President Donald Trump has deployed several warships and thousands of Marines to the southern Caribbean—just miles off the coast of Venezuela. The provocative mission was launched under the guise of an anti-narcotics crusade, but risks disastrous outcomes for both countries.
While a war with Venezuela might seem unlikely, the move is sure to radically escalate tensions with the Latin American state, and in the worst-case scenario could become a trip-wire for direct conflict with Caracas.
According to a recent New York Times report, the president has signed a secret directive authorizing military action against drug cartels designated as “terrorist” groups, having added several drug gangs to the terror blacklist since February. The new operation in the Caribbean is almost certainly based on that order.
One U.S. official reached by Reuters earlier this week suggested the naval mission might involve lethal force, saying the warships could be used not only for “intelligence and surveillance operations, but also as a launching pad for targeted strikes.”
The deployment will include at least 4,000 sailors and Marines, and a wide range of military assets: three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, transport vessels, an amphibious assault ship, as well as a nuclear-powered attack submarine and P8 Poseidon reconnaissance planes.
That’s a lot of soldiers and hardware for a few drug busts, raising questions about how such an arsenal might be used in practice—and who it is intended for. (Granted, any major operation against Venezuela would require a much larger force, with the United States’ 1989 invasion of Panama involving well over 25,000 troops.)
The latest criminal gang blacklisted by the Trump administration is the Venezuelan “Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns), which was sanctioned by the Treasury in July. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that President Nicolas Maduro is the group’s “leader,” while top Venezuelan officials and military officers have long been accused of deep ties to the organization.
However, Washington has offered many allegations but little public evidence of Maduro’s supposed role in the group, and the often-repeated claims about senior officials are likely overstated.
Instead, the so-called ‘cartel’ appears to operate more like a loose-knit partnership of corrupt mid-level officials, opportunistic soldiers, and organized criminals—an arrangement tolerated and overseen, but not orchestrated, by the central government in Caracas.
“Today, the catch-all term ‘Cartel of the Suns’ masks the fact that the state-drug trafficking axis is now less a network run by the military and Chavista politicians and more a system that it regulates,” InSight Crime, a U.S. government-funded think tank, acknowledged in its profile of the group.
In a previous report, the same NGO all but demolished Washington’s narrative about Cartel de los Soles, saying it is not a “hierarchical organization with Maduro directing drug trafficking strategies,” but rather a “decentralized” group with no leadership structure to speak of. It went on to argue that “the removal of individual high-ranking officials would likely have zero impact on how the broader network operates.”
American officials have also accused Maduro of links to another Venezuelan crime ring known as Tren de Aragua (TDA). Though the Trump administration has accused the group of waging “irregular warfare” against the United States on Maduro’s orders, US intelligence agencies found no support for that claim.
“The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the National Intelligence Council concluded in an April 7 memo. The council added that it had “not observed the regime directing TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which probably would require extensive coordination and funding between regime entities and TDA leaders.”
The latest military action in the Caribbean carries great risks of escalation with Caracas—up to and including a new hot war that’d devastate the region, squander American blood and treasure, and drive an unprecedented surge of immigration into the United States, among other unforeseeable consequences.
Already, Venezuela appears to be preparing for the worst, with Maduro mobilizing millions of militia fighters in response to the U.S. deployment while condemning Washington for “bizarre and outlandish threats.” This comes just weeks after the State Department boosted its bounty on the leader’s head to $50 million.
However, those who paid attention during Trump’s first term are likely feeling a strong sense of déjà vu right about now. After all, between 2017 and 2021, the 45th president imposed waves of sanctions on Venezuela; mulled whether to label Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups and deployed forces to the Caribbean to combat them; criminally charged Maduro for “narco-terrorism” and offered a reward for his capture; and even backed a (failed) coup attempt by Venezuela’s US-friendly opposition.
While none of the above resulted in full-blown conflict at the time, that’s little reason for optimism now, as the president has only grown more reckless since returning to office. To avoid the worst outcomes for our country and theirs, U.S. troops must vacate the Caribbean immediately and leave socialist Venezuela to its own devices.
