The long shadow of U.S. interventionism in Latin America has grown darker and more complex in recent months, as the Trump administration’s campaign against Venezuela escalates into a military and intelligence operation reminiscent of the Cold War’s most turbulent chapters. According to multiple reports, including detailed coverage by EL PAÍS and The Guardian, the United States has shifted from economic sanctions and diplomatic pressure to covert CIA missions, open military action, and psychological warfare targeting the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Since September 2, 2025, at least six extrajudicial operations have been carried out by U.S. forces in Caribbean waters. These deadly strikes have resulted in the deaths of at least 27 people, including Venezuelans, Colombians, and citizens of Trinidad and Tobago. Two survivors—a Colombian and an Ecuadorian—were detained and are awaiting repatriation. The United Nations has condemned these attacks as “extrajudicial executions” that violate international law, a charge that has sparked outrage across the region and drawn sharp rebukes from human rights advocates, as reported by The Guardian.
The Trump administration, however, appears undeterred. In a press conference at the White House on October 15, President Trump was asked directly about his authorization of CIA operations in Venezuela. He offered a characteristically evasive response: “Oh, I don’t want to answer a question like that. That’s a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn’t it be a ridiculous question for me to answer? But I think Venezuela is feeling heat.” According to ABC News, this marked an unprecedented public admission of covert action, signaling a new, more transparent phase of U.S. interventionism.
Behind the scenes, the strategy is no less aggressive. The New York Times reported that Trump has ordered the CIA “to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela,” with the explicit goal of regime change. Senior administration officials, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, have been identified as architects of this campaign. Privately, American officials have been clear that the end goal is to force Maduro from power, as confirmed by The New York Times.
The military buildup in the Caribbean is equally striking. The U.S. has deployed approximately 10,000 troops, eight warships, and a submarine to the region, all poised for further escalation. In a dramatic show of force, three B-52 bombers—capable of carrying nuclear weapons—were ordered to fly off the coast of Venezuela. According to ABC News, this move was intended to send an unmistakable message to Maduro: the U.S. is prepared to act decisively if he refuses to step down.
These actions have not gone unnoticed by Latin America’s diplomatic community. Embassies from countries with significant drug trafficking organizations, such as Mexico and Colombia, are watching with a mix of anxiety and hope. As a diplomatic source in Washington told EL PAÍS, “There’s a fear of who might be next. And also a certain confidence that countries that maintain a good relationship [with Washington] will be spared. Although with this administration, you never know.”
The official justification for this campaign is the fight against drug trafficking. Trump has repeatedly claimed that Venezuela is a major source of drugs entering the United States, using this narrative to rationalize military intervention. However, this assertion has been widely debunked. Data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) show that the vast majority of the world’s cocaine originates from Colombia (65%), with Peru and Bolivia accounting for nearly all the rest. Venezuela’s role is negligible. Even former Biden administration officials, such as Juan Sebastián González, have publicly stated that “the reason that drugs have never originated from Venezuela … is because Venezuela has one of the largest oil reserves in the world; they have the largest gold reserves in Latin America. So there has never been a need for them to develop a native drug-producing industry,” as quoted by CNN.
Instead, critics argue that the real motivation is Venezuela’s vast natural resources. The Financial Times has reported that at stake are “the world’s largest proven oil reserves and valuable deposits of gold, diamonds and coltan.” An anonymous American businessman told the paper, “What Trump wants in Venezuela is oil, minerals and gold… He wants US companies down there investing.” This view is echoed by María Corina Machado, a Venezuelan opposition leader with long-standing ties to U.S. government funding. In an interview with Donald Trump Jr., Machado declared, “We’re going to privatize all our industry. Venezuela has huge resources: oil, gas, minerals, land, technology… American companies are in, you know, a super strategic position to invest.”
The echoes of history are hard to ignore. Throughout the 20th century, Washington’s interventionism in Latin America was driven by a mix of strategic, economic, and ideological interests. The infamous Monroe Doctrine and its Roosevelt Corollary provided the legal and moral cover for dozens of interventions, from the 1954 coup in Guatemala to the 1989 invasion of Panama. The CIA, in particular, played a central role in orchestrating coups, supporting death squads, and conducting covert operations across the continent—from the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile to the arming of the Contras in Nicaragua. As EL PAÍS notes, “The CIA was the direct executor of coup plots, assassination plots, and the rise of the Contra insurgency in Sandinista Nicaragua in the 1980s.”
Yet Venezuela, until the rise of Hugo Chávez, was largely spared from direct intervention. Relations remained stable thanks to shared economic interests, particularly in oil. That changed with Chávez’s ascent and the subsequent emergence of the Chavista movement, which openly challenged U.S. influence. The current crisis is, in many ways, the culmination of years of escalating tension—now reaching a boiling point under Trump’s aggressive posture.
The fallout from this new chapter is already being felt. The withdrawal of the head of the Southern Command two years ahead of schedule, as reported by EL PAÍS, has fueled speculation about internal disagreements within the U.S. military over the scope and direction of the campaign. Meanwhile, the threat of ground incursions looms, with Trump announcing a “second phase” of the offensive. As Sergio Guzmán, director of Colombia Risk Analysis, told EL PAÍS, “It would be very naive to think that the CIA began operating after Trump said so. All of this has a performative dimension. What is going on is that before, we knew the United States had that capability, and now we know it also has the intention.”
For many in Latin America, these developments are a chilling reminder of the past. The specter of U.S.-backed coups, death squads, and economic subjugation still haunts the region. Whether the current campaign against Venezuela marks a return to those dark days or the beginning of a new, even more transparent era of intervention remains to be seen. But one thing is clear: the stakes—for Venezuela, for the United States, and for the entire hemisphere—have rarely been higher.
