US Threatens Invasion of Venezuela, Expands ‘Drug’ War to Colombia
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), has just been deployed to the Caribbean by "Secretary of War" Pete Hegseth. Photo: US Navy
As the US continues to escalate threats and military pressure against Venezuela and now Colombia as well. On Friday, October 24, “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth announced the deployment of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), to the Caribbean. The most capable and lethal strike platform in the world adds to the already massive military buildup in the Caribbean of 10,000 US troops, at least eight war ships, P-8 surveillance planes, and F-35 jets deployed amid the Trump administration’s alleged counter-narcotics operations. US troops are also reportedly deploying to Trinidad and Tobago, mere miles from Venezuela, for five days of coordinated “military exercises”.
“It’s past time for Maduro to go. Keep it up, President Trump,” said Senator Lindsay Graham in an X post on Friday, October 24.
Venezuela is “a candidate for decisive military action on land, sea, or air” because it has for years been “a safe haven for drug cartels poisoning America,” Graham added.
During a White House address on October 23, US President Donald Trump said, “Now they’re coming in by land … I told them the land is gonna be next.”
“It’s very hard to find any floating vessel right now. In the Pacific or in the gulf,” Trump added.
Acknowledging the escalation that a land invasion would represent, Trump said, “We may go to the Congress and tell them about it but I can’t imagine they’ll have any problem with it.
On October 21 and 22, the US military also expanded their maritime operations to Colombia’s Pacific Coast, striking two boats near the South American country. The attacks marked the eighth and ninth such vessels blown up by the US, allegedly targeting drugs, but the first beyond the Caribbean Sea. Colombian President Gustavo Petro has called these attacks “murders” and violations of the country’s sovereignty.
At least 43 people have been extrajudicially executed in a total of ten boat bombings since September.
Petro defies Trump
Colombian President Gustavo Petro has been one of the most outspoken defenders of Venezuela amid the latest bout of US aggression, condemning the US military attacks in the region. At the UN General Assembly in September, Petro said the passengers on the boats were not narco traffickers but rather “poor young people from Latin America”. He went as far as to call for legal investigations into the US President for the extrajudicial killings:
“Criminal proceedings must be opened against those officials, who are from the US, even if it includes the highest-ranking official who gave the order: President Trump.”
Friction was already present then, especially after the US revoked the Colombian president’s visa over his remarks at the UNGA. Yet the tension sharply escalated this week. In a press conference last weekend, Petro declared, “Oil greed is behind the strategy that is firing missiles at fishermen.”
The Colombian head of state asserted that the US military aggression in the Caribbean and against Venezuela has nothing to do with fentanyl or drugs.
“What they want is Venezuela’s oil.”
To that end, the leftist president accused, the US is conducting “extrajudicial executions” in the Caribbean, in violation of international law. He also made a post on X, directly implicating the White House in the killing of a Colombian fisherman, in one of its missile strikes on a Caribbean vessel in mid-September.
“US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial waters,” Petro wrote.
The Latin American leader said that fisherman Alejandro Carranza “had no ties to the drug trade”, and emphasized that the small Colombian vessel had experienced an engine failure and “had its distress signal up”, seeking help when it was targeted by the US.
Trump unleashes threats on Colombia, and bombs off its coast
Petro’s comments aggravated US President Trump, who took to his Truth Social platform to call the Colombian president an “illegal drug leader” on Sunday.
In an apparent threat of direct military confrontation, Trump said Petro “better close up these killing fields immediately, or the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”
In response to Trump’s threats, Colombia recalled its ambassador to the US and asserted that Colombian troops would not support a potential military intervention in Venezuela.
“What Colombian would help invade where their own family lives, only to see them killed like in Gaza?” Petro said.
The diplomatic row continued through the week, with Trump announcing on Wednesday that all funds to Colombia had been cut and threatening higher tariffs.
