The Trump administration has secretly authorized the CIA to carry out covert actions in Venezuela, according to information published this Wednesday, October 15, by the American newspaper “The New York Times”. The stated objective of this authorization is to intensify the campaign to overthrow Nicolás Maduro.
The CIA can now carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and the Caribbean, according to sources from that newspaper. These operations can be carried out unilaterally or in coordination with broader military actions. It is not known whether the CIA has immediate plans to execute operations in Venezuela.
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The decision comes after the Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to opposition figure Maria Corina Machado on Friday, something that
seemed to displease Trump, who wanted it for himself. Even so, Machado called him and told him she dedicated it to him.
The fact that those plans were leaked also points to a campaign of
pressure from the White House on Maduro, whom Trump called a “dictator” on Tuesday, in a bilateral meeting with the Argentine Javier Milei. In his first term, Trump also exerted abundant pressure, even supporting a failed military pronouncement in 2019.
The Pentagon is drawing up attack options for Trump, including possible incursions into Venezuela. There are already about
10,000 U.S. soldiers in the region, mainly at bases in Puerto Rico, and a contingent of marines on amphibious assault ships.
The U.S. Navy has deployed eight surface ships and a submarine in the Caribbean. With this deployment, at least five barges loaded, allegedly, with cocaine have been attacked, with a minimum balance of at least 27 dead. The regime denies having anything to do with drug trafficking.
The authorization to the CIA was formalized through an intelligence document prepared for the president to grant permission for operations abroad. Maduro is wanted by the U.S., and there is a reward of 50 million dollars for leads that help find his whereabouts.
In January, an emissary of Donald Trump, former ambassador Ric Grenell, went to Caracas and met with Maduro and Jorge Rodríguez, another leader of the dictatorship, to negotiate the release of American prisoners captured by Chavismo. Trump ended diplomatic talks with Maduro’s government at the beginning of the month.
The U.S. president made that decision after being frustrated by Maduro’s refusal to relinquish power and acknowledge involvement in drug trafficking. The dictator is also indicted by a New York grand jury for forming a cartel, the Cartel of the Suns, for personal gain through cocaine trafficking.
The
CIA already had authority to cooperate on security matters with Latin American governments, but not to carry out lethal operations. The strategy towards Venezuela was designed by the Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, Marco Rubio, with the collaboration of the CIA director, John Ratcliffe.
Ratcliffe stated that under his command the CIA would be more aggressive and take more risks in covert operations, he said before taking office. The White House and the CIA declined to comment on the new authorization reported by the Times.
Rubio considers Maduro illegitimate and calls him a
“narcoterrorist”. Trump does the same, accusing him of perpetuating himself illicitly in power.
Maduro prevented the
democratically elected government last year from taking office. The Trump administration maintains that Maduro leads the criminal gang Tren de Aragua, which has infiltrated the U.S. to generate chaos and increase crime.
In documents to Congress, the White House argued that drug cartels are “non-state armed groups” whose acts constitute “armed attacks against the United States.” The president stated in a recent memorandum to the Capitol that the U.S. is at war with the cartels.
Presidential findings authorizing covert operations are secret and only a few members of Congress are informed. Those members cannot disclose the information and parliamentary oversight of those operations is limited.
For years, the CIA has increased its work in anti-narcotics operations in Mexico and Latin America in cooperation with the DEA, the anti-drug agency. During the Biden administration, Director William Burns continued that line with drone flights over Mexico to locate fentanyl labs. Ratcliffe expanded those operations.
The CIA has an extensive history of covert operations in Latin America, including support for coups in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964), and Chile (1973), the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (1961), support for dissidents who assassinated Rafael Trujillo (1961), and the financing of the war against the Sandinistas in Nicaragua in the eighties.
