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Venezuela - Covert Operations

US President Donald Trump confirmed on 15 October 2025 that he had authorized CIA operations on Venezuelan soil. The New York Times earlier reported that the decision would allow intelligence operatives to carry out lethal operations against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, whose government Trump has accused of running “narco-terrorist” cartels and flooding the US with cocaine and fentanyl.

Trump publicly confirmed that he had signed a presidential finding authorizing the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct lethal covert operations within Venezuela. This directive marked a significant escalation in the administration’s strategy to oust Nicolás Maduro, moving the conflict into a shadow war phase. The authorization specifically granted the CIA the power to carry out sabotage, cyberwarfare, and targeted lethal actions against regime infrastructure and leadership figures, operating either unilaterally or in coordination with broader military efforts. Administration officials, including CIA Director John Ratcliffe, justified the move as a necessary step to dismantle what they labeled a "narcoterrorist" state run by the Cartel de los Soles.

While the President opted for covert action as the primary mechanism for regime change—avoiding an immediate full-scale ground invasion—this decision was framed by an aggressive overt military campaign that had already begun weeks earlier. On September 2, 2025, Trump announced the first U.S. military strike on a Venezuelan vessel in the Caribbean, an attack that resulted in eleven deaths. The administration characterized the boat as a drug-smuggling vessel linked to the Maduro regime, setting a precedent for a series of maritime strikes that continued throughout the fall.

The military pressure intensified significantly in November 2025 with the formal commencement of "Operation Southern Spear." On November 13, 2025, the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group arrived in the Caribbean to support the operation, representing the largest U.S. military projection in the region since the invasion of Panama in 1989. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that the deployment was intended to cut off the financial lifelines of the Maduro regime by physically interdicting drug routes in both the Caribbean and the Eastern Pacific. This naval blockade effectively served as the anvil to the CIA's hammer, squeezing the Venezuelan government from the outside while covert operatives worked to destabilize it from within.

Despite the aggressive kinetic actions, the strategy also included a diplomatic off-ramp. On November 19, 2025, reports surfaced that the White House had reopened back-channel negotiations with Caracas. These discussions reportedly involved high-level intermediaries and centered on a proposal where Maduro would agree to step down following a transition period in exchange for security guarantees. This diplomatic track suggested that the lethal covert action and military posturing were largely designed as leverage to force a negotiated surrender rather than to commit the United States to a protracted conventional war in South America.

On October 15, 2025, a reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office, “Why did you authorize the CIA to go into Venezuela?” “I authorized for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. They came in through the border. They came in because we had an open-border policy. And as soon as I heard that, I said, a lot of these countries… They're not the only country, but they're the worst abuser. And they've allowed thousands and thousands of prisoners, people from mental institutions, insane asylums emptied out into the United States. We're bringing them back, but that's a really bad… And they did it at a level that probably not… Many, many countries have done it, but not like Venezuela. They were down and dirty. The other thing of drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela. And a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that. But we're going to stop them by land also.” Trump declined to clarify whether the CIA is authorized to “take out Maduro.” “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, but I think a lot of other countries are feeling heat too.”

Trump imposed sweeping sanctions on Venezuela during his first term and has recently raised the bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million. The US has deployed a naval armada to the eastern Caribbean, and since September has destroyed at least five boats allegedly smuggling drugs from Venezuela. Maduro has denied the allegations of aiding cartels and accused the US of seeking to topple him, adding that the Venezuelan military is ready to repel a potential invasion.

President Donald Trump's confirmation that his administration authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela marked an extraordinary public acknowledgment of classified intelligence activities. Speaking at a White House news conference on October 15, Trump stated that he greenlit the CIA operations for two primary reasons. First, he alleged that Venezuela had emptied its prisons and sent criminals into the United States through what he characterized as an open border. Second, he cited drug trafficking, claiming that significant quantities of narcotics were flowing from Venezuela through Caribbean sea routes, though his administration has yet to provide substantive evidence to support these assertions.