“What happens if they take away aid? In my opinion, nothing,” Petro said in a news conference on Thursday. Confident in his country’s ability to mitigate the effects of tariffs, he claimed that Trump is unlikely to raise tariffs on oil and coal because of the potential consequences. Since these industries represent 60% of Colombia’s exports to the US, the majority of their trade is relatively safe, while alternative markets exist for other industries that may be more vulnerable.
Trump also doubled-down on his characterization of the Colombian president as a drug leader this week, as well as his threats of military confrontation.
“They’re doing very poorly, Colombia. They make cocaine. They have cocaine factories … he better watch it or we’ll take serious action against him and his country,” Trump said.
On October 24, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announced that he was levying sanctions against Petro and members of his family, alleging “cocaine production in Colombia has exploded to the highest rate in decades, flooding the United States and poisoning Americans.” Bessent insisted that “President Petro has allowed drug cartels to flourish and refused to stop this activity.”
In response, Petro declared that he would take legal action in the US justice system against Trump’s accusations.
“I will defend myself judicially with American lawyers in the American justice system” from the ‘slanders’ by high-ranking officials, said the leftist leader.
Although Washington decertified Colombia’s efforts to combat drug trafficking in September, claiming that the country is not doing enough in counter-narcotics, Petro says 17,000 cocaine factories have been destroyed under his government.
He has also pointed out that drug trafficking is concentrated in Ecuador. “It already seems that most of the export of cocaine through the Pacific is being made from the ports of Ecuador” turning it into the “largest cocaine export platform in the region.”
Amid the threats and accusations from the White House against Petro and his country, the US military targeted two small boats off the coast of Colombia this week, expanding its war at sea from the Caribbean into the Pacific.
Attempts to bolster the Colombian far-right ahead of elections
Another significant accusation that President Gustavo Petro has levied against the US, is that Trump’s military and diplomatic pressure against Colombia aims to boost far-right forces in the country ahead of elections.
Colombia’s presidential election is scheduled for May 31, 2026, and legislative elections will be held in March.
Petro, Colombia’s first leftist president, was elected in 2022. Since Colombia’s constitution doesn’t allow consecutive re-election, Petro will be leaving office next year. While his administration pursued major reforms in labor, social welfare, and foreign policy, many of those reforms have struggled in a divided Congress and a deeply polarized country.
In this context, the nation’s next president could have a major impact on whether Petro’s agenda and direction for the country continues, is slowed, or totally reversed.
Leading up to the elections, voters are undoubtedly paying close attention to how well this administration manages diplomatic crises, economic policy, and security. At such a critical time, threats, condemnations, and mischaracterizations from the US could feed opposition narratives about a leftist government being incompetent, “soft” on security, or uncooperative with counter-narcotics and the US military. Cuts in aid also represent a form of pressure, reducing the state’s capacity and even security in some cases, opening opportunities for the far right.
On the other hand, Washington’s aggression also risks provoking deeper unity in the country behind the leftist, sovereigntist direction. As Petro frames the US missile strikes as “violations of sovereignty” while the US continues to threaten confrontation or invasion, an anti-imperialist sentiment could quickly grow among his base.
At a critical moment for Colombia, Petro has argued that the purported “drug-trafficking operations” are instead a political tactic that aims to tip the scales internally in favor of US interests.
Regional solidarity with Colombia and Venezuela
The solidarity between Colombia and Venezuela has taken center stage this week as both countries find themselves under increasing pressure from the US. But there is a wave of solidarity growing across Latin America and the Caribbean and the rest of the world amidst the escalating aggression.
“The U.S. president has unleashed a series of lies and falsehoods aimed at linking President Petro and his government to illicit drug production,” denounced the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) in a statement released October 21.
The US is launching “threats of military action and unilateral coercive measures that constitute a flagrant violation of Colombia’s national sovereignty,” the regional forum declared.
On October 22, Venezuela’s Minister of Defense Vladimir Padrino Lopez announced that Colombia has the full support of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces.
