Does Trump really want to invade Venezuela?

0:00This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. The CIA has been carrying out covert operations around the world for decades. How has it shaped how people feel about the US? I'm Asma Khalid.

0:14Anthony Zurcher:And I'm Tristan Redman. And together we host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. As part of our series to mark the United States' 250th birthday, we're exploring the CIA's hidden history. Do you think the word of the United States will be trusted in years to come? For more, check out The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts. Just how far is Donald Trump prepared to go when it comes to the United States versus Venezuela and why? What we've seen is his administration really ratcheting up the pressure. There have been continued attacks on boats in the Caribbean, which the US says are smuggling drugs.

0:54and just in the last week Donald Trump was asked whether he was even considering military strikes on Venezuelan land. Well I don't want to tell you exactly but we are certainly looking at land now because we've got the sea very well under control. We've had a couple of days where there isn't a boat to be found and that I view that as a good thing not a bad thing. So what's all this really about? Is it a conflict over drug smuggling? Is there more to it? It's starting to spread to other South American countries as well, with the big question being just how far might Donald Trump go? Welcome to AmeriCast.

1:58Hi, it is Sarah here in the BBC's Washington Bureau.

2:02Anthony Zurcher:And it's Anthony, right next to Sarah here in Washington, D.C. So much seems to be happening with Donald Trump and Venezuela. And we talked about this just two weeks ago. America can go back and listen to all of that and get a little bit more background on what's been going on on BBC Sounds or anywhere else that you get your podcasts. But to bring people up to date, there was an attack on the 16th of October against a submarine in which two people were killed and there were two survivors. And then on the 17th, the Pentagon released a video of a military strike saying that three narco terrorists had been killed in that strike.

2:38Right.

2:38Anthony Zurcher:We've had at least seven strikes now with at least 32 deaths. months one happened on the 16th of October when the United States struck a partially submersible submarine in the Caribbean Sea killed two but also for the first time there were two survivors that the United States captured and then have since repatriated back to Ecuador one of the countries and Colombia the other one that's kind of interesting I mean what do you do with those people I mean it was only a matter of time right before there would be some survivors and the United States made the decision to send them back to their home countries and not prosecute them for violating American laws and drug trafficking.

3:19Yeah. And given that Donald Trump has been so very, very clear that these are drug traffickers who are threatening America, you would think that you would want to see them in an American court. But that's going to raise all kinds of questions, isn't it, about whether America actually has the authority to be doing this, whether they're in fact, I mean, breaking international law, breaking rules of war by just taking out ships they say are smuggling drugs when they've produced no evidence of that whatsoever.

3:41Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, clearly it would have been hard to process them in American courts, but also apparently it's going to be hard to process them in Colombian and Ecuadorian courts because Ecuador has since said they didn't have grounds, they didn't have enough evidence to prosecute them on drug trafficking charges and have released the Ecuadorian. And the Colombian president has also condemned these strikes, and that's creating some tensions between the United States and Colombia, which is a traditional American ally. Yeah, we'll get more into that a little bit later in the episode. And let's listen to Donald Trump himself justifying that attack, which killed two and there were two survivors.

4:19We attacked a submarine. And that was a drug-carrying submarine built specifically for the transportation of massive amounts of drugs, just so you understand. This was not an innocent group of people. I don't know too many people that have submarines. And that was an attack on a drug carrying loaded up submarine.

4:44Anthony Zurcher:Yes, it's definitely suspicious, but the United States hasn't provided much evidence in the way of drug trafficking for these attacks, in particular ones that that look more like fishing boats or speed boats than than submarines. They have provided some justification. Pete Hegseