WASHINGTON — On a spring evening in the Oval Office, President Donald Trump asked Secretary of State Marco Rubio how he could toughen his stance on Venezuela.
It was just before Memorial Day, and hard-line Cuban-American lawmakers, whose votes Trump needed to pass his main domestic policy bill, were pressuring the president to tighten the grip on Venezuela by halting Chevron’s oil operations in the country. Trump, however, did not want to lose the United States’ only foothold in the Venezuelan oil industry, where China is the largest foreign player.
The president considered allowing Chevron to continue operating. But he told Rubio, a longtime advocate of a hard line against Venezuela and Cuba, that he needed to demonstrate to lawmakers and other critics that the government could act forcefully against Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s left-wing autocratic leader, whom Trump tried to oust in his first term.
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Another advisor present in the room, Stephen Miller, said he had ideas. As homeland security adviser, he had been discussing with other officials Trump’s campaign promise to bomb fentanyl labs. For various reasons, this idea lost momentum and, in recent weeks, Miller began exploring attacks on vessels suspected of transporting drugs off Central America.
Miller’s discussions were not focused on Venezuela, which does not produce fentanyl. But that night, three distinct goals began to merge: weaken Maduro, use military force against drug cartels, and secure access to Venezuela’s vast oil reserves for American companies.
Two months later, Trump signed a secret directive ordering the Pentagon to carry out military operations against Latin American drug cartels, with a specific focus on maritime attacks. Although the justification was to combat drugs in general, the operation would concentrate enormous naval power off the Venezuelan coast.
The result was an increasingly militarized pressure campaign aimed at removing Maduro from power.
It has been marked by attacks by the United States that killed at least 105 people on vessels in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, by a near blockade of oil tankers entering and leaving Venezuelan ports and by threats from Trump to carry out ground attacks in Venezuela.
The offensive reflects the combined efforts of Rubio and Miller, who began to act in concert on policies against Maduro. Each reached this point based on long-held goals: for Rubio, the son of Cuban immigrants and also Trump’s national security adviser, the opportunity to overthrow or weaken the governments of Venezuela and its ally Cuba; for Miller, architect of Trump’s anti-immigration policies, the chance to advance his goal of mass deportations and target criminal groups in Latin America.
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This report on how Venezuela came to occupy the center of the government’s foreign policy agenda this year, to the point of talk of a possible war, is based on interviews with current and former US government officials, almost all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of issues linked to national security. Among the conclusions:
Miller directed White House officials in the spring to study ways to attack drug cartels in their home countries in Latin America. He wanted attacks that would generate broad public repercussions to create a deterrent effect.
The focus on Venezuela intensified after the end of May, when Trump was angered by difficult negotiations involving Chevron. Venezuelan oil played a more central role in the president’s deliberations than previously known.
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In meetings earlier this summer, Rubio and Miller discussed with Trump the possibility of attacking Venezuela. The president seemed convinced by Rubio’s argument that Maduro should be seen as a drug kingpin.
Miller told officials that if the United States and Venezuela were at war, the government could once again invoke the 18th-century Enemy Aliens Act to speed up the deportation of hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans who had lost temporary protected status. He and Rubio had used that law earlier this year to summarily deport hundreds of Venezuelans to a maximum security prison in El Salvador, until they were blocked by court rulings.
The secret order signed by Trump on July 25, authorizing military action against cartels and providing for maritime attacks, is the president’s first known written directive on this type of operation. Government officials called the attacks on vessels “Phase One,” with SEAL Team Six leading the charge. They also vaguely discussed a “Phase Two,” which could involve ground operations with Army Delta Force units.
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Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth kept many career military personnel and lawyers out of drafting the so-called enforcement order directing attacks on shipping. As a result, the document had serious flaws, including the absence of guidelines on how to deal with survivors.
Rubio, Miller and other senior officials oversaw a process that was often disorganized and shrouded in secrecy. The ability to keep planning restricted to a small group was facilitated by the hollowing out, throughout the year, of parts of the federal bureaucracy, including the National Security Council, responsible for coordinating interagency discussions.
In September, the government entered the bloodiest phase yet of the campaign against Maduro. This translates into 29 lethal attacks on vessels in the last four months, operations that many legal experts classify as homicides or war crimes. The government claims to have intelligence linking the boats to drug trafficking, but has not publicly presented evidence.
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White House spokeswoman Anna Kelly said in a statement that the government is working “to fulfill the president’s agenda of keeping this poison out of our communities.”
