By Jose Ernesto Novaez Guerrero on November 14, 2025
Venezuela is today one of the most attacked and defamed nations in the world. In recent months, the situation has escalated significantly, with the immense military deployment of the United States in the Caribbean and the complicity of several countries and regional political actors with the ongoing agenda of aggression. Noteworthy in this agenda is the shameful role played by the recent Nobel Peace Prize winner and “leader” of the Venezuelan opposition, María Corina Machado, who no longer knows how to ask the United States to finish invading her homeland.
As part of this campaign, statements were made on November 10 by the current secretary of the OAS, Surinamese Albert Ramdin. According to this diplomat at the head of the highly questioned and discredited OAS, there is “a problem of governance and legitimacy” in Venezuela. He added that no country “can oppose” the reason the United States has given for its deployment in the Caribbean: the fight against drug trafficking. He added that there is no cause for concern for any country, since the United States’ “naval assets” remain in international waters.
No one is surprised by the OAS’s attitude. It is part of a larger strategy to build consensus for the decision to launch a military attack against Venezuela. But this is only one moment in a strategy that has been developing since the current administration first came to power. It is a plan that can be followed in its most obvious public expressions and imagined in the corridors of power surrounding the issue.
From his first day in the Oval Office, Trump began to prepare the legal basis for these actions. On January 20, among other cartels and criminal organizations, he declared the Tren de Aragua a transnational organization and a threat to U.S. national security. After 2001, the appeal to national security continues to be the safe card to endorse operations inside and outside the United States without subjecting them to excessive public scrutiny. Such a declaration opens the door to various actions, both military and intelligence, with sensitive implications for the countries affected.
On July 25, 2025, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) sanctioned the fictitious Cartel de los Soles, designating it as a specially designated global terrorist entity. In public statements, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “The measure further highlights the facilitation of narco-terrorism by the illegitimate Maduro regime through terrorist groups such as the Cartel de los Soles.” Following this announcement, on August 7, the U.S. government doubled the reward to $50 million for information leading to the arrest of President Maduro, whom they accuse of leading a “narco-terrorist state” linked to cocaine cartels.
The cartelized media did not waste the opportunity. On the contrary, they widely echoed the news, setting the stage for the next step on the agenda. On August 18, they presented, as a natural result, the US government’s announcement of the deployment of three destroyers and a group of landing ships with 4,500 soldiers, including 2,200 US Marines, in waters near Venezuela, citing the need to “address the threats of Latin American drug cartels.”
Since the beginning of this deployment, there have been several attacks on boats allegedly belonging to drug traffickers. These attacks, carried out in international waters, have been conducted without any respect for international law and without presenting evidence of the links between these destroyed boats and drug trafficking. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime itself has been emphatic that only 20 percent of drugs bound for the United States pass through the Caribbean.
On October 2, the AP released an internal memo from the Trump administration declaring drug cartels to be illegal combatants and stating that the United States is now in an “armed conflict” with them. Shortly thereafter, on October 15, Trump publicly declared that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela and said he was considering the possibility of conducting ground operations in the country.
On October 28, B-1B Lancer bombers maneuvered within a very short distance of the Caracas coast, just 50 kilometers away. These maneuvers are routinely carried out to test the detection and response times of enemy air defenses. The Bolivarian National Armed Forces raised their alert level in anticipation of what appeared to be an imminent invasion.
On October 31, amid media frenzy and as a way to push the United States toward aggression against Venezuela, the Miami Herald published a story, citing internal administration sources, stating that the decision to attack Bolívar’s homeland had already been made. When asked about the issue that same day, Trump denied the Miami Herald’s report, and Marco Rubio, one of the main architects of the aggressive agenda currently underway, came out shortly after to do the same. This episode alone serves to highlight the high degree of media complicity in instigating the conflict.
Although tensions have eased somewhat in recent days, the situation in the Caribbean remains particularly dangerous. For now, it seems that the White House has been swayed by those who are not entirely convinced of the advantages of military aggression or who have doubts about the rhetoric of an “easy” victory against the South American nation. These doubts have been reinforced by the latest news on military cooperation with Russia. But we must not ignore the influence of another part of the lobby, eager to regain full access to the vast oil resources currently under Caracas’ control.
But without a doubt, the determining factor in a government so centered around the ego of a single figure is the ambivalence of the US president himself. The Nobel Peace Prize nominee and self-proclaimed champion of international conflict appeasement has accepted that the stage is being set for imperialist aggression in the Caribbean. Today, he must decide whether to press ahead or, on the contrary, claim a media victory over a few fishing boats and withdraw the warships from a sea where they should never have been. But before making any decision, he would do well to consider the objective fact that Venezuela is not alone and has sons and daughters of extraordinary courage, willing to defend it at any cost against the insolent foreign power that seeks to sully it.