Three US Aegis guided-missile destroyers have been dispatched to waters off the coast of Venezuela, as part of what the Trump administration calls an effort to counter threats from Latin American drug cartels. The mobilization follows Washington’s decision to increase the bounty for the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro, doubling it to an unprecedented $50 million. Last week, US Attorney General Pam Bondi announced the seizure of assets worth $700 million from the Venezuelan head of state.
In response to the increased US military presence in the Caribbean, President Maduro announced plans to mobilize 4.5 million members of the territorial militia across the country. “Rifles and missiles for the rural forces! To defend Venezuela’s territory, sovereignty and peace,” he proclaimed. (Latin America Reports)
The US Justice Department indicted Maduro in 2020 as the supposed kingpin of the “Cartel of the Suns,” and has since asserted his ties to the Tren de Aragua gang network, as well as Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. This year, the US State Department classified both the Cartel of the Suns and Tren de Aragua as “foreign terrorist organizations.”
In June, Hugo Carvajal, former head of Venezuelan military intelligence, was convicted on drug trafficking charges after being arrested in Madrid and put on trial in the US. Carvajal had been a feared spymaster who went by the name “El Pollo” (The Chicken), but fled Venezuela in 2019 after calling on the army to back an opposition candidate and overthrow Maduro. (BBC News, NACLA Report)
In March, the US tightened sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector.
Photo: US Navy via Latin America Reports
US Navy sinks Venezuelan vessel
President Trump announced Sept. 2 that the US Navy “conducted a kinetic strike” on that boat that he said was operated by the Tren de Aragua narco-gang. In a video posted on TruthSocial, he said the 11 crew members (“terrorists”) were killed, adding: “Please let this serve as notice to anyone even thinking about bringing drugs into the United States of America. BEWARE! Thank you for your attention to this matter!!!!!!!!!!!” (NewsHour)
US Navy sinks second Venezuelan vessel
President Donald Trump announced Sept. 15 that the US military carried out another targeted strike on a Venezuelan boat allegedly transporting drugs, killing three men aboard. (Jurist)
US Navy sinks third Venezuelan vessel
President Donald Trump boasted Sept. 19 that US forces carried out a “lethal kinetic strike” on a vessel which he said was trafficking drugs, and the attack killed three “male narcoterrorists” on board. (BBC News)
US Navy sinks fourth Venezuelan vessel
US forces killed four people in an Oct. 3 attack on a boat that was apparently believed to be trafficking drugs. “The strike was conducted in international waters just off the coast of Venezuela while the vessel was transporting substantial amounts of narcotics—headed to America to poison our people,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth wrote on X. (BBC News)
US Navy sinks fifth Venezuelan vessel
The United States killed six men aboard a boat in international waters “just off the Coast of Venezuela,” President Trump wrote on social media on Oct. 13, asserting without evidence that they had been transporting drugs. The strike was the fifth known attack by the US military on such boats since Sept. 2. The military has now killed 27 people as if they were enemy soldiers in a war zone and not criminal suspects. (NYT)
US Navy sinks sixth Venezuelan vessel
President Donald Trump said Oct. 17 he believes that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro will be compliant with US demands because does not want to “fuck around” with the United States. The comment followed a Reuters report that the US military was holding two survivors on a Navy ship after a sixth strike on their suspected drug vessel in the Caribbean that killed two others. (Reuters)
Under a deal reportedly discussed between a White House official and Maduro aides, the Venezuelan strongman offered to open up all existing and future oil and gold projects to US companies, reverse the flow of Venezuelan oil exports from China to the United States, and slash his country’s energy and mining contracts with Chinese, Iranian and Russian firms. (NYT)
Days earlier, Trump boasted that he has approved CIA covert action in Venezuela. (NYT)
The strikes on supposed smuggling vessels are believed to have killed at least 27 people, and have been deemed illegal by international law specialists. On Oct. 16, the New York Times reported that at least two US B-52 bombers flew in international airspace off the Venezuelan coast, and that an elite US aviation unit was conducting flights in the southern Caribbean Sea. (TNH)