President Donald Trump has in recent months overseen military strikes against alleged “drug smuggling” boats off the coast of Venezuela, ordered a military buildup in its coastal waters, accused its president, Nicolás Maduro, of being part of a drug cartel, and, on Wednesday, seized one of the nation’s oil tankers.
What’s his problem with Venezuela? And why does he seem intent on dragging the U.S. into a war with the South American nation?
On any given day, Trump or his officials may blame Venezuela for sending too many migrants into the U.S., for sending migrants who are gang members, murderers, or other criminals, or for trading valuable resources with America’s enemies.
Trump’s Attorney General Pam Bondi claims the tanker that was just seized off the coast of Venezuela was carrying sanctioned oil intended for Iran. Venezuela has denied this and called Trump’s actions an “act of international piracy.”
Immigration
Trump has frequently accused Venezuela of pouring illegal migrants into the U.S. During his 2024 re-election campaign, Trump regularly told his supporters that Venezuela was “opening up the prisons” and encouraging hardened criminals to flood across America’s borders.
He even cited immigration on Thursday when Fox News’ Peter Doocy asked him about his intentions regarding Venezuela.
“Now that we’ve seized this tanker, is the campaign against Venezuela still just about drugs, or is it now also about oil?” Doocy asked.
“Well, it’s about a lot of things,” Trump replied. “But one of the things it’s about is the fact that they’ve allowed millions of people to come into our country from their prisons, from gangs, from drug dealers, and from mental institutions.”
He then claimed that 12,000 murderers entered the U.S. and insisted that “many of them are from Venezuela.”
As much as he’s spoken about his issues with Venezuelan migrants, immigration isn’t the issue that Trump has used to justify killing people in its recent strikes on what it calls “drug boats”.
Drugs
Trump has accused Venezuela of trafficking drugs into the U.S. and has used those accusations to justify lethal military operations on Venezuelan ships.
Earlier this fall, Trump approved military strikes on Venezuelan boats that his administration claims were used to traffic drugs. In an incident on September 2, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave an order to attack a boat carrying 11 people. According to a Washington Post report, Hegseth then ordered a second strike to kill the survivors.
None of the individuals killed in Trump’s boat strikes have been proven to be criminals in a court of law.
The president is not just accusing Venezuela of being the departure point for alleged drug traffickers, but accusing Maduro — the nation’s president — of being a top-level member of a drug cartel that ships drugs into the U.S.
Trump claims that Maduro is the head of the “Cartel de los Soles.” The cartel is a name given to military officers and other officials in the Venezuelan government who are corrupt and engage in drug trafficking. The term has been in use since at least the 1990s and doesn’t necessarily describe a structured organization in the way a typical drug cartel might be organized. Trump has not provided evidence that Maduro is involved in or leading drug traffickers in Venezuela.
On Thursday, the president bragged to Doocy that drug trafficking by sea was down, though his numbers seem suspiciously high.
“If you look at drug traffic, drug traffic by sea is down 92%,” the president claimed. “And nobody can figure out who the eight is, because I have no idea. Anybody getting involved in that right now is not doing well. And we’ll start that on land too. It’s gonna be starting on land pretty soon.”
While drugs may be how Trump is justifying military action, what he really wants may not be what is leaving Venezuela, but what is buried beneath it.
Natural resources
Venezuela is rich in oil and in rare earth minerals. Both are extremely valuable commodities.
On Thursday, the White House confirmed that it would seize the oil in the tanker it captured the day prior.
In a statement responding to the tanker incident, Caracas directly accused the U.S. of trying to plunder Venezuela for its riches.
“Under these circumstances, the true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed… It has always been about our natural resources, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement.
On Thursday, Trump also slapped new sanctions on three of Maduro’s nephews as well as six companies that ship oil out of the country, according to Axios.
Breaking Maduro — or replacing him — could give the U.S. leverage on future mineral deals with the nation.
According to Maduro, Venezuela is sitting on $1.36 trillion worth of mineral wealth.
The U.S. has already made its priorities clear elsewhere in the world; earlier this year, the U.S. entered a deal with Ukraine allowing American entities preferential access to the nation’s mineral reserves as partial repayment for assisting in its defense against Russia.