“Anyone who refuses to kneel before US imperialism risks being called a narcotrafficker,” he said. The insult “offends not only [Petro] but also the Colombian people.”
In a televised address, Nicólas Maduro said, “Colombia knows that we are one … If they touch Venezuela they touch Colombia, we are one homeland of the heart.”
Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch
Baghdad to Caracas: Washington Manual on Sanctions & War
Over the last several weeks, Washington has escalated threats and hostilities against Venezuela, and US President Donald Trump openly confirmed that he authorized the CIA to carry out covert action against the country. These actions are concerning and represent a serious intensification of the war drive against the Caribbean country, and they also confirm what many have been saying for years, the US is heavily invested in what happens in Venezuela and is not afraid to use all tools at its disposal to impose its interests.
“Can anyone really believe the CIA hasn’t already been operating in Venezuela for 60 years?” Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro asked, after Trump announced the authorization of CIA activity in his country.
The answer, when viewed through the historical record of two centuries, confirms a pattern of continuous interference aimed at asserting US dominance over the entire hemisphere. The escalating threats of war emanating from the Trump administration against Caracas represent not a new policy, but the culmination of a longstanding project of regime change, one that bears profound and disturbing similarities to the drive for war against Iraq under the Bush administration.
Washington has always viewed Latin America and the Caribbean through the lens of the Monroe Doctrine, unilaterally reserving the region for US geopolitical dominance. The last two hundred years confirm a pattern of repeated, aggressive intervention. The most notorious recent examples, where US involvement spanned political support, intelligence operations, and direct military intervention, include the 1954 coup against Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala, the 1965 invasion of Dominican Republic that thwarted the return of a progressive government led by Juan Bosch, the 1973 coup that dismantled Salvador Allende’s socialist project in Chile, the 1983 plot to overthrow the government of Maurice Bishop and the invasion of Grenada, and the repeated overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 1991 and 2004. The 2009 coup in Honduras against the government of Mel Zelaya continued this tradition.
However, Venezuela has become the definitive target, facing more US-backed attempts at regime change than any other Latin American country in the last quarter-century. The obsession with reclaiming control over the country began shortly after Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998, a victory that signaled a radical shift away from US-sponsored neoliberal policies and the beginning of a period of major transformations from poverty reduction to regional integration led by a wave of left governments in Latin America. Washington actively supported numerous efforts to remove Chávez, notably a military coup in 2002 that was defeated by a mass uprising and the crippling 2002–2003 oil lockout aimed at shutting down the country’s most important source of revenue.
Under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, millions of dollars were funneled to drive Venezuela’s right-wing groups, often lacking a social base, into direct confrontation with the Venezuelan government through tactics that ranged from assassination plots to terrorist actions. This funding stream supported groups and leaders who, while posing as democratic opposition or non-governmental organizations, have consistently advocated for the violent removal of the country’s democratically elected government. One notable recipient of US funds, María Corina Machado, the far-right leader who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, built her political career on decades of advocacy for US and Israeli foreign intervention.
The pattern of support for regime change continued after Chávez’s suspicious death in 2013, which prompted many to wonder about a CIA plot. After the election of Nicolás Maduro, the Obama administration backed a violent protest wave in 2014, called guarimbas, marked by racist lynchings of Black supporters of the government by right-wing mobs. Maduro faced another sustained period of US-backed violent protests in 2017. A 21-year-old Afro-Venezuelan Orlando Figuera, was attacked and burned alive in Caracas by opposition activists in May 2017.
Economic siege intensified
In 2015, President Obama escalated rhetorical and economic pressure by declaring Venezuela an “extraordinary and unusual threat to US national security.” This charge was widely recognized as having no factual basis and was initially rejected even by some Venezuelan opposition leaders. Yet, the declaration provided the legal pretext for the imposition of sanctions, which initiated the collapse of the oil industry and devastated the Venezuelan economy.
