The Trump administration is moving closer to a direct confrontation with Venezuela, raising the possibility of what the president once vowed to avoid: another US-backed regime change.
Washington has already deployed warships, surveillance planes, and submarines to the Caribbean, and indicated the possibility of a strike inside Venezuela. US forces recently sank Venezuelan boats claiming drug smugglers were aboard, killing 17 people. At the same time, officials have branded Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro a cartel boss, “fugitive of American justice,” and threatened to categorize his government as a “state sponsor of terror.”
Behind the scenes, senior officials are actively debating whether to escalate further. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, White House policy chief Stephen Miller, and CIA Director John Ratcliff are leading the charge for Maduro’s ouster. Their strategy appears to hinge on applying enough military pressure to trigger an internal rupture — splitting the regime and forcing the Venezuelan military to abandon its leader.
“I think the administration has been pretty clearly signaling that they would like to strike,” said Eurasia Group Latin America director Risa Grais-Targow. “If they haven’t yet, it’s less about lack of desire than an inability to identify reliable targets — US intelligence inside Venezuela has long been weak.”
The stakes are high. Though opposition leaders, including recent election winner Edmundo González, have signaled readiness to govern, most analysts doubt a smooth handover is likely. The opposition won the country’s 2024 presidential election but was denied power after Maduro refused to step down, and has been lobbying Washington ever since to put economic and military pressure on Maduro’s regime.
But a more probable outcome would be an initial transition from within the regime itself — perhaps a senior military figure replacing Maduro. But asGrais-Targowcautioned, “Even if Maduro is removed, the transition will be long, messy, and potentially violent. Deep mistrust between the opposition and the military makes a clean break unlikely.”
And there’s always the chance of blowback. Limited US strikes could strengthen Maduro’s grip by rallying regime loyalists and even some ordinary Venezuelans against a foreign threat. For many in Latin America, US-imposed regime change recalls a long history of interventions that left behind bloodshed and instability.
Why risk it? Three drivers appear to be shaping Trump’s calculus. First, drugs: disrupting smuggling routes plays well with voters concerned about fentanyl and cocaine flowing into swing states. Second, ideology: Rubio and other hawks see Maduro’s fall as the first domino in toppling Cuba and Nicaragua next. Third, geopolitics: Trump views Latin America as America’s backyard, where a military buildup is also a show of strength against China, which has become the region's biggest economic partner in recent years.
“Trump sees Latin America as within the US sphere of influence, and he's really keen to exert US dominance in the region vis-a-vis China," says Grais-Targow.