Trump’s End Game on Venezuela? Combating Drug Trafficking, Regime Change, or Both?

The White House has spent recent months keeping Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, guessing about President Donald Trump’s desired end game in the region.

The administration has amassed a robust U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean, killing dozens of people in targeted strikes on alleged drug boats while increasing its reward offer for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the Venezuelan dictator to $50 million. Trump warned airline companies, pilots, drug runners, and human traffickers late last month that the “airspace above and surrounding Venezuela” should be considered “closed in its entirety.” And he suggested on Thanksgiving that land strikes in Venezuela were imminent: “The land is easier. That’s going to start very soon. We warned them, stop sending poison into our country.”

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Audrey Fahlberg

Audrey Fahlberg was a politics reporter for National Review.

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The White House has spent recent months keeping Venezuela’s authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro, guessing about President Donald Trump’s desired end game in the region.

The administration has amassed a robust U.S. naval presence in the Caribbean, killing dozens of people in targeted strikes on alleged drug boats while increasing its reward offer for information leading to the arrest or conviction of the Venezuelan dictator to $50 million. Trump warned airline companies, pilots, drug runners, and human traffickers late last month that the “airspace above and surrounding Venezuela” should be considered “closed in its entirety.” And he suggested on Thanksgiving that land strikes in Venezuela were imminent: “The land is easier. That’s going to start very soon. We warned them, stop sending poison into our country.”