The CIA authorization represents a significant escalation in United States pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and comes alongside a broader military campaign in the Caribbean region. The intelligence directive reportedly grants the CIA lethal authority to conduct operations across the Caribbean and potentially inside Venezuelan territory itself. When pressed by reporters about whether the CIA had authority to target or remove Maduro directly, Trump deflected, calling it a question he wouldn't answer but adding that Venezuela was feeling the heat from American actions. The authorization was first reported by The New York Times, with officials indicating that regime change is the ultimate objective of the Trump administration's Venezuela strategy.

This covert action directive exists within a wider context of escalating military operations. Since early September, the United States military has conducted at least five publicly acknowledged strikes on boats in Caribbean waters, killing a total of twenty-seven people. Trump has characterized these vessels as drug-trafficking operations run by terrorist organizations, particularly pointing to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, which his administration has designated as a foreign terrorist organization. The first strike occurred on September 1, killing eleven people aboard a vessel that allegedly departed from the northeastern Venezuelan state of Sucre. Subsequent strikes followed on September 15, September 19, October 3, and October 14, each resulting in multiple fatalities.

The administration's legal justification for these operations rests on a controversial framework. In early October, Trump formally notified Congress that the United States considers itself to be in a non-international armed conflict with designated drug cartels, treating smugglers as unlawful combatants subject to military force under the law of armed conflict. This represents the first publicly acknowledged United States airstrikes in Central or South America since the 1989 invasion of Panama. However, serious questions have emerged about both the legal basis and the factual premises of these operations. The administration has not provided hard evidence to lawmakers that the targeted vessels actually contained narcotics, relying instead on unclassified video clips posted to social media by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

The strikes have drawn criticism from legal experts and lawmakers across the political spectrum. International law scholars argue that the operations violate both the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and the United Nations Charter, which require consent from sovereign states for law enforcement operations on their territory or cooperation mechanisms for maritime interdiction. Democratic Senator Jeanne Shaheen warned that the authorization of covert CIA action, combined with lethal strikes on boats and hints at land operations, slides the United States closer to outright conflict with no transparency, oversight, or guardrails. Even some Republican lawmakers have expressed concern about the legal authority and strategic wisdom of the campaign, though others like Senator Jim Risch have defended Trump's approach.

The military buildup supporting these operations has been substantial. In August, the United States deployed more than four thousand Marines and sailors aboard the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group to waters around Latin America and the Caribbean. This naval presence, unprecedented in recent decades for the region, has been accompanied by increased fighter jets and military equipment at bases including those in Puerto Rico. Trump has indicated that if smugglers stop using sea routes, his administration would consider moving operations onto Venezuelan land, effectively threatening ground operations inside the sovereign territory of another nation.

Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has responded forcefully to these developments, characterizing them as an undeclared war and an attempt at regime change orchestrated by Washington. During a televised event with the National Council for Sovereignty and Peace, Maduro invoked historical CIA interventions in Latin America, referencing the thirty thousand disappeared during Argentina's military dictatorship and the 1973 coup in Chile. He specifically rejected what he called regime change operations reminiscent of failed interventions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya. The Venezuelan government filed a formal complaint with the United Nations Security Council and Secretary General, asserting that American actions constitute serious violations of international law and the UN Charter. Maduro's administration argues that the true purpose of United States actions is to legitimize a regime change operation with the ultimate goal of seizing control of Venezuela's vast oil resources.

The Trump administration's Venezuela policy is being driven primarily by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, both of whom have long advocated for Maduro's removal from power. The administration has labeled Maduro a narcoterrorist and placed a fifty-million-dollar bounty on his head for drug trafficking charges. This strategy frames the Venezuelan government itself as essentially a criminal cartel operation, with Trump officials claiming that Maduro controls the Cartel of the Suns, a purported transnational drug organization. However, a classified United States intelligence report from April found no evidence of direct links between senior Maduro officials and the Tren de Aragua gang, though it noted that Venezuela's permissive environment enables criminal organizations to operate.