Within a year of Trump’s first term, the US imposed even harsher sanctions, directly targeting Venezuela’s oil sector. Prior to the 2017 sanctions, the average monthly decline in oil production was approximately 1%. Following the August 2017 executive order to block Venezuela’s access to US financial markets, the rate of decline plummeted, falling at more than three times the previous rate. The August 2019 sanctions created the “legal” framework to seize billions in Venezuela’s foreign assets and specifically targeting the state oil company PDVSA and prohibiting exports to the US market, which previously absorbed over a third of Venezuela’s oil, delivered a catastrophic shock.
The Washington Office on Latin America (WOLA) documented that these sanctions caused the Venezuelan state to lose between USD 17 billion and USD 31 billion in potential oil revenue. This loss of hard currency directly reduced the state’s capacity to import food, medicine, and essential goods, increasing mortality rates and creating a real humanitarian crisis. The intensification of US sanctions, particularly those beginning in 2017, contributed to Venezuela experiencing the largest economic contraction in recorded Latin American history, with its Gross Domestic Product shrinking by an estimated 74.3% between 2014 and 2021.
The Iraq playbook, updated: sanctions as economic warfare
The first Trump administration applied a policy of “maximum pressure” to topple Maduro, formalizing the goal of regime change with unparalleled aggression. Apart from the application of punishing oil sanctions, it also led to the farcical backing of Juan Guaidó’s self-declaration as president in January 2019. This also led to the deployment then of US warships and the designation of the Maduro government as a “narco-terrorist” entity, echoing the pretexts for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This culminated in the subsequent financing of Operation Gideon, an inept maritime invasion by US-backed mercenaries in May 2020 that is now remembered as a “bay of piglets”.
The rhetorical parallels between the two campaigns are striking. In 2003, the Bush administration justified war on the basis of fabricated claims regarding Saddam Hussein’s possession of “weapons of mass destruction” (WMD) and alleged links to terrorism. Similarly, the Trump administration has sought to justify military and covert action in Venezuela by invoking the “narco-terrorism” narrative. Both were attempts to transform a political conflict into a pre-emptive security threat requiring military response.
Yet, the most profound similarity lies in the strategy of economic strangulation used against both nations. From 1990 until the 2003 invasion, comprehensive multilateral sanctions were imposed on Iraq, devastating its civilian population while failing to remove Saddam Hussein. These measures placed severe restrictions on Iraq’s oil exports and strictly controlled the import of goods. The effect was a humanitarian catastrophe, with studies estimating that the sanctions contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of children under the age of five due to malnutrition and a lack of clean water and medicine. Former Assistant Secretary of the United Nations, Denis Halliday, who resigned in protest, called the sanctions “genocidal.” The policy’s brutality was infamously summarized by then-US Ambassador to the UN Madeleine Albright, who, when asked if the deaths of half a million Iraqi children were “worth it,” replied, “We think the price is worth it.”
The sanctions on Venezuela, particularly those imposed in 2019 targeting the oil industry, replicated this collective punishment strategy with even greater initial severity. Unlike Iraq, which eventually received some relief through the UN-administered Oil-for-Food Program (despite US and UK efforts to block vital humanitarian supplies under a “dual-use” rationale), the Venezuelan government was immediately cut off from its primary source of foreign exchange. The Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR) argued that the sweeping nature of the 2019 sanctions created a near-total trade embargo that was possibly “more draconian” than the pre-war Iraq sanctions, noting the absence of any comparable humanitarian mechanism to mitigate the loss of billions in oil revenue.
Hegemony and the ideological challenge
The US interest in Venezuela extends beyond just taking control of the world’s largest oil reserves. The primary objective is ideological and political: overthrowing an independent government in Venezuela that has been both a source of support for other progressive governments and a stumbling block for US plans to impose far-right governments in the region. Venezuela’s government represents a node of resistance, and its successful overthrow would reassert the dominance of US foreign policy in the region, sending a clear message to other nations considering charting an independent political and economic course. The threat of intervention is thus not only about economics, but about defending the ideological integrity of the Monroe Doctrine in the 21st century.
