After another week of extra-judicial strikes on vessels in the Caribbean and Pacific, the U.S. is now reportedly preparing to hit military targets in Venezuela.
International condemnation of the strikes has been widespread. For example, Jean-Noël Barrot, French Minister of Foreign Affairs and Europe, accused the U.S. of ignoring international and maritime law in an interview on Thursday.
But the neoconservative lobby inside the Trump administration is unmoved.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the lead proponent of regime change in Venezuela, has pushed for these actions — allegedly as part of an effort to get tough on drug cartels, framing the Latin American nation through a “narco-terrorism” lens.
Washington’s “narco-terrorism” frame has pedigree; the DOJ indicted Maduro on narco-terrorism charges in 2020, but today’s drug threat picture looks different from that narrative.
Strategically, the label misaligns ends and means: it invites military solutions to problems that the DEA and Coast Guard still characterize primarily as law-enforcement interdiction.
It also simplifies a complex geopolitical picture, all the while increasing the risk of entangling the U.S. in an open-ended conflict in the Western Hemisphere.
The DEA’s 2024–2025 threat assessments identify fentanyl as the top U.S. drug danger, synthesized mainly in Mexico with precursors from China. Meanwhile, UNODC data show record coca cultivation and cocaine output centered in Colombia, with Venezuela functioning primarily as a transit route.
Yet, Washington’s “counternarcotics” rhetoric has already translated into military escalation, and with it come significant diplomatic, economic, and political risks.
Escalation might threaten U.S. energy interests, particularly Chevron’s limited license to import Venezuelan crude, a lifeline for U.S. Gulf Coast refineries that remain reliant on the country’s uniquely heavy oil.
Escalation could also bolster Maduro rather than undermine him. For a leader whose “anti-imperialist rhetoric” enhances domestic legitimacy, U.S. aggression is politically beneficial.
Caracas has already surged troops and naval deployments along key coastal routes and encouraged auxiliary mobilization, explicitly linking the moves to U.S. buildups in the Caribbean.
Hellbound and Down 