Trump and top aides refuse to rule out war with Venezuela | US foreign policy
Donald Trump and his top advisers have refused to rule out the potential for open conflict with Venezuela as they call on Nicolás Maduro’s navy to escort oil tankers challenging the largest US fleet deployed in the region in decades.
In an interview aired Friday morning, Donald Trump told NBC News that going to war with the Maduro regime is still on the table. “I’m not ruling it out, no,” he said in a phone interview with the channel.
And at a year-end press conference at the State Department, Marco Rubio doubled down on remarks by other top Trump advisers that the United States could coerce Maduro through a campaign of attacks on drug ships allegedly headed for the United States.
“We reserve and have the right to use every element of national power to defend the national interests of the United States,” Rubio said. “And no one can object to that. Every country in the world reserves the same option. We just have more power than some.”
The recent seizure of a sanctioned oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela has led to a full-scale upheaval of the “dark fleet” carrying oil from the heavily sanctioned country, according to industry data shared with the Guardian. Experts said this move would reduce the Maduro government’s significant revenues.
Many of the more than 30 sanctioned tankers operating in Venezuelan waters are now taking shelter in the Indian Ocean to avoid the ban. Analysis of tracking data provided by maritime data company Windward AI “reveals a significant shift in maritime activity as ships head to the Indian Ocean to evade US naval forces.”
The report stated that many of the 59 “high-risk vessels” were stranded in the blockade zone or engaged in location manipulation.
Asked at a news conference Friday whether the United States was planning regime change, Rubio said: “It’s clear that the current status quo in the Venezuelan regime is intolerable for the United States,” he said. “So yes, our goal is to change that dynamic.”
Experts say the blockade makes a direct U.S. attempt to oust Maduro more likely as the Venezuelan regime is slowly starved of oil revenues from sales to China.
“This blockade of sanctioned ships provides an additional source of leverage for the United States,” Jason Marczak, vice president and senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Adrienne Arsht Latin America Center, said in a recent analysis.
“By cutting off a significant portion of the regime’s income, the United States has an additional chip to put on the table in discussions to end the Maduro dictatorship in Venezuela. This move elevates the campaign in the Caribbean from an anti-drug operation to one that also cuts off the financial lines of Maduro, whom the United States has designated as the leader of the war on drugs. [putative drug trafficking organisation] Cartel de los Soles.”
Trump has refused to say whether toppling Maduro is the ultimate goal of his four-month-long escalating military offensive, which has seen nearly 15,000 troops stationed on Venezuela’s doorstep and launched attacks on ships in the Caribbean and Pacific that have already killed more than 100 people.
But chief of staff Susie Wiles refuted the administration’s claims that law enforcement is the main target of the US military build-up, saying in an interview published in Vanity Fair this week that Trump “wants to keep blowing up boats until they scream uncle Maduro.”
Rubio confirmed during the press conference that the United States was trying to pressure Maduro through a campaign of attacks on boats he said were carrying drugs.
Adding that oil tankers such as Skipper, which was carrying approximately 2 million barrels of heavy Venezuelan crude oil and reportedly heading to China last week, would also be seized, Trump said, “He knows exactly what I want… He knows better than anyone.”
Maduro called the seizure an act of “piracy” and his regime accused the Trinidad and Tobago government of involvement this week, without providing details; on the same day, the Caribbean nation announced it would allow the US military access to its airports in the coming weeks following the recent installation of a radar system.
At the White House, several of Trump’s top aides have enthusiastically supported more direct action in Venezuela. They include deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller, who the Washington Post reported initially pushed for an anti-drug campaign in Mexico before backing attacks on Venezuela, as well as Rubio, whose parents are Cuban immigrants and has been a consistent critic of the Venezuelan regime for decades.
“The national interests of the United States are as follows, especially when it comes to Venezuela,” he said. “We have an illegitimate regime that cooperates with Iran, cooperates with Hezbollah, cooperates with drug trafficking and narco-terrorist organizations.”