Rubio told reporters on December 19 that the aim of the attacks is to ensure that “no one wants to get on drug boats anymore” by instilling in them a “fear of death.”
He also reiterated that the Department of Justice obtained a formal indictment against Maduro in 2020, through a grand jury, on charges of collaboration with Colombian cocaine producers, who sometimes flow the drug through Venezuela. The Maduro government, according to Rubio, is “an illegitimate regime that openly cooperates with terrorist elements.”
‘Invasion’ in spring
The foundations for the militarization of the approach against Maduro and the Venezuelans were laid in February, when Rubio reached a deal with Nayib Bukele, El Salvador’s authoritarian leader, at his lakeside residence. The United States would pay around US$5 million to send approximately 300 Venezuelans accused of gang membership to the Terrorist Confinement Center, known as CECOT.
Shortly thereafter, Rubio designated eight Latin American criminal groups as foreign terrorist organizations. The Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua topped the list.
Miller had already identified a legal instrument to circumvent due process: the 18th-century Enemy Aliens Act, which allows for the immediate detention and deportation of citizens of a country that has invaded the United States or is at war with it.
Trump signed an executive order in March invoking this law, with a title that warned of “the invasion of the United States by the Tren de Aragua”. In retrospect, the move was an important initial step against Maduro, by formally framing the relationship between the two countries as a kind of war. Contrary to a secret assessment by American intelligence, the order stated that the Tren de Aragua was an instrument of Maduro.
Many of the more than 250 Venezuelans sent to El Salvador had no ties to the gang or relevant criminal history, and some reported systematic torture and abuse in the CECOT prison.
Courts later ruled that illegal immigration does not constitute the type of invasion that would justify the use of deportation law in times of war. Still, Miller again talked about resuming law enforcement if the United States were at real war with Venezuela, according to a former administration official.
At the same time, Miller was analyzing policies unrelated to Venezuela, but inspired by the so-called war on terror, such as the idea of bombing fentanyl laboratories in Mexico. It was clear, however, that Mexican leaders would not agree, and the government feared losing cooperation on migration and drug issues.
In early May, Miller’s team began calling for new options for the use of force against cartels.
White House officials discussed more limited ideas, such as covert CIA raids on docked and empty boats. But Miller’s team wanted visible action. Exploding fake boats to intimidate traffickers was also considered, but advisors insisted on hitting real boats.
In June, a request to study a maritime operation began circulating at the Pentagon. It had not yet focused on Venezuela, but that would change quickly, driven by Trump’s interest in the country’s main resource.
Confrontation over oil
For years, Chevron has held a unique privilege in the American corporate world: authorization from the governments of the United States and Venezuela to produce and export oil in joint ventures.
Therefore, the company became a bargaining chip in secret negotiations between Trump, Maduro and American parliamentarians, and ended up linked to a decisive turn towards military action.
Cuban-American parliamentarians pressured Trump at the beginning of the year to end the confidential license granted to Chevron under the Biden administration. After Trump and Rubio announced in February that they would do this, Maduro stopped accepting deportation flights for Venezuelans.
Chevron President Mike Wirth lobbied the administration to extend the license, speaking several times with Trump.
Upon learning of the possible extension, parliamentarians threatened to withdraw support for Trump’s main legislative project. In a meeting in late May, Trump told Rubio and Miller that he needed to approve the project, but that he had also heard warnings about the risks of ending the license, including China’s advance on Chevron’s assets.
Trump did not renew the license, which expired on May 27. His project was approved five weeks later.
In July, Trump changed his position and authorized the Treasury to issue a new license, with revised terms, amid the release of American prisoners by Venezuela and the assessment that Chevron acted as a counterweight to China.
Behind the scenes, however, Trump moved towards confrontation. On July 25, he signed the secret order that launched the military offensive.
Summer of Secrecy
The guideline remained restricted until it was revealed by The New York Times in early August. The document provided for attacks on vessels in international waters linked to groups classified as narco-terrorists.
The process excluded interagency debates and military experts. The execution order lacked essential elements, including guidelines on survivors of maritime attacks.
On September 2, American forces detected a speedboat carrying 11 people and were ordered to attack. Later videos showed survivors waving before further gunfire.
Since then, attacks have multiplied. In parallel, Trump, Rubio and Miller advanced to the next step: seizing oil tankers and financially strangling Venezuela.
In the first few weeks, the strategy paralyzed the Venezuelan oil industry. Critics call the action gunboat diplomacy. Maduro defines it as a warmongering and colonialist pretext.
This article was originally published by The New York Times.
