Tag: venezuela

Hegseth Doesn’t Rule Out Regime Change in Venezuela, Suggests More US Strikes on Boats Are Coming

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday didn’t rule out the possibility of the US military pursuing regime change in Venezuela and suggested more US strikes on boats in the region were coming.

Hegseth made the comments in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday morning, the day after the US bombed a boat in the Southern Caribbean that it claimed without evidence was carrying drugs, marking the first US kinetic military action in the name of combating drug trafficking, though the real purpose of the attack may be part of a new push to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.

“We have assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop … with just this strike,” Hegseth said. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”

When asked if the goal was regime change in Venezuela, Hegseth said that was a “presidential decision” and added that “we’re prepared with every asset that the American military has.”

Brandan P. Buck, a historian and Foreign Policy Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, told Antiwar.com that it was unlikely the Trump administration would have much success trying to combat drug trafficking with military strikes.

“The US military’s strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat is a significant escalation in the long and failed war on drugs. It is unclear if the administration’s goal of deterring drug trafficking through lethal force will be achieved, but such a strike is unlikely to succeed in this way,” Buck said. “As long as the United States remains a multi-billion-dollar drug market, criminal organizations will continue to take risks for massive profits. One strike on one drug-running boat is unlikely to change that calculus.”

Buck also noted that it was unclear what the administration’s real goal is. “The strike also raises alarming questions about its true near- and long-term objectives. It is plausible that the Trump Administration is using the strike as a trial balloon for expanded military action against cartels throughout the region, or against the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” he said.

“Either would present troubling questions about executive authority to authorize military action in a post-Global War on Terror world and significantly raise the likelihood of plunging the US into another prolonged war,” Buck added.

The US has claimed that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, a term used to describe a network of Venezuelan government and military officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking, but it does not actually exist as an organization. Despite the lack of a structured organization, the US recently labeled the Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist group and increased the bounty on Maduro’s head to $50 million over claims of “narco-terrorism.” Maduro and other Latin American leaders have strongly denied the US claims.

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Latin American Countries Align With US as Navy Ships Arrive in the Caribbean Sea off the Venezuelan Coast

The board is set, the pieces are moving.

As Latin American countries start taking sides, the US’ largest military contingent in 25 years has been sent to Latin America.

Over 4,000 Marines and sailors have been deployed to the waters of the Caribbean as part of a ‘counter-cartel mission’.

This deployment includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (comprising the USS Iwo Jima, USS Fort Lauderdale, and USS San Antonio), a nuclear-powered attack submarine, three destroyers (USS Gravely, USS Jason Duhan, and USS Sampson) a guided-missile cruiser, and additional P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

In the meantime, many Latin American countries are starting to position themselves regarding the upcoming operations.

  • Argentina declares the Cartel de los Soles an international terrorist organization, joining the diplomatic offensive against the criminal network linked to Nicolás Maduro’s regime.
  • Paraguay President Santiago Peña signed a decree classifying the Cartel of the Suns, allegedly led by Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro, as an international terrorist organization, and urged their citizens to leave the country immediately.
  • The Republic of Guyana expressed ‘support for a collaborative and integrated approach to tackle transnational organized crime’.
  • Even unprompted, Trinidad & Tobago’s Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar formally backed the deployment of US Navy Vessels against drug cartels, and even in the event of a Venezuelan invasion of Guyana over the Essequibo Region, allowing USN access.

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Venezuela’s Crypto Adoption Surges Amid Inflation Surge And Currency Collapse

Cryptocurrencies are becoming a core part of the economy in Venezuela as citizens turn to digital assets to shield themselves from a collapsing currency and tighter government controls.

From small family stores to large retail chains, shops across the country now accept crypto through platforms such as Binance and Airtm. Some businesses even use stablecoins to pay employees, while universities have begun offering courses dedicated to digital assets.

“There’s lots of places accepting it now,” shopper Victor Sousa, who paid for phone accessories with USDt, told the Financial Times. “The plan is to one day have my savings in crypto.”

Venezuela ranked 13th globally for crypto adoption, according to the Chainalysis 2024 Crypto Adoption Index report, which noted a 110% increase in usage in the year.

Bolívar’s crash pushes Venezuelans into crypto

The continued slide of the bolívar currency has intensified demand for crypto. Since the government stopped defending the currency in October, it has lost more than 70% of its value. Inflation reached 229% in May, according to the Venezuelan Finance Observatory (OVF).

“Venezuelans started using cryptocurrencies out of necessity,” said economist Aarón Olmos. He noted that they face inflation, low wages, foreign currency shortages and difficulty opening bank accounts.

However, access is not always smooth. With US sanctions on Venezuela’s financial sector, Binance restricts services linked to sanctioned banks and individuals. Connectivity issues also hinder widespread use. Still, experts say the ecosystem is resilient, per the FT report.

The government’s stance on crypto remains inconsistent. Venezuela launched its own digital currency, the petro, in 2018, but the project collapsed last year. The main exchange regulator was shut down in 2023 following corruption allegations tied to oil-linked transactions.

Cointelegraph reached out to Binance for comment, but had not received a response by publication.

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Did Putin Give the US Permission to Encircle Venezuela?

The contagion of war is spreading like wildfire. Venezuela has been feuding with the United States since 2019, when all communication came to a standstill. In recent weeks, the US placed a $50 million bounty on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and has accused him of aiding the world’s top drug traffickers. The US has sent thousands of illegal Venezuelan migrants back to Venezuela despite pushback from the government. Tensions have boiled over after Trump visited with Putin.

Did Putin give Trump the green light to move in on Venezuela? Deep ties with Russia have protected Venezuela, but all alliances can come to an end with the proper incentives. On Monday, over four and a half MILLION Venezuelan troops were deployed after it was announced that US warships were circling Venezuela. “This week, I will activate a special plan with more than 4.5 million militiamen to ensure coverage of the entire national territory — militias that are prepared, activated and armed,” Maduro announced on state television. “The empire has gone mad and has renewed its threats to Venezuela’s peace and tranquility,” Maduro continued.

Maduro was indicted in 2020 during Trump’s first term under suspicion of narco-terrorism. The US placed a $15 million bounty on Maduro, which was later raised to $25 million under Biden but powerful people are protecting the Venezuelan president.

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No Compromise on Iran and Venezuela

U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly stressed the need for both Russia and Ukraine to make difficult but reasonable compromises if progress is to be made toward peace. He has expressed hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin “will be good” and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will “show flexibility as well.”

But Trump has shown no such sign of flexibility or compromise when it comes to his conflicts with Iran and Venezuela. Rather than engage in give and take and nuanced steps towards compromise, Trump has thrust maximalist demands on his interlocuters that are backed by military threats.

Somewhat ironically and hypocritically, this is the negotiating tactic associated with Russia that Trump is critical of and hoping to change. Mark Galeotti recently wrote of the “Russian negotiating style going back to Soviet days. Rather than a mutual dance of small concessions, inching towards agreement, the Kremlin tends to maintain ludicrous, even insultingly excessive demands until the last minute.”

But, despite Iran showing willingness to compromise, the U.S. has shown none. Iran has reportedly expressed willingness to discuss two versions of compromise on its civilian nuclear program. Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, has said that “there were several ideas for a win-win solution.” One would see Iran export or convert its highly enriched uranium and limit future enrichment to 3.67% while agreeing to maximum transparency and inspections in cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Another would see Iran fold its nuclear program into an international consortium that would allow Iran to enrich uranium but deny it access to the full enrichment process by distributing various roles in the process across different member states, who would likely include Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The various member states could assist the IAEA by keeping a watchful eye on each other.

The United States, though, has neither accepted either of these compromises nor taken them as the starting point for further negotiations. Instead, they have stuck to their maximalist demand that Iran entirely give up its civilian enrichment program: a program that Iran has a legal right to as a signatory to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei has recently despaired of negotiating with the U.S. in this manner, complaining that “They want Iran, with its great history, and its people, with all their honor and glory, to obey the US.” Negotiations are not possible when one side demands the other “submit to their commands” rather than work toward a compromise agreement: “Those who argue, ‘Why don’t you hold direct negotiations with America and resolve your issues?’ – in my opinion, they too are only seeing what’s on the surface. That is not the essence of the matter. This is not a matter that can be resolved.”

Despite Iran’s compromises and America’s intransigence, it is Iran that is being punished. A recent meeting between Iran and France, the UK and Germany “ended without a final outcome” on how to avoid snapback sanctions that would mean a return to wide-ranging U.N. sanctions on Iran. The return to sanctions would be the result of the U.S. and its junior partners in Europe deeming that Iran has returned to noncompliance with the 2015 nuclear agreement, even though Iran is legally allowed to leave the agreement since the U.S. left it, and broke it, first.

The U.S. is being equally unwilling to compromise with Venezuela; though it is less clear what Venezuela needs to do to compromise short of accepting the regime change the U.S. has long sought.

