Trump Confirms CIA Operations in Venezuela

The US spy agency’s admission of covert action in Venezuela comes after the US military has carried out a series of deadly attacks against alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean in recent weeks. US forces have destroyed at least five boats since the beginning of September, killing 27 people, with four of those ships coming from Venezuela.

When asked during an event in the Oval Office on Wednesday why he authorized the CIA to take action in Venezuela, Trump confirmed that he had made the move.

“I actually authorized it for two reasons,” Trump replied. “No. 1, they evacuated their prisons to the United States,” he said. “And the other thing is, drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming from Venezuela, and most of the Venezuelan drugs come by sea.”

Trump added that the administration is “looking onshore” as it considers more strikes in the region. He declined to say whether the CIA had the authority to take action against President Nicolás Maduro.

Trump made the unusual acknowledgment of the CIA operation shortly after the New York Times reported that the CIA had been authorized to carry out covert action in Venezuela.

Maduro backs down Maduro on Wednesday lashed out at the U.S. spy agency’s record in various conflicts around the world, without directly addressing Trump’s comments about authorizing the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela.

“No to regime change that reminds us of the failed endless wars (overthrows) in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and so on,” Maduro said at a televised event of the National Council of Sovereignty and Peace, which consists of representatives from various political, economic, academic and cultural sectors in Venezuela.

“No to the coups carried out by the CIA that remind us that 30,000 people disappeared,” a figure estimated by human rights organizations such as the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo during the military dictatorship in Argentina (1976-1983). He also touched upon the 1973 coup in Chile.

Maduro said, “How long will the CIA continue its coups? Latin America does not want it, does not need it and refuses it.”

He said the goal was to “say no to war in the Caribbean, no to war in South America, yes to peace.”

Speaking in English, Maduro said: “Not war, yes peace, not war. Do you say that? Who speaks English? Not war, yes peace, US people please. Please, please, please.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs rejected “the belligerent and exaggerated statements of the President of the United States, in which he openly admitted that he has operations authorized to act against the peace and stability of Venezuela.”

“This unprecedented statement constitutes a very serious violation of international law and the Charter of the United Nations and obliges the community of countries to condemn these clearly extreme and unconscionable statements,” Foreign Minister Yván Gil said in a statement published on the Telegram channel.

Resistance from Congress Earlier this month, the Trump administration declared drug cartels illegal combatants and declared that the United States was currently in “armed conflict” with them, justifying military action as a necessary escalation to stop the flow of drugs into the United States.

The move increased the anger of members of both major political parties in Congress that Trump had effectively committed an act of war without authorization from Congress.

On Wednesday, Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that while she supports the fight against trafficking, the administration has gone too far.

“The Trump administration’s authorization of covert CIA action, deadly attacks on boats, and insinuation of ground operations in Venezuela moves the United States closer to a direct conflict with no transparency, oversight, or obvious guardrails,” Shaheen said. “The American people deserve to know whether the administration is dragging the United States into another conflict, putting troops at risk, or conducting a regime change operation.”

The Trump administration has yet to provide lawmakers with key evidence proving that the boats targeted by the U.S. military were actually carrying narcotics, according to two U.S. officials familiar with the matter.

The officials, who were not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said the administration had only pointed to declassified video clips of the attacks posted on social media by Trump and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and had not yet produced “hard evidence” that the ships were carrying drugs.

Lawmakers expressed frustration that the administration offered little detail about how it determines that the United States is in armed conflict with the cartels or which criminal organizations claim to be “unlawful combatants.”

Although the U.S. military attacked some ships, the U.S. Coast Guard continued its typical practice of stopping boats and seizing drugs.

Trump announced on Wednesday that the action was postponed, saying the traditional approach did not work.

“Because we’ve been doing this for 30 years and it’s been completely ineffective. They have faster boats,” he said. “They’re top-notch speedboats, but they’re no faster than missiles.”

Human rights groups have expressed concern that the strikes violate international law and amount to extrajudicial killings.