Trump authorizes covert CIA actions in Venezuela

WashingtonDonald Trump is tightening the siege on Venezuela. The US president has secretly authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions in the Latin American country, as confirmed by the US president himself in a joint press conference with FBI Director Kash Patel. The decision comes amid the new war against the cartels, in which the president has labeled drug traffickers as terrorists and used it as a pretext to launch military attacks against boats leaving the Venezuelan coast accused of carrying drugs.

"They've emptied their prisons [towards] the United States," the president responded by way of justification. The authorization would allow the intelligence agency to carry out covert actions against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his government. These actions could be unilateral by the CIA or in collaboration with a larger military operation. Still, it is unknown whether the agency plans any action within Venezuela or if the authorizations are merely a contingency measure.

Tensions with Venezuela have been growing for weeks, while the Maduro regime has already warned that it will take military action against the United States if its country is attacked. In September, the US military began launching attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea, accused of drug trafficking. The latest attack occurred yesterday: the vessel was sunk and the six crew members were killed, according to information the Pentagon claims to have about the identity of the sailors.

At this point, the US president has not yet been able to invoke any international regulations or authorities that would allow people to be executed militarily on charges that have not been judicially proven. The actions Trump is taking in his new war on drugs are very reminiscent of the actions taken against Al Qaeda members during the war on terror in the early 2000s.

In early October, Trump notified Congress that the United States They are now engaged in an "armed conflict" against drug trafficking as justification for the questions posed by the legislature regarding the first attack on a boat in September.

The military pressure against the Maduro regime comes amid a reissue of the Trumpian backyard doctrine on Latin America. Whether by financing favorable governments—such as the bailout of Javier Milei in Argentina—or by militarily pressuring Maduro, the Republican administration seeks to regain control of the region with the goal of ousting China, which has gained influence in recent years.

Recently, in an interview with the president's son, Donald Trump Jr., Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado—Nobel Peace Prize winner—promised that once regime change occurred, all oil companies would be privatized and the crude would be given to corporations. "We're going to privatize our entire industry," Corina Machado told the president's son, insisting that American companies "will make a lot of money."