The latest round of escalation of hostility toward Venezuela under Trump represents an acute and dangerous phase, marked by recent extrajudicial strikes in the Caribbean and explicit threats of land strikes. So far, at least 32 people have been killed in at least seven such attacks since early September. Some of the victims have been confirmed as citizens of Colombia and Trinidad and Tobago. The administration has accused the victims of being “narcoterrorists” without providing concrete proof, with their families asserting those killed were fishermen.
The campaign against Venezuela is fundamentally a continuation of a two-century effort to maintain imperial control over the region. Trump’s mad, relentless drive to topple Nicolás Maduro as part of a historical compulsion to assert dominance, not only through sanctions and support for internal unrest, but now through extrajudicial killings at sea and threats of land operations, has brought the region to the brink of a massive conflict. Such a war would not only be a disaster requiring a vast deployment of troops, but would almost certainly destabilize all of Latin America and spill far beyond Venezuela’s borders. However, a majority of the American people have shown they oppose using military force to invade Venezuela and a bipartisan resolution was raised by California Senator Adam Schiff and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul to block Trump from using force against Venezuela. Yet, the ultimate check on this dangerous adventure may yet rest with the American public, who must demand transparency and an immediate end to the march toward another disastrous war.
Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).
Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch
Trump Chooses War Over Diplomacy in the Caribbean
On October 6, US President Donald Trump ordered the termination of diplomacy with Venezuela. Richard Grenell, special presidential envoy, was directed by Trump to halt all diplomatic outreach and talks with Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
The move follows multiple US missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean Sea. Washington claims the operations target drug traffickers, but regional leaders and legal experts say they are escalating into an undeclared war against Venezuela.
Caracas calls for diplomacy, US abandons it for war
Grenell had previously been the primary negotiator between the two governments and was involved in US-Venezuela policy decisions in general.
Back in September, President Maduro sent a letter directly to Trump, calling for diplomacy and refuting the drug-trafficking accusations the White House has levied. He pointed out how crucial Grenell’s work had been in overcoming false reports and misunderstandings that had emerged around deportation flights from the US.
“This issue was swiftly resolved and clarified during discussions with Mr. Richard Grenell. This channel has functioned flawlessly to date,” the letter stated.
Maduro cited UN data demonstrating the country’s “impeccable record in the fight against international drug trafficking”.
“This and other matters will always be open for direct and frank discussion with your special envoy Grenell, so that we can overcome media noise and fake news.”
Weeks later, Grenell’s communication with Caracas was ceased completely by President Trump.
Washington’s total diplomatic disengagement suggests that hardliners like Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who have openly called for regime change in Venezuela, are now freely leading a more aggressive, militaristic approach toward the most oil-rich nation on earth.
On Thursday, October 9, Maduro filed a complaint with the UN Security Council, requesting an emergency session over US military actions in the Caribbean.
Airstrikes at sea
The US military has now carried out airstrikes on at least four small boats in the Caribbean, raising the reported death toll of Washington’s current military aggression in the region to 21. Officials say the campaign aims to combat alleged drug trafficking but have provided no evidence for the claim.
Airstrikes began on September 2, when 11 people – later identified as fishermen – were killed in a missile strike on the first targeted ship off the coast of Venezuela.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro recently announced that the fourth bombed boat was a Colombian vessel, accusing Trump of opening a “war scenario” in the region.
“This is no war against smuggling,” Petro said. “It is a war against oil and it must be stopped by the world.”
The Trump administration has denied Petro’s allegation that the vessel was Colombian, however, an anonymous US official confirmed to the New York Times that Colombian citizens were on board.
