The US’ endgame against Venezuela

The inexorable build-up of US Naval Forces in the Caribbean in its “war against drugs” received a major boost with the addition of its largest aircraft, the supercarrier Ford, and at least a portion of its strike group. Caricom, with the exception of T&T under PM Kamla Persad-Bissessar, has reiterated its declaration of the Caribbean Sea being a “zone of peace” and has joined Brazil and Columbia in opposing the build-up of US Naval Forces in general and those forces shooting alleged drug boats out of the water in particular. Guyana has attempted to walk a careful line in supporting “legal measures” to fight the drug menace while protecting its territorial integrity, including its EEZ, against Venezuelan adventurism. President Trump has already announced he will proceed with land-based actions in Venezuela, where CIA agents are already conducting operations.
Since the US has already received the heartfelt support of T&T, which is a mere seven miles from Venezuela, Caricom’s stance (including Guyana’s) is of little significance. While the US fleet can operate totally offshore, US Marines are already conducting joint manoeuvres with T&T’s forces, and a warship is scheduled to dock in PoS. On the demand for legality of its actions, the US Administration insists it had “determined that the United States is in a non-international armed conflict with these designated terrorist organisations” and domestically it has to only inform Congress of its actions. The bottom line is that the Caribbean will be seen by the US Govt as mere irritants as it pursues its interests. These are several of which diplomatic niceties rate very low on President Trump’s priorities. He appears to have adopted the maxim, “The strong do what they can, and the weak suffer what they must,” which was most recently illustrated by his tariff policy.
In the 2016-2020 Trump Administration, actions against the Maduro regime had been framed as supporting the opposition forces to protect democracy, which was given legitimacy by Maduro rigging the 2019 elections. This policy was continued by Biden and failed once again in 2024 for the same reason. Under the intense lobbying of his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a tougher line was adopted by Trump II, which was justified by identifying Maduro as the head of the narco-smuggling Cartel of the Sun that was waging a hybrid war against the US by flooding it with drugs. As such, they were “terrorists” who could be pursued by any means necessary. Hence the present naval strategy against the “drug-smuggling” boats and the imminent strikes on land to destroy their processing facilities.
Maduro has countered that the US is actually seeking regime change to control its 300 billion-barrel oil reserves by installing a friendly regime – represented openly by the Opposition under recent Nobel
Peace Prize awardee Maria Machado. This control is undisputedly one of America’s major interests, and in the midst of the present imbroglio, Maduro evidently offered it to the US but was brutally rejected by Trump. Control under a pro-US Machado Government is preferable, and we should expect an escalation of the present military moves to have Maduro either step down or be removed. It is unlikely, however, that a large military invasion, such as we saw in the removal of the Panamanian drug-smuggling President Noriega in 1989, will occur because of domestic reaction against returning body bags. Precision bombings of sites identified by CIA operatives and Venezuelans seeking the US$50M bounty for Maduro’s head, by drones or high-altitude aircraft like the B-1 Bombers, are more probable.
Another US interest furthered by their military moves that militate against it being abandoned precipitately is to counter the Chinese and Russian influence in Venezuela, Latin America and this hemisphere. As the US seeks to defend its slide from being the sole hegemon against a resurgent China, there will be much emotion infused into cold power calculus for it to control its “backyard”, from where it can be penetrated. China has recently buttressed its investment in Venezuela and Latin America in general, and the US moves against Venezuela and, in the last week, Colombia must be seen as a red line they are drawing.
For all these reasons, we in Guyana, while being protective of our sovereignty, must be circumspect about our capabilities in this new world where the old multilateral institutions like the UN that were designed to leverage the influence of small states like ours are all in retreat.