Senior Trump administration officials have intensified their push to remove Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from power and are discussing steps to escalate the military pressure, The New York Times reported on Monday.
The report said the effort is being led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who also serves as President Trump’s national security advisor. Other top officials on board for regime change in Venezuela include CIA Director John Ratcliffe and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief domestic policy advisor.
The report cited Venezuelan opposition figures who say their movement has been planning what to do if Maduro is ousted, and that Rubio had met with five opposition figures who fled to the US back in May. During the first Trump administration, the US backed a failed coup attempt against Maduro led by opposition figure Juan Guaido.
Other Trump officials, most notably special envoy Ric Grennel, are pushing for diplomacy with Venezuela, and Maduro has sent a letter to Trump seeking talks, although it was dismissed by the White House.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil pointed to the fact that his country continues to accept twice-weekly deportation flights from the US as a sign that Caracas is serious about diplomacy. He also said that a war would lead to “excessive migration” and economic collapse that would “destabilize the entire region.”
Officials told the Times that the administration is considering launching direct strikes inside Venezuela against alleged drug cartels, something that’s been reported by several other media outlets.
Since the US is claiming Maduro is the leader of a cartel, an allegation his government strongly rejects, that means the Venezuelan leader would be a potential target. So far, the US has bombed at least three boats in the Caribbean that it claimed, without evidence, were carrying drugs, extrajudicially executing at least 17 people.
Maduro and other Venezuelan officials have pointed to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela. President Trump has framed the military campaign in the region as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US.
