Photograph Source: The White House – Public Domain

Donald Trump certainly has global ambitions. He is using tariffs to remake the global economy. He is withdrawing the United States from as many multinational organizations and agreements as possible in order to destroy the liberal international order. And he has alternated between confronting adversaries (like Iran) and brokering ceasefires (like the one in Gaza).

But he also has hemispheric aims—to consolidate U.S. hegemony in America’s “backyard” of Latin America and the Caribbean. In some ways, these aims are merely his global ambitions writ small. Here, too, he is slapping tariffs on allies and adversaries alike. He has threatened to withdraw the United States from multinational pacts like the Organization of American States. He has embraced autocratic friends—Nayib Bukele of El Salvador, Javier Milei of Argentina, Daniel Noboa of Ecuador—and sought to punish anyone who has stood up to him, including Lula in Brazil and Gustavo Petro in Colombia.

In this context, his policy toward Venezuela seems to be a departure from his usual approach to U.S. adversaries, which has usually involved transactional negotiations (as with North Korea and Belarus) or, more frequently, threats and non-military actions (as with China and Russia). In recent months, by contrast, the Trump administration has attacked nearly two dozen boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific Ocean, and killed more than 80 people, most of whom the administration has attempted to link to Venezuela. The United States has put a price ($50 million) on the head of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. It has sent considerable firepower to the region, including F-35 jets, eight Navy warships, a special operations vessel, a nuclear-powered attack submarine, and the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, along with approximately 10,000 U.S. soldiers and 6,000 sailors. To top it off, the administration has also advertised its dispatch of a CIA mission to Venezuela.

This military force is sufficient to conduct a sustained air war against Venezuela. But an amphibious assault or ground invasion would require at least 50,000 troops, according to CSIS, so that doesn’t seem to be on the horizon yet. Trump has suggested that war is unlikely, but he rarely reveals his plans beforehand. For the time being, then, this show of force seems designed to scare Maduro into stepping down or embolden the opposition and/or elements of the military to seize power.

Elsewhere, the administration has not hesitated to threaten military action (as in Greenland) or even use force (as in Iran). But the campaign against Venezuela is of a much greater magnitude. The declaration of a “war” against “narco-terrorists” provides the administration with an almost unlimited justification for killing anyone deemed a threat to U.S. national interests. Trump has periodically criticized previous administrations for their involvement in “forever wars,” a populist message that struck a chord with many voters. Yet this new version of the forever war on drugs, with an ill-defined set of targets and no clear timeline, has not elicited much criticism from Trump’s Republican supporters. A vote in the Senate to invoke the War Powers Act failed by a slender margin, attracting only two Republican votes.

At first glance, Trump’s singling out of Venezuela seems more opportunistic than strategic. The Venezuelan government, particularly after the presidential elections in 2024 revealed widespread discontent with the regime, is relatively weak. The Venezuelan economy suffers from the

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