Trump strikes suspected Venezuelan drug boats as pressure mounts on Maduro regime

President Donald Trump said he believes Venezuela is “feeling the heat” amid his administration’s war against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean, which have destroyed at least two vessels in the past week.

Although Trump has said the strikes are aimed at curbing the flow of drugs into the United States, experts and some lawmakers say they serve another purpose: putting pressure on Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to be ousted from power.

“The Trump administration is likely attempting to force Maduro to voluntarily leave office through a series of diplomatic measures, and now through military action and the threat of it,” Brandan Buck, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said in an email to Fox News Digital on Thursday. “Whether this constitutes ‘regime change’ or something else is a question of semantics.”

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Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro gestures during a news conference, amid growing tensions with the United States over the deployment of American warships in the southern Caribbean and nearby waters. (Reuters)

The Trump administration has repeatedly said it does not recognize Maduro as a legitimate head of state, but rather as the leader of a drug cartel. In August, the Trump administration increased the reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest to $50 million, calling him “one of the world’s largest drug traffickers.”

So far, the Trump administration has remained tight-lipped when asked about Maduro, and Trump declined to answer Wednesday when asked whether the CIA had the authority to “eliminate” Maduro.

However, Trump confirmed that he had authorized the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, after the New York Times reported on Wednesday that he had approved the decision. Trump told reporters he did so because Venezuela had released prisoners to the United States and drugs were coming to the United States from Venezuela by sea.

Additionally, Trump confirmed Friday that Maduro had offered to grant the United States access to Venezuelan oil and other natural resources, saying the Venezuelan leader did not want to “mess around” with the United States.

However, these recent strikes are unlikely to significantly harm the flow of drugs into the United States, according to Buck.

“It is more likely that these strikes are part of a progressive effort to unseat Maduro rather than a simple war effort against the cartels,” Buck said. “The Pacific and land routes through Mexico are considerably more prolific, and Venezuela itself is a relatively minor player, particularly when it comes to fentanyl.”

The Trump administration has employed maritime forces to deal with drug threats and has increased its naval assets in the Caribbean in recent months. For example, Trump sent several U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyers to bolster the administration’s counternarcotics efforts in the region starting in August.

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The United States killed six suspected drug traffickers on a boat in international waters near Venezuela, President Donald Trump announced on October 14, 2025. (trueDonaldTrump/Truth Social)

Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council international affairs think tank, said the Trump administration wants the additional forces to encourage the Venezuelan military to take charge.

“What President Trump hopes is that this deployment will signal to the Venezuelan military that they need to rise up against Maduro themselves,” Ramsey said in an email to Fox News Digital on Thursday. “The problem is we haven’t seen this approach bear fruit in twenty years of effort. Maduro is bad at governing, but he’s good at keeping his upper echelons fat and happy while the people starve.”

“What is needed here is some kind of road map, or transition plan, that can be more attractive to the ruling party and those around Maduro who might secretly want change but need to see a future for themselves in a democratic Venezuela,” Ramsey said.

Meanwhile, the second Trump administration took a tough approach to combating the flow of drugs into the United States and in February designated drug cartel groups like Tren de Aragua, Sinaloa and others as foreign terrorist organizations.

Additionally, the White House sent lawmakers a memo on September 30 informing them that the United States is now engaged in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug traffickers and has carried out at least six strikes against ships off the coast of Venezuela. The United States captured survivors of the most recent strike on Thursday – the first involving survivors. At least 28 other people died in previous strikes.

Lawmakers on both sides have expressed concerns about the legality of the strikes, and Senators Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, and Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, introduced a war powers resolution in September to prohibit U.S. forces from engaging in “hostilities” against certain non-state organizations.

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Senators Adam Schiff, Democrat of California, pictured here, and Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, introduced a war powers resolution in September to prohibit U.S. forces from engaging in “hostilities” against certain non-state organizations. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)

The resolution failed in the Senate by a margin of 51 to 48 on October 8, but Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska voted alongside their Democratic counterparts for the resolution.

On Friday, Schiff, Kaine and Paul introduced another, narrower war powers resolution that would prevent U.S. armed forces from participating in “hostilities” against Venezuela in particular. Lawmakers said the resolution was a response to Trump’s comments regarding ground operations in Venezuela.

“The Trump administration has made clear that it may launch military action within Venezuela’s borders and will not stop at boat strikes in the Caribbean,” Schiff said in a statement Friday. “In recent weeks, we have seen increasingly disturbing moves and reporting that contradict claims that this is simply about stopping drug traffickers. Congress has not authorized the use of military force against Venezuela. And we must assert our authority to prevent the United States from being drawn – intentionally or accidentally – into a full-blown war in South America.”

Asked about lawmakers’ concerns about the legality of the strikes, Trump dismissed them and said lawmakers had been told the ships were carrying drugs.

“But they are being given information that they were loaded with drugs,” Trump said Tuesday. “And that’s what matters. When they’re loaded with drugs, they’re fair game. And every one of those ships was and they’re not ships, they’re boats.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.