As the USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, loomed off the coast of Venezuela in late October 2025, tensions between the United States and the South American nation reached a fever pitch. In a televised address, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro accused the U.S. government of "fabricating a new eternal war" against him, warning his nation and the world of what he described as an orchestrated campaign by the Trump administration to justify military aggression. "They promised they would never again get involved in a war and they are fabricating a war that we will avoid," Maduro declared, his voice steady but defiant, according to coverage by The New York Times.
The U.S. had not only moved the massive carrier, capable of hosting up to 90 aircraft and attack helicopters, closer to Venezuelan waters, but had also intensified its counternarcotics operations in the Caribbean. American forces destroyed several boats off Venezuela’s coast, actions justified by U.S. officials as strikes against drug traffickers. These attacks, however, resulted in at least 43 deaths, a toll that has sparked outrage among human rights advocates and raised uncomfortable questions about the legality and morality of such operations.
President Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly accused Maduro—without providing concrete evidence—of being the mastermind behind the notorious Tren de Aragua gang, which he designated a terrorist organization. "They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one," Maduro insisted in his broadcast. "Venezuela is a country that does not produce cocaine leaves." His words echoed the skepticism of many observers who note that Tren de Aragua, while infamous for contract killings, extortion, and human smuggling, has never been considered a major player in global drug trafficking.
Behind the headlines, however, lies a deeper story of how U.S. counternarcotics policy has shifted dramatically in recent years—a shift rooted in Pentagon thinking that predates Trump’s presidency. According to a 2015 report quietly issued by the federally funded Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA) and obtained by The Intercept, the Department of Defense had long been exploring ways to take a more direct military role in the war on drugs. The report, based on interviews with 62 drug-world figures—including 10 described by the DEA as leaders of top trafficking organizations—recommended "more direct military action" against cartels, including "expanded targeting (kinetic and non-kinetic) of top lieutenants."
While the authors of the report, including retired DEA chief Joseph Keefe and former acting DEA administrator William Simpkins, expressed mixed feelings about such aggressive tactics, the mentality they documented has clearly influenced current policy. "The bad guys, the Iraqis we were fighting, were similar to the bad guys Drug Enforcement fights," Keefe told The Intercept, recalling how his team drew parallels between insurgents in Iraq and cartel operatives. Simpkins, for his part, was blunt in his criticism of the new approach: "To me, blowing up that first boat is an extrajudicial killing—let’s face it." He added, "Most of these mutts, even if they were members of that organization, they probably weren’t among the most important members."
The legal and ethical lines have grown increasingly blurred. As one attorney whose client was interviewed for the Pentagon report put it, "There’s a huge difference between the Coast Guard or the Navy boarding what they suspect to be a boat with drugs coming into the United States, and prosecuting those people ... and the summary execution of suspected drug dealers. And now we’ve crossed that line."
Trump has embraced the language of "narcoterrorism" to justify these military actions, arguing that importing drugs into the United States constitutes terrorism and warrants the use of force. In a recent Truth Social post, he boasted, "This morning, on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists." Congressional oversight has been sidelined, as administration lawyers insist that these strikes target "designated terrorist organizations" and are part of a "noninternational armed conflict"—terms critics say are legally meaningless.
The Pentagon report itself, however, offers a much more nuanced view of what actually drives the success of transnational drug organizations. Nearly every trafficker interviewed pointed to official corruption as the "most important factor" for their operations. Bribes, they revealed, could buy anything from advanced warning of police raids ($10,000) to the assassination of rivals by security officials ($5-10 million). One Colombian organization even employed a "corruption whip" in each chamber of Congress to coordinate payoffs and monitor votes. The report’s authors concluded that fighting corruption and supporting law enforcement would be far more effective than military strikes or extrajudicial killings.
Yet, since Trump’s return to office, the administration’s focus has shifted away from anti-corruption initiatives. The State Department ordered an end to reporting on international human rights abuses and corruption, and the president suspended enforcement of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act for four months. When enforcement resumed, the Department of Justice announced that cartels would become the focus of anti-corruption efforts, while so-called "generally accepted business courtesies" by legitimate corporations would no longer be scrutinized.
According to Latin American historian Alexander Aviña, this rhetoric and policy shift are part of a much longer tradition. "The idea of narco-terrorism has been a really powerful idea that the right has used against Latin America since the early to mid-1980s," Aviña explained to The Intercept. The war on drugs, he argues, has been increasingly fused with the war on terror, providing a pretext for U.S. military intervention in the region.
The human costs of this approach are mounting. The destruction of boats off Venezuela’s coast—resulting in dozens of deaths—has drawn criticism from legal experts and former law enforcement officials alike. Simpkins, reflecting on his decades in the field, was skeptical that military action would ever solve the problem: "As long as there’s demand, the supply is going to keep coming in. Locking everybody up hasn’t been able to solve it. Blowing up 11 people on a rickety, shitty boat isn’t going to solve it."
Meanwhile, Maduro’s grip on power remains contentious. Accused of stealing the 2024 election, he faces calls for his removal from the U.S. and other countries. Yet the U.S. intelligence community has reportedly found little evidence to support the Trump administration’s claims of direct links between Maduro and the Tren de Aragua gang. The narrative of "narcoterrorism" persists, however, fueling a cycle of escalation that shows no sign of ending soon.
As warships shadow Venezuela’s shores and rhetoric ratchets ever higher, the real battle may be over which vision of the drug war prevails: one of bombs and boats, or one that tackles the corruption and demand that fuel the trade from within.