Two US warships, the destroyer USS Stockdale and the cruiser USS Gettysburg, yesterday moved within 50 kilometers of the Venezuelan coast, while the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford led the new operation “Southern Spear”, launched Thursday evening by Washington to dismantle narco-terrorism networks in the region. In a show of force, CBS sources revealed, Donald Trump has been presented with concrete military options to attack Venezuela “in the coming days”, including a ground attack. A leap in quality that goes beyond classic anti-drug operations: there is also the hypothesis of a ground attack or targeted attack against Venezuela’s de facto president Nicolás Maduro.
In Caracas, which today marks the first anniversary of the imprisonment of 46-year-old Italian aid worker Alberto Trentini, Maduro fears he will end up like Qaasem Soleimani, the historic commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards who led an elite team of top-secret operations of ayatollahs, who were eliminated with missiles on Trump’s own orders, during his first presidential term. This is why on the one hand Maduro denounces the “imperialist threat” and on the other hand urges Donald to “make peace”. A plea that expresses all the nervousness of a regime that is aware that it is now on the brink. It is no coincidence that on the same day, the ultra-luxury jet that Maduro gave Díaz-Canel took off from Havana for Caracas to prepare to pick up the Chavista leader and place him safely in a friendly country if the crisis worsens in the next hours or days.
Meanwhile the Chavista Parliament has reported an alleged “invasion attempt” to the UN, while the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Yván Gil, spoke of “unilateral aggression” and US maneuvers “for regime change”. The Kremlin has warned Washington not to “destabilize the Caribbean”, and criticized the US bombing of narcotics ships in an operation that has caused 80 deaths in the past two months.
But in reality, the presence of Gerald Ford and his entire fighter group of F/A-18 Super Hornets, B-52s, destroyers, submarines and special forces represents the largest US deployment in the Caribbean Sea since the turn of the century. And the stated goal of US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is clear: “Eliminate narco-terrorists from our hemisphere and protect the homeland.” A message addressed to Maduro, who has been accused for years of coordinating a growing international drug trade.
Meanwhile, the 85th flight of 2025 landed in Caracas carrying Venezuelans expelled from the United States: 279 people from Texas, in another sign of the impact this crisis is having on US politics.
And although Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado, who was forced into hiding for 15 months, denounced that “if the regime finds me, then I will disappear”, a Reuters/Ipsos poll published yesterday revealed that only 29% of US citizens support military action against narcotics in the Caribbean Sea.