The uncharged, untried, and largely unidentified victims of the last month of US aggression are accused of being narcotraffickers by the Trump administration.
The US has deployed at least eight warships, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, several P-8 surveillance planes, and 4,000 military personnel to the waters of the Caribbean, as well as F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico.
The scale and level of aggression, combined with the lack of evidence for drug trafficking accusations, has raised questions about Washington’s true intentions with Venezuela. Sources inside the Trump administration told NBC News in September, “The goal is to force Maduro to make rash decisions that could ultimately lead to his ouster – without American boots on the ground.”
US is waging an “armed conflict” against “unlawful combatants”, declares Trump
Legal experts, US lawmakers, and anti-war groups have asserted that military force in international waters is illegal, violating both international and US law, bypassing due process and law enforcement norms, and lacking any clear justification.
In an apparent attempt to provide some legal basis for the hostilities, President Trump sent a report to Congress last week declaring that the US military is engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels and has killed “unlawful combatants” in the Caribbean.
The president has “designated [cartels] as terrorist organizations, and determined that their actions constitute an armed attack against the United States,” Earl Matthews, the Pentagon’s general counsel told lawmakers, as reported by CNN.
The report sent to Congress is required by law (Section 1543a United States Code) whenever US military forces are engaged in hostilities, but it doesn’t automatically grant or expand the legal basis for a military campaign.
However, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth already cited the recent “legal justification” by President Trump when pressed on Sunday about the most recent airstrike at sea. “We have every authorization needed,” Hegseth told Fox News. “These [cartels] are designated as foreign terrorist organizations.”
Although some senators have questioned “the legal rationale, the mission itself, and the intel surrounding the strikes”, a war powers bill that would have limited Trump’s power, halting further airstrikes on boats without authorization from Congress, was voted down on Thursday, October 9.
The White House insists that its “armed conflict” is legal and constitutional. Yet experts and critics say Trump is waging a secret war against undefined enemies, without fully informing Congress or the people of the US – who overwhelmingly reject US intervention in Venezuela. Polls show that only 16% of Americans would support a US invasion of the country.
Threats of land strikes
Despite widespread opposition, President Trump has openly threatened a direct US attack on Venezuela. During an event on October 5 at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia, he praised the Navy for how successful the missile strikes on alleged drug boats have been.
“We’ll have to start looking about the land because they’ll be forced to go by land,” he said.
The threat came days after NBC News reported that US military officials had in fact already drawn up plans for drone strikes within Venezuelan territory.
Venezuela belongs to Venezuelans, declares Maduro
Caracas has attempted to open dialogue with special envoy Richard Grenell, President Trump himself, and now the UN Security Council. Amid its diplomatic efforts, the country has also made massive efforts to increase its security and defense capabilities.
On October 6, Maduro announced that Venezuelan security forces had foiled a “false flag” plot by local extremists to bomb the US embassy in Caracas, in an apparent attempt to justify US military provocation. Maduro assured that his administration would reinforce security measures to protect the embassy “despite all the differences we have had with the governments of the United States.”
As soon as the US military deployment was announced by Marco Rubio in August, Venezuela mobilized its 4.5 million members of the Bolivarian National Militia. However, after enlistment campaigns calling on the Venezuelan people to defend the country’s sovereignty against US aggression, 8 million people signed up to join the militia, raising the total size of the force to over 12 million civilian combatants, according to the government. The country has conducted advanced training across the entire territory and the Caribbean Sea to consolidate its defense forces and prepare for any US attack.
“What they want is war in the Caribbean and South America. For a regime change to impose a puppet government and steal the oil, gas, and gold,” the president of the Bolivarian Republic proclaimed during the inauguration of a massive hospital in Caracas.
“But we have news for the North American empire,” he continued. “That oil, that gas, that gold, this land, and this people will continue to belong to Venezuelans. And we will never allow our homeland to be violated or touched. Never!”
Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch
