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President Donald Trump said he believes Venezuela is “feeling the heat” amid his administration's war against suspected drug ships in the Caribbean, which have destroyed at least two vessels in the past week alone.
While Trump has said the strikes are intended to curb the flow of drugs into the United States, experts and some lawmakers say they serve a different purpose: to pressure Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to be removed from power.
“The Trump administration is likely trying to force Maduro to voluntarily leave office through a series of diplomatic moves and now military action and the threat thereof,” Brandan Buck, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said in an email to Fox News Digital on Thursday. “Whether this is 'regime change' or something else is a matter of semantics.”
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro gestures during a news conference amid rising tensions with the United States over the deployment of US warships in the southern Caribbean and nearby waters. (Reuters)
The Trump administration has repeatedly stated that it recognizes Maduro not as a legitimate head of state, but as the leader of a drug cartel. In August, the Trump administration increased the reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest to $50 million, calling him “one of the largest drug traffickers in the world.”
So far, the Trump administration has remained silent when asked about Maduro, and Trump on Wednesday refused to answer a question about whether the CIA has the authority to “destroy” Maduro.
However, Trump confirmed that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela after the New York Times reported on Wednesday that he had signed his consent. Trump told reporters he did this because Venezuela had released prisoners into the United States and that drugs were coming into the United States from Venezuela by sea.
Trump also confirmed Friday that Maduro has offered to give the United States access to Venezuelan oil and other natural resources, saying the Venezuelan leader does not want to “get into trouble” with the United States.
Still, Buck said these recent strikes are unlikely to seriously disrupt the flow of drugs into the United States.
“It is likely that these strikes are part of a gradual attempt to topple Maduro, rather than simply an attempt to wage war on the cartels,” Buck said. “Pacific and overland routes through Mexico are significantly more common, and Venezuela itself is a relatively minor player, especially when it comes to fentanyl.”
The Trump administration has deployed naval forces to combat drug threats and has beefed up naval forces in the Caribbean in recent months. For example, Trump sent several US Navy guided missile destroyers strengthen the administration's anti-drug efforts in the region starting in August.
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The United States killed six suspected drug traffickers on a boat in international waters near Venezuela, President Donald Trump said on October 14, 2025. (the real Donald Trump/Truth Social)
Jeff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council foreign affairs think tank, said the Trump administration wants these additional forces to encourage the Venezuelan military to take matters into its own hands.
“President Trump hopes this deployment will send a message to the Venezuelan military that they themselves should rise up against Maduro,” Ramsey said in an email to Fox News Digital on Thursday. “The problem is that we haven’t seen this approach bear fruit in twenty years of trying. Maduro is a terrible governer but is good at keeping his top leadership fat and happy while people starve.”
“What is needed here is some kind of roadmap or transition plan that could be more attractive to the ruling party and those around Maduro, who may secretly want change but need to see a future for themselves in a democratic Venezuela,” Ramsey said.
Meanwhile, the second Trump administration took a tough approach to addressing the flow of drugs into the United States and appointed drug cartel groups such as Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as foreign terrorist organizations in February.
Additionally, on September 30, the White House sent a memo to lawmakers informing them that the United States is currently engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug smugglers and carried out at least six strikes against ships off the coast of Venezuela. The US captured survivors from Thursday's latest strike, the first involving survivors. At least 28 people were killed in previous strikes.
Lawmakers on both sides of the party have raised concerns about the legality of the strikes, and Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, filed a war powers resolution in September that would bar U.S. forces from engaging in “combat activities” against certain non-state entities.
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Sens. Adam Schiff, D-Calif. (pictured here), and Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, filed a war powers resolution in September that would bar U.S. forces from engaging in “combat activities” against certain non-state entities. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
On October 8, the resolution failed in the Senate by a margin of 51 to 48, but Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted for the resolution along with their Democratic colleagues.
On Friday, Schiff, Kaine and Paul introduced another, narrower war powers resolution that would ban the U.S. military from engaging in “military action” specifically against Venezuela. Lawmakers said the resolution was passed in response to Trump's comments regarding land transactions in Venezuela.
“The Trump administration has made clear that they can take military action inside Venezuela's borders and will not stop at boat strikes in the Caribbean,” Schiff said in a statement Friday. “In recent weeks we have seen more and more worrying movements and reports that undermine claims that this is simply about stopping drug smugglers. Congress has not authorized military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to prevent the United States from being drawn, intentionally or accidentally, into a full-fledged war in South America.”
When asked about lawmakers' concerns about the legality of the strikes, Trump shrugged them off and said lawmakers had been informed that the ships were carrying drugs.
“But they are being told they were loaded with drugs,” Trump said Tuesday. “And that's what matters. When they're loaded with drugs, they're fair game. And each of these ships was, and they are not ships, they are boats.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
