening to cut off all U.S. aid after the country’s leftist president, Gustavo Petro, criticized trump’s strikes on suspected drug boats.

No Cakewalk

If the U.S. invades Venezuela it won’t be a cakewalk like the 1983 invasion of Grenada or the 1989 assault on Panama.

The Grenada invasion involved 7,600 American troops. At the time, Grenada had around 1,200 to 1,500 members of the People’s Revolutionary Army and a small contingent of Cuban soldiers and advisors.

The assault on Panama involved 27,000 U.S. troops and more than 300 aircraft. The poorly equipped Panama Defense Forces (PDF) totaled about 16,000 personnel including infantry, paramilitary police, Naval infantry units and specialized units like the 7th Company, which had supported Noriega during a failed coup attempt in October 1989.

Venezuela has a standing army of around 100,000 personnel and could mobilize 4.5 million militia members. Maduro also has a strategic partnership with Russia.

Trump’s goal is surely not to bring democracy or rescue the people in the troubled Latin American country. An estimated 600,000 Venezuelans have fled the violence and poverty and sought refuge in the U.S. Trump, however, has revoked Temporary Protected Status for Venezuelan refugees and has been coordinating with the Maduro regime on deportation flights back to Caracas.

Trump has hardly been a champion of democracies, shown by his ongoing bromance with Hungarian autocratic strongman, Viktor Mihály Orbán; Argentina’s trump wannabe leader, Javier Milei; and Israel’s autocratic prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu; not to mention his unexplained on again, off again love affair with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

If his plan is to use the American military to dethrone Maduro, trump’s usual poorly considered approach is like using a sledgehammer to kill a flea. But even if the flea dies, even stronger fleas will likely spawn to oppose the U.S.

Bush War

Trump said he is waging war on drug cartels, a policy that began in 1989 when President George H.W. Bush created the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which authorized the use of military forces in detection operations, foreign force training, and support for law enforcement agencies. Then-Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney said the military would not conduct arrests or raids but would expand its role in detection and logistical support, involving “a few hundred” troops in Latin America. Despite the military involvement, flow of illegal drugs into the U.S. has exploded.

Trump’s latest efforts began when he ordered extrajudicial murders to intercept boats in the Caribbean and eliminate what he has deemed threats to the nation by narcoterrorists. He has also said he will bring his war on drugs to the streets of Venezuela, hardly a display of democracy. Due process is a non-sequitur.

The Trump administration also has doubled the reward for the capture of Maduro to $50 million.

In August, trump ordered three Navy warships to the coast of South America. Currently, the armada consists of seven warships, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, and more than 4,500 sailors and marines. Trump also has ordered the nation’s most powerful aircraft carrier to the waters off Venezuela, because, as former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger once said “an aircraft carrier is 100,000 tons of diplomacy.”

Known as “gunboat diplomacy,” the strategy involves conspicuous displays of naval power, implying a direct threat of war if the “enemy” does not capitulate. The term originated in the 19th century, during the age of imperialism, when Western powers, especially the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the United States used their superior military capabilities to intimidate less powerful nations to force concessions.

Strategically, trump is either infernally stupid or brilliant. In typical trump fashion, he announced that the CIA will conduct a covert operation supposedly to stop the flow of illegal drugs. I believe that once a covert plan is announced it is no longer covert.

Dictator Maduro

Maduro has been president of Venezuela since 2013. He was vice president under President Hugo Chávez from 2012 to 2013 and assumed the presidency after Chávez’s death on March 5, 2013. A special presidential election was held on April 14, 2013. Maduro won with 50.62 percent of the vote and he has ruled Venezuela by decree since 2015 through powers granted to him by the ruling party legislature.

Maduro is widely considered a dictator, leading a government rife with electoral fraud, serious human rights abuses, rampant corruption, and severe economic hardship. The United Nations and Human Rights Watch estimate that under Maduro’s rule, more than 20,000 people have been subject to extrajudicial killings and seven million Venezuelans have been forced to flee the country.

Maduro also has a strategic partnership with Russia. After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Maduro discussed increasing cooperation with Russia. He also was a strong critic of the Israeli invasion of Gaza that followed the Hamas slaughter of Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023.

The U.S. sanctioned Maduro on July 31, 2017, making him the fourth foreign head of state to be sanctioned by the U.S. after Bashar al-Assad of Syria, Kim Jong Un of North Korea and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. In September 2024, an Argentine federal court issued an arrest warrant against Maduro and several other Venezuelan officials for crimes against humanity.

Targeted For Death

Maduro has been targeted for assassination several times in U.S. related schemes but none succeeded.

On May 3, 2020, Venezuelan security forces prevented an attempt to overthrow Maduro by armed Venezuelan dissidents. Eight of the attackers were killed, with another 13, including two Americans, were captured. The attempted coup was organized by an American security company, Silvercorp USA, headed by a Canadian, Jordan Goudreau. The company previously provided security services for at least one trump rally on Oct. 26, 2018, in Charlotte, N.C.

The men were trained in Colombia and the 60 troops included two former U.S. special forces members. The Venezuelan government claimed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) was responsible for the operation and had support from Colombia. Goudreau claimed that a leading government opponent, Juan Guaido, and two advisors had paid him $213 million to arrange and conduct the attack. Trump has since recognized Guaido as the interim President of Venezuela.

In August 2018, while giving a speech commemorating the 81st anniversary of the Bolivarian National Guard, two drones detonated explosives near Avenida Bolívar, Caracas. The Venezuelan government claimed the event was a targeted attempt to assassinate Maduro.

In September 2024, the Venezuelan police arrested three Americans, two Spaniards, and a Czech national carrying sniper rifles and other munitions to allegedly assassinate Maduro. The Minister of Interior, Justice and Peace, Diosdado Cabello, held the CIA and Spanish intelligence responsible for the coup attempt. A former U.S. Navy Seal, Wilber Joseph Castañeda, also was arrested with alleged links to terrorist attacks during the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election. Castañeda was released on July 18 after being detained in Venezuela for nearly a year.

Regime Change

The United States has a long record of provoking regime change in Latin America, justified by the Monroe Doctrine and later the fight against communism during the Cold War. U.S. military interventions in Haiti (1915–1934), the Dominican Republic (1916–1924) and Nicaragua (1926–1933) led to the rise of brutal despots: respectively, François “Papa Doc” Duvalier, Rafael Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza. The CIA-backed overthrow in 1954 of Guatemala’s elected leftist president Jacobo Arbenz resulted in a bloody 36-year civil war.

The turn of the 20th century saw the U.S. providing warships to support Panama’s independence from Colombia. In return the U.S. got an open-ended lease for construction of the Panama Canal. In ensuing years, to ensure control over the Panama Canal, the U.S. military occupied Nicaragua, Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The Cuban revolution of 1959 was met with an intense U.S. campaign against leftist leaders in Latin America. This included a 1964 coup, organized and supported by the U.S., to oust Brazil’s left-wing president João Goulart. The coup began a long period of military rule.

In 1973, Chile’s socialist President Salvadore Allende was overthrown by a group of military officers led by General Augusto Pinochet, whose iron fisted rule would continue until 1990. The extent of the U.S. role remains unclear.

During the Cold War years, the U.S. backed coups leading to right wing governments in Argentina, Bolivia, Ecuador, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay. The rise of right wing leaders led to rampant human rights violations in Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, where more than 30,000 people were murdered in the so-called “guerra sucia” or dirty war.

The U.S. provided funds to the “contra” rebels in Nicaragua to take down the socialist Sandinista government. The U.S. also aided the ruling junta in El Salvador against the left-wing guerilla Farabundo Martí National Liberation (FMLN) Front. In 1954, the CIA backed a coup to undermine leftists in Guatemala.

The CIA’s 1961 Bay of Pigs operation, designed to topple Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, was a fiasco that led Castro to agree to the stationing of Soviet nuclear missiles on his soil.

Small Victories

The rare successes of regime change involved using military might against small countries including Grenada in 1983 and Panama in 1989.

President Ronald Reagan ordered the U.S. and a coalition of Caribbean countries to invade the tiny island nation of Grenada on October 25, 1983. The U.S. justified the invasion as a rescue mission for American medical students and a response to the violent coup that had led to Prime Minister Maurice Bishop’s execution. The operation also served to counter Cuban and Soviet influence in the region.

Around 7,600 troops occupied the island for a few days. It was conducted to counter strife within the People’s Revolutionary Government, which led to the house arrest and execution of Bishop. The internal dissension had led to establishment of the Revolutionary Military Council, with Hudson Austin as chairman. After the invasion, Austin was deposed, an interim government was appointed and general elections were held in December 1984.

The invasion drew criticism from many countries. The U.N. Security Council called it “deeply deploring” and a “flagrant violation of international law.”

President George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, known as Operation Just Cause, in December 1989. The invasion was initiated to oust Panamian strongman, Gen. Manuel Noriega. It involved around 27,000 U.S. troops and more than 300 aircraft. Around 19 U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 300 wounded while the Panamanian Defense Force suffered around314 casualties.

The invasion was prompted by deteriorating relations between theU.S. and Noriega, who had been a U.S. ally but became increasingly involved in drug trafficking and human rights abuses. In 1988, he was indicted by a U.S. grand jury on drug charges. Tensions escalated tensions when Noriega annulled the results of the 1989 elections, which had been won by opposition candidate Guillermo Endara.

U.S. forces quickly engaged the Panamanian Defense Forces (PDF), which were loyal to Noriega. Noriega fled and sought refuge in the Vatican embassy in Panama City but eventually surrendered on January 3, 1990. Noriega was extradited to the United States, where he was convicted on multiple charges, including drug trafficking and racketeering.