The factual basis for the administration's claims about Venezuelan drug trafficking has been challenged by multiple sources. According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, approximately ninety percent of cocaine bound for the United States transits through the eastern Pacific and western Caribbean, not near Venezuela's coast. Most coca cultivation occurs in Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia, with main trafficking routes running through those countries rather than Venezuela. The Drug Enforcement Administration has reported that eighty-four percent of cocaine seized in the United States originates from Colombia and that fentanyl entering America is produced in Mexico using precursor chemicals from China, not Venezuela. These facts complicate the administration's narrative that Venezuela represents the primary drug threat justifying military action.

The covert CIA operations now authorized could take various forms based on historical patterns of American intelligence activities in Latin America. Such operations might involve working with opposition figures inside Venezuela to foment internal instability, gathering intelligence for targeted military strikes against regime figures, facilitating defections from the Venezuelan military or intelligence services, or supporting opposition movements with training, funding, and coordination. The CIA has extensive historical experience with regime change operations throughout Latin America, from Guatemala in 1954 through Nicaragua in the 1980s to attempted interventions in Cuba spanning decades. Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, who was awarded the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize, has publicly called for greater American support in what she describes as removing Maduro's criminal narco-terrorism structure, though her endorsement of foreign intervention has proven controversial.

The domestic political dimensions of this confrontation are complex. Maduro has used the American military pressure to rally nationalist sentiment and consolidate his domestic political base, portraying Venezuela as defending its sovereignty against imperial aggression. Political analysts note that Trump's public acknowledgment of CIA operations, while highly unusual, serves as political theater aimed at demonstrating toughness to his domestic audience regarding border security and drug trafficking issues. The Venezuelan government has responded by increasing internal surveillance mechanisms and preparing for potential military escalation, with Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino announcing that 4.5 million militia members stand ready to defend Venezuelan territory.

International reaction has been mixed, with many Latin American governments expressing concern about unilateral American military action in the region. Critics warn that escalation could worsen Latin America's largest modern displacement crisis, as millions of Venezuelans have already fled the country's economic collapse and political repression. Human rights organizations have condemned the strikes as violations of the right to life and due process, noting that alleged drug traffickers targeted in international waters have been killed without trial or definitive proof of their activities. More than sixty United States-based human rights, faith, and policy groups sent a letter to Congress warning that Trump's expansion of military operations in the Caribbean could result in a full-blown limitless war with one or more countries in the region.

The strategic implications of openly authorizing CIA covert operations are significant. Historically, such activities remain classified precisely because public acknowledgment can undermine intelligence relationships, expose methods, and create diplomatic complications. Trump's decision to confirm the authorization breaks with decades of practice regarding intelligence operations. Some analysts suggest this reflects the administration's desire to project strength and send deterrent signals to Maduro, while others argue it represents reckless disregard for intelligence protocols and international norms. The authorization also raises questions about congressional oversight, as covert action findings typically require notification to congressional intelligence committees under the National Security Act, though the extent and nature of such notification in this case remains unclear.

The economic dimensions of the conflict cannot be ignored. Venezuela possesses the world's largest proven oil reserves, and American policy toward the country has long been intertwined with energy security considerations. While the Trump administration frames its actions in terms of border security and counternarcotics, the Maduro government insists that control of Venezuelan oil resources represents the true American objective. Trump ended diplomatic talks with Maduro and has made regime change a central policy goal, contrasting with previous administrations that maintained channels for negotiation even while imposing sanctions. The complete breakdown of diplomatic engagement leaves military pressure as the primary tool of American policy.

Looking forward, the situation appears poised for further escalation. Trump's comments about potentially moving operations onto Venezuelan land suggest that airstrikes within Venezuela's borders could be forthcoming. The Pentagon is reportedly preparing multiple options for the president, including strikes on targets inside Venezuelan territory that the administration characterizes as part of narcoterrorist networks. Such operations would represent an even more dramatic violation of Venezuelan sovereignty and could trigger responses from Maduro that might include attacks on American interests in the region or increased cooperation with American adversaries like China and Russia, both of which have substantial investments in Venezuela. The risk of miscalculation or unintended escalation into broader military conflict remains significant, particularly given the lack of diplomatic channels for crisis management.