resident Donald Trump, it seems, has it out for Venezuela. Over the summer, his administration began massing naval power in the Caribbean, largely near the country’s coast, and striking ships soon after they exit its territorial waters. In October, he authorized the CIA to carry out operations within Venezuela’s borders. And Trump has repeatedly railed against President Nicolás Maduro, accusing him of emptying Venezuelan prisons into the United States and saying that his days in office are numbered. This week, Washington moved an aircraft carrier group to the Caribbean, and Trump was briefed on possible military options, including land strikes. Publicly, the White House maintains its operations are simply designed to stop narcotics—not to facilitate regime change. But the scale of the military deployment (it is the largest in the Caribbean since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis) and the accompanying rhetoric suggest Washington’s real objective is toppling the government.
