The President of the United States, Donald Trump, assures that he has already made a decision on Venezuela and on what the next steps will be in the military campaign he ordered against “narcoterrorism” in the waters of the Caribbean and the Pacific. But he did not want to reveal what his plans consist of.
“I’ve more or less decided,” he told the press as he accompanied him on board the plane. Air Force One in which he was traveling to spend the weekend at his private residence in Florida, Mar-a-Lago. “I can’t tell you what (the decision) is, but we’ve made great progress with Venezuela in terms of preventing the invasion of drugs” into the United States, he said.
Trump’s statements came after he held numerous meetings with his national security team to analyze various options for the military campaign, including the possibility of direct strikes against targets on Venezuelan territory. The talks took place after the world’s largest warship, the aircraft carrier, arrived in the area Gerard Fordthe most modern of the American Navy, to join the flotilla of a dozen ships that have been in the international waters of the Caribbean for three months, on the border with Venezuelan territorial waters.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Chief of Staff Gen. Dan Caine presented Trump with several possibilities in a briefing Wednesday. That meeting was followed by another on Friday, the newspaper reported Washington Post.
On Thursday Hegseth announced in a message on social networks the start of a major operation against “narcoterrorism” in Latin America, nicknamed the Spear of the South. US forces have already begun to include in this operation the attacks they carried out against alleged drug traffickers in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, which already exceed twenty and have caused at least eighty deaths.
In recent weeks, Trump and his advisers have sent mixed signals about what Washington’s goals are with this operation. The president had stated on several occasions that attacks against suspected drug vessels had succeeded in preventing the arrival of drugs in the United States and that, since the trafficking of suspected vessels had decreased dramatically, the next step would be “actions on land”. But he had since toned down his rhetoric somewhat.
In an interview given to the program 60 minutes on the CBS television network, the Republican agreed that Maduro’s days in power “are numbered” but considered the idea of a U.S. war with Venezuela unlikely. And in a briefing on Capitol Hill ten days ago, led by Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, administration representatives denied that the campaign was considering an attack on Venezuela.
The US government justifies its military campaign as necessary to combat the drug trafficking that kills tens of thousands of people in this country every year. Numerous experts, human rights defenders and legislators denounce that this is an illegal mission, among other things because it does not have the authorization of the United States Congress. The Administration has included many cartels on its list of international terrorist organizations. Arguing that its members are enemy combatants, it believes it is in a “direct, non-international armed conflict” with these groups and does not need Capitol approval.
The enormous size of the deployment has raised suspicions that the real goal is to force the end of the Chavista regime, either through direct action in Venezuela or by exerting psychological pressure that triggers an internal coup. For months now, Washington has increasingly linked Maduro to drug trafficking cartels; He accuses him of being the leader of these organizations and believes that his regime, overwhelmed by international sanctions, survives only thanks to the proceeds of this deadly smuggling; In August, the reward offered for his capture was increased to $50 million.
Adding to the pressure of attacks against suspected drug ships are bomber training flights near the Venezuelan coast and Trump’s authorization for the CIA to carry out covert actions inside Venezuela.
