Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth on Wednesday didn’t rule out the possibility of the US military pursuing regime change in Venezuela and suggested more US strikes on boats in the region were coming.
Hegseth made the comments in an interview on Fox News on Wednesday morning, the day after the US bombed a boat in the Southern Caribbean that it claimed without evidence was carrying drugs, marking the first US kinetic military action in the name of combating drug trafficking, though the real purpose of the attack may be part of a new push to oust Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
“We have assets in the air, assets in the water, assets on ships because this is a deadly serious mission for us, and it won’t stop … with just this strike,” Hegseth said. “Anyone else trafficking in those waters who we know is a designated narco-terrorist will face the same fate.”
When asked if the goal was regime change in Venezuela, Hegseth said that was a “presidential decision” and added that “we’re prepared with every asset that the American military has.”
Brandan P. Buck, a historian and Foreign Policy Research Fellow at the Cato Institute, told Antiwar.com that it was unlikely the Trump administration would have much success trying to combat drug trafficking with military strikes.
“The US military’s strike on an alleged drug trafficking boat is a significant escalation in the long and failed war on drugs. It is unclear if the administration’s goal of deterring drug trafficking through lethal force will be achieved, but such a strike is unlikely to succeed in this way,” Buck said. “As long as the United States remains a multi-billion-dollar drug market, criminal organizations will continue to take risks for massive profits. One strike on one drug-running boat is unlikely to change that calculus.”
Buck also noted that it was unclear what the administration’s real goal is. “The strike also raises alarming questions about its true near- and long-term objectives. It is plausible that the Trump Administration is using the strike as a trial balloon for expanded military action against cartels throughout the region, or against the Maduro regime in Venezuela,” he said.
“Either would present troubling questions about executive authority to authorize military action in a post-Global War on Terror world and significantly raise the likelihood of plunging the US into another prolonged war,” Buck added.
The US has claimed that Maduro is the leader of the Cartel of the Suns, a term used to describe a network of Venezuelan government and military officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking, but it does not actually exist as an organization. Despite the lack of a structured organization, the US recently labeled the Cartel of the Suns as a terrorist group and increased the bounty on Maduro’s head to $50 million over claims of “narco-terrorism.” Maduro and other Latin American leaders have strongly denied the US claims.
President Trump claimed that the 11 people he said were killed in the bombing of the boat on Tuesday were members of Tren de Aragua (TDA), a Venezuelan gang the US has also labelled as terrorists. He also claimed that Maduro controls TDA, which is disputed by his own intelligence agencies.
The US has deployed at least nine warships toward Venezuela, and some US officials have suggested in comments to Axios that the operation could be “Noriega part 2,” referring to the 1989 US invasion of Panama that led to the ouster of Manuel Noriega. Maduro has vowed to fight if the US attacks, warning on Monday that he will declare a “republic in arms.”