At the beginning of August, Trump signed a directive to use military force, instead of law enforcement, to fight drug cartels in Latin America. That directive allows the possibility of military operations in Venezuelan waters and on Venezuelan soil. According to one U.S. official, the American naval assets can be used “as a launching pad for targeted strikes if a decision is made.”

Trump has designated several drug cartels, including Venezuela’s Cartel de los Soles, as foreign terrorist organizations. The U.S. State Department says they constitute “a national-security threat beyond that posed by traditional organized crime.” Secretary of State Marco Rubio says that this allows the U.S. “to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever, to target these groups.” This means the U.S. can take military action against Venezuela.

Furthermore, the Trump administration asserts that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro is the head of the Cartel de los Soles and has offered a $50 million reward for information leading to his arrest. Despite the charge against Maduro having been discredited, the designations place Venezuela and its president in the crosshairs of the U.S. military.

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Is Venezuela the Next Target of the US Empire?

President Donald Trump has deployed several warships and thousands of Marines to the southern Caribbean – just miles off the coast of Venezuela. The provocative mission was launched under the guise of an anti-narcotics crusade, but risks disastrous outcomes for both countries.

While a war with Venezuela might seem unlikely, the move is sure to radically escalate tensions with the Latin American state, and in the worst-case scenario could become a trip-wire for direct conflict with Caracas.

According to a recent New York Times report, the president has signed a secret directive authorizing military action against drug cartels designated as “terrorist” groups, having added several drug gangs to the terror blacklist since February. The new operation in the Caribbean is almost certainly based on that order.

One US official reached by Reuters earlier this week suggested the naval mission might involve lethal force, saying the warships could be used not only for “intelligence and surveillance operations, but also as a launching pad for targeted strikes.”

The deployment will include at least 4,000 sailors and Marines, and a wide range of military assets: three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, transport vessels, an amphibious assault ship, as well as a nuclear-powered attack submarine and P8 Poseidon reconnaissance planes.

That’s a lot of soldiers and hardware for a few drug busts, raising questions about how such an arsenal might be used in practice – and who it is intended for. (Granted, any major operation against Venezuela would require a much larger force, with the US’s 1989 invasion of Panama involving well over 25,000 troops.)

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Intelligence Reports: Hezbollah Helping ‘Transnational Cocaine Trafficking’ in Latin America

Intelligence reports revealed an international criminal network linking Iran and its proxy Hezbollah with the Venezuelan regime’s Cartel of the Suns and Colombia’s FARC and ELN Marxist terrorist groups, Colombian outlets reported this week.

According to the Colombian magazine Semana, Middle Eastern intelligence agencies provided the information to the Colombian Armed Forces in a report. Semana and the Bogotá-based Blu Radio both claimed to be in possession of a copy of the report, which reportedly details that Iran, through Hezbollah, provided “financial, logistical, and doctrinal support, especially in the context of transnational cocaine trafficking.”

Iran’s support, the report detailed, allowed the criminal alliance linking Hezbollah, the Venezuelan regime and the Cartel of the Suns, the Marxist National Liberation Army (ELN), and FARC’s Second Marquetalia group to establish “drug trafficking corridors, safe havens, illicit military operations, and extractive activities” along the Colombian-Venezuelan border.

Blu Radio detailed that the collapse of Venezuela’s governance structures allowed criminal networks such as ELN to infiltrate state structures and consolidate its presence in the Venezuelan states of Apure, Táchira, and Zulia, all of which neighbor Colombia.

The report then explained that the Cartel of the Suns, run by dictator Nicolás Maduro and other high-ranking members of the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela and the nation’s military, has “evolved” into a more complex structure that interacts with Colombian armed groups. The Maduro regime’s repressive DGCIM Military Counterintelligence Directorate reportedly “acts as a protector of this network, guaranteeing impunity and eliminating dissent.” High-ranking generals from the DGCIM, the Venezuelan National Army, and the National Guard, the radio station said, are presumably involved in the criminal network.

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Prosecutors accuse Smartmatic executive of bribing Venezuelan election official with luxury home

Federal prosecutors have accused Smartmatic co-founder Roger Piñate of bribing the top Venezuelan election official with a luxury residence in Caracas in exchange for political favors.

Piñate, who was charged with multiple counts of money laundering and bribery related to contracts in the Philippines, according to the Miami Herald, has been accused of transferring the home to election chief Tibisay Lucena Ramírez in order to secure her help in resolving a commercial dispute with the Venezuelan government.

The alleged dispute comes after Smartmatic claimed in 2017 that Nicolás Maduro’s administration committed fraud in the National Constituent Assembly election, which led the company to conclude its business in the country later that year. 

The new revelations occurred in a court filing related to the Philippines’ case on Friday, where prosecutors attempted to show a pattern of allegedly criminal behavior and alleged intent to commit bribery.

Pinate-VenezuelaBribeAllegationDocument.pdf

Piñate was charged in a $1 million bribery scheme in the Philippines for allegedly inflating the prices of voting machines and diverting the excess funds into secret accounts used to pay off Philippine election official Juan Andrés Donato Bautista.

Prosecutors claimed the home was allegedly transferred to Lucena Ramírez through a foreign shell company with the help of an unnamed co-conspirator. The transfer was allegedly completed between April and July 2019, after the company supposedly ended its business in Venezeula. 

Smartmatic denied the accusations in a statement to the Miami Herald, claiming the filing was riddled with “misrepresentations,” including with the timeline. 

“As an example, the government’s citation of an alleged bribe in Venezuela in 2019 is untethered from reality. Smartmatic ceased all operations in Venezuela in August 2017 after blowing the whistle on the government and has never sought to secure business there again,” the company said in an email. “We have always operated lawfully, ethically, and transparently. We stand by our two-decade track record of integrity.”

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Russia Builds Ammunition Plant in Venezuela to Produce 70 Million Rounds Annually

Russia’s state arms exporter Rosoboronexport has completed the first phase of a new ammunition plant in Venezuela, designed to produce 7.62 mm cartridges for Kalashnikov assault rifles, Russian state conglomerate Rostec announced on July 2.

The facility, now partially operational, features four production lines. Two are designated for steel-core bullets, while the others will manufacture tracer and blank rounds. According to the announcement, the plant is already capable of producing tens of thousands of rounds per shift, with an annual output projected to reach 70 million cartridges.

A test program conducted at a dedicated inspection station reportedly confirmed the ammunition meets the stated performance standards.

The project marks a significant step toward establishing a full-cycle production capability on Venezuelan soil. Rosoboronexport’s executive director noted that the remaining production buildings will be commissioned soon.

In addition to the main manufacturing lines, the plant has launched a waste disposal facility, intermediate storage for ammunition components, and a 210-meter firing range for testing tracer rounds. Auxiliary infrastructure, including a fire reservoir, is also in place.

Rosoboronexport CEO Alexander Mikheev acknowledged the project faced major logistical and technical challenges due to international sanctions imposed on both Russia and Venezuela. The manufacturing lines and commissioning efforts were carried out by the Koshkin Design Bureau of Automatic Lines.

“For Rosoboronexport, the construction of the ammunition plant in Venezuela came with serious challenges, including sanctions pressure on both countries. Despite these objective constraints, together with Rostec, we carried out this complex infrastructure project and demonstrated to the world that we always fulfill our commitments to our partners,” said Alexander Mikheev.

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FBI bombshell: Venezuelan officials are using gangbangers as ‘soldiers’ inside US…

Somehow, in today’s upside-down world, the radicalized left has decided that violent gang members are the new underdogs they need to defend. Instead of standing up for law-abiding American citizens, they’ve gone all-in on protecting the worst of the worst—drug traffickers, sex offenders, murderers, and now, even foreign-backed gangbangers. And while they’re busy shedding tears for MS-13 and waving in cartel thugs at the border, everyday Americans are being thrown to the wolves.

But now we’ve reached a whole new level of disturbing. A new report from Fox News has dropped—and every single American should be talking about it. This isn’t a border security issue anymore. This is now a national security issue that involves deeply dangerous and deadly foreign interference. And at the center of it is Venezuela’s evil dictator Nicolás Maduro and the violent criminal gang known as Tren de Aragua.

According to Fox’s exclusive report, the FBI has uncovered a plot that includes Venezuelan officials helping gang members sneak into the US—and not just to commit random crimes, but to carry out Maduro’s sinister agenda. According to the report, these gangbangers are being used like pawns in a proxy war and were sent here to intimidate and possibly kill critics of the regime right here on US soil.

And what did the Biden regime do about it while they were in power? Nothing. Or maybe worse than nothing. They opened the floodgates at the southern border and rolled out the red carpet for these violent thugs. No vetting, no questions—just a welcome mat and a pat on the back as these gangbangers illegally flooded in.

Whether they were complicit or just blindly obsessed with social justice, the result is the same: Biden and the Dems helped Maduro destabilize the United States—and now President Trump is left to clean up the mess.

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