Inside Trump’s Endgame With Maduro

While most people, especially the perpetual lefty Trump critics, are focusing on President Trump’s military strikes on narco boats and submersibles in the Caribbean — part of a growing counter-narcotics strategy — most are missing the bigger reason for those strikes and the military buildup near Venezuela. (RELATED: US Strike On ‘Narco Sub’ Exposes Expanding Cartel Threat)

They are partly related to Trump’s bigger end goal, pressuring Venezuela’s illegitimate socialist leader, Nicolas Maduro, to leave office and possibly allow his democratic opponent, Maria Corina Machado, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, to take over.

Machado even dedicated her Nobel Prize to Trump.

Yes, the counterdrug justification is valid. Maduro is at least indirectly a narco enabler with a $50 million bounty on his head, courtesy of Trump. But he is also an illegitimate dictator and enemy of the United States.

Venezuela’s socialist government has, for years, propped up other leftist leaders across the region, chiefly in Cuba.

Removing him, preferably without major U.S. military force, is Trump’s endgame.

According to the Financial Times, “Opposition figures in Venezuela … believe the aim of the [Trump] operation is to force the departure of top Venezuelan government figures, preferably via resignation or arranged handover, but with the threat that if they hold out, they may be captured or killed by U.S. forces.” (RELATED: Trump Ramps Up Pressure On Venezuela’s Dictator)

That is why Trump has publicly acknowledged that he has given the CIA a presidential finding legally authorizing the agency to operate covertly in Venezuela, most likely conducting intelligence operations.

Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told AP that’s likely one reason why Trump took the step of announcing the CIA’s involvement publicly.

It’s clearer and clearer by the day that the purpose of these actions in the Caribbean is to bring down the Maduro regime. The administration is trying to create enough pressure on the military to abandon Maduro.

It is also why Trump has hinted that he may conduct counter-drug strikes on land targets in Venezuela.

To back all that up, the U.S. military has been positioning a large number of naval ships, air assets, and troops in the Caribbean region over the past two months, with troops, sailors, Marines, and airmen near Venezuela totaling 10,000 or more.

The U.S. Southern Command is currently operating a major military and naval force in the southern Caribbean. This includes the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU), composed of over 4,500 sailors and Marines, landing craft, helicopters, and tiltrotor aircraft.

This naval task force is supported by an attack submarine, three guided-missile destroyers, a guided missile cruiser, a special operations forces platform ship, and P-8 Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft.

U.S. special ops forces have everything they need for just about any type of operation. (RELATED: Trump Notifies Congress: America Is At War)

The Pentagon has also reportedly deployed at least three MQ-9 Reaper drones and 10 Marine F-35B vertical takeoff and landing stealth fighters to Puerto Rico, reopening Naval Station Roosevelt Roads, closed since 2004.

It has also conducted a “Bomber Attack Demonstration” with B-52 strategic bombers along Venezuela’s coast.

A photo of an AC-130J Ghostrider gunship carrying Hellfire missiles was also recently captured in Puerto Rico.

CNN reported that between Aug. 15 and Oct. 15, more than 200 U.S. military flights were conducted in the Caribbean, including three Boeing P-8 Poseidon aircraft gathering intelligence, as well as special ops MH-60M Black Hawk helicopters and “Little Bird” attack helicopters training off the coast of Trinidad and Tobago.

Trump’s effort is also intended to send a message to Maduro’s allies, communist China, and Putin’s Russia, to stay out of the fight, as well as show the Mexicans that if their government doesn’t cooperate with the U.S., their huge drug cartels may be next.

Meanwhile, highlighting the growing tensions, in early September, the War Department warned Venezuela about sending jets toward U.S. forces, posting on X that:

… two Maduro regime military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters. This highly provocative move was designed to interfere with our counter narco-terror operations. The cartel running Venezuela is strongly advised not to pursue any further effort to obstruct, deter or interfere with counter-narcotics and counter-terror operations carried out by the U.S. military.

Still, while this current U.S. force is impressive, it’s certainly not big enough to invade Venezuela.

As Elliot Abrams, a former Trump envoy to Venezuela, told CNN:

The military presence in the Caribbean is too big for just hitting a few speedboats, though it is not big enough for an invasion of Venezuela.

What’s in the middle, I think, is a pressure campaign, meant to rattle Venezuela.

And this makes sense. Brandan Buck, a Cato Institute Foreign policy analyst, told Fox News:

The Trump administration is likely attempting to force Maduro to voluntarily leave office through a series of diplomatic moves, and now military action and the threat thereof.

“It’s psyops,” said Brian Fonseca, a scholar at Florida International University, to AP, using shorthand for psychological operations. (RELATED: Reuters And The Pentagon: A Dangerous Alliance In Media Manipulation)

“This is about putting pressure on the Maduro regime and trying to create a fracture among the country’s political and military elite and see if you can then get that fracture into dislodging Maduro from power.”

And Maduro may be shaken. Trump confirmed last week that the dictator recently offered to allow the U.S. access to the country’s natural resources, including oil. Maduro also offered to cut back its oil sales to China in favor of the U.S. Offers that Trump refused, but indicate fear from Maduro.

Trump suggested that Maduro has made all these offers because he does not want to “f*ck around” with the United States.

Now, on Oct. 20, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a strong Trump ally, raised the stakes when he said Trump would set the conditions to “take him down,” referring to Maduro.

“We’re going to the next step. We’re just not going to blow up the boat. We’re going after the people who load the boat and the country that provides safe haven to their narco terrorists who run the drug cartels,” he added, as reported by the Washington Examiner.

This comes after Venezuelan government officials reportedly floated a plan earlier to Trump where Maduro would eventually leave office.

The proposal calls for Maduro to step down from power in three years and hand over power to his vice president, who would complete Maduro’s current six-year term that runs until January 2031.

The VP would then not run for reelection.

Trump refused that offer, too, since he believes he can take Maduro down without concessions.

As Axios reported:

Trump administration officials profess a near-unshakeable belief that Maduro either will be deposed or realize he needs to move into exile, even as experts contend he has coup-proofed his regime

“We don’t expect Maduro to stay. But we’ll see,” the administration official said.

At least some insiders think Trump ultimately will launch some sort of land-based attack. “It’s hard to see sending all these assets over there and then just retreating after blowing up some drug boats,” one source said.

Meanwhile, according to the Financial Times:

A “strike against any kind of land-based target will tell you a lot about not just the risk appetite that the administration has, but frankly about the evolving objective of this mission”, said Ryan Berg, director of the Americas program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think-tank.

“Trump likes strikes that leave US service personnel at a safe distance from their target,” he added, predicting that a precision-guided missile would be used in any strike on Venezuela.

And that may be the next step in Trump’s plan. Limited strikes on land targets in Venezuela.

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