Top Trump aides push for ousting Maduro from power in Venezuela
- The San Juan Daily Star
- 10 hours ago
- 6 min read
By JULIAN E. BARNES, EDWARD WONG, JULIE TURKEWITZ and CHARLIE SAVAGE
The push by top aides to President Donald Trump to remove Nicolás Maduro as the leader of Venezuela has intensified in recent days, with administration officials discussing a broad campaign that would escalate military pressure to try to force him out, U.S. officials say.
It is being led by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state and national security adviser. Rubio argues that Maduro is an illegitimate leader who oversees the export of drugs to the United States, which he says poses an “imminent threat.”
In recent weeks, the U.S. military has launched lethal attacks on civilian boats that the administration said were smuggling drugs for Venezuelan gangs. But Rubio is shaping a more aggressive strategy, using intelligence provided by the CIA, the officials said. The Pentagon has built up a force of more than 6,500 troops in the region.
The intelligence agency’s director, John Ratcliffe, and Stephen Miller, Trump’s chief domestic policy adviser, both support Rubio’s approach, the officials added.
The U.S. military has been planning potential military operations targeting drug trafficking suspects in Venezuela itself as a next phase, although the White House has not yet approved such a step, current and former officials say.
Those operations would be aimed at interfering with drug production and trafficking in Venezuela as well as tightening a vise around Maduro.
Because administration officials assert Maduro sits atop Venezuela’s cartel network, they can argue that removing him from power is ultimately a counternarcotics operation.
Rubio repeatedly cites the Justice Department’s 2020 indictment of him and other Venezuelan officials on drug trafficking charges. He recently described Maduro as a “fugitive from American justice” and the head of “a terrorist organization and organized crime organization that have taken over a country.”
At the same time, two senior figures in Venezuela’s opposition say their movement has been planning for what to do if Maduro falls and have been talking with the Trump administration about that possibility.
Trump administration officials have not confirmed whether there have been such exchanges, and the White House did not provide comment on the matter.
In July, Trump signed a still-secret order directing the U.S. military to use force against drug cartels his administration has labeled terrorists. The Pentagon began building up a large naval force in the Caribbean.
Then came the U.S. military strikes on civilian boats. Trump has announced three such operations in international waters since Sept. 2 that have killed at least 17 people, without presenting a legal basis for the attacks. He described the first two as targeting Venezuelans but has not given the nationality of the people killed in the third strike. Planning for expanding military operations into Venezuela was reported earlier by NBC News.
Rubio met with five opposition figures in May who secretly fled to the United States in what he called a “precise operation.” He has praised the opposition leader, María Corina Machado, whom he called by her nickname, the “Venezuelan Iron Lady,” in a tribute this year.
Pedro Urruchurtu, an adviser to Machado, said in an interview that the opposition had developed a plan for the first 100 hours after Maduro’s ouster that would involve a transfer of power to Edmundo González, who ran for president against Maduro last year.
Independent monitors have said that election was marred by fraud and that González — who has since been exiled in Spain — was its legitimate winner.
“What we’re talking about is an operation to dismantle a criminal structure, and that includes a series of actions and tools,” Urruchurtu said, adding: “It has to be done with the use of force, because otherwise it wouldn’t be possible to defeat a regime like the one we’re facing.”
The State Department said the administration was focused on fighting drug cartels.
“Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela; he’s a fugitive of American justice who undermines regional security and poisons Americans, and we want to see him brought to justice,” said Tommy Pigott, the State Department’s deputy spokesperson, when asked to comment for this article.
“The U.S. is engaged in a counterdrug cartel operation, and any claim that we are coordinating with anyone on anything other than this targeted effort is completely false,” he added.
It is generally illegal under international law to use force in another country without its consent or the permission of the United Nations Security Council. But the U.S. government, under the Biden administration, recognized González as the legitimate winner of the 2024 election. If González announces he approves an intervention, the Trump administration could say that was consent.
During his first administration, Trump supported a different opposition leader’s attempted uprising against Maduro and imposed punishing sanctions on Venezuela. But the current efforts appear far more expansive, mainly because of the U.S. military strikes and buildup.
Only a small number of officials are involved in White House planning conversations on Venezuela. Some people briefed on the discussions suggested that Rubio and his allies were first looking for ways to oust Maduro without having to resort to direct U.S. military action.
The ‘fugitive’
In recent weeks, Rubio has spoken vigorously of the Trump administration’s intention to force Maduro to answer to the Justice Department indictment.
The State Department increased a reward to $50 million for any information leading to Maduro’s arrest and conviction on the drug charges.
Trump has not explicitly stated that his goal is to depose Maduro, but he has boasted about the new military campaign in the Caribbean.
“We’ve recently begun using the supreme power of the United States military to destroy Venezuelan terrorists and trafficking networks led by Nicolás Maduro,” he said last week in a speech at the U.N. General Assembly.
“We will blow you out of existence,” he added.
Rubio has said Trump “is going to wage war on narco-terrorist organizations,” despite the lack of congressional authorization for any armed conflict with them.
Law experts say the lethal military strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats have been illegal.
In last year’s election, roughly 70% of the population voted for González, according to paper tallies from voting machines collected by the opposition. The Carter Center, an independent vote monitor, found the opposition’s count to be accurate.
But the Venezuelan military has remained loyal to Maduro, despite years of meager pay and political repression.
Drugs and diplomacy
Some senior U.S. officials, most notably Richard Grenell, Trump’s envoy to Venezuela and the head of the Kennedy Center, say any attempt to remove Maduro by force would be misguided.
Those officials argue that expanding the campaign against Venezuela into a regime-change operation risks putting the United States in an extended war of the kind Trump promised to avoid.
Speaking at a Conservative Political Action Committee event this month in Paraguay, Grenell said there was still time for diplomacy.
“I believe in diplomacy,” he said. “I believe in avoiding war.”
In an interview with The New York Times last Friday, Venezuela’s vice president, Delcy Rodríguez, said that her country was not a major producer or exporter of drugs and that she had “no doubt that one of the strategic objectives” of the Trump administration “is what they call ‘regime change.’”
Rodríguez said Venezuela sought to continue dialogue with Grenell and to normalize economic relations with the United States, saying that Trump’s base had voted for economic growth, “not more wars.”
This month, Maduro sent a three-page letter to Trump insisting that his country did not export drugs.
The letter, dated Sept. 6, called for talks to ease the tensions, multiple people briefed on its contents told The New York Times. The letter had remained undisclosed until Sept. 21, when Rodríguez posted it online and said it had been delivered to Washington through an intermediary.
Karoline Leavitt, the White House spokesperson, said last week that the administration received the letter but had dismissed it.
Yván Gil, Venezuela’s foreign minister, said one sign his nation wants diplomacy is that it still accepts twice-weekly flights of deportees from the United States.
“We are willing to discuss everything that needs to be discussed with a neighboring country, a country that is an economic power, a military power,” Gil said. He added that a large conflict would lead to “excessive migration” and economic collapse that would “destabilize the entire region.”
But there is one thing that is not on the table in any negotiation, he said: Maduro’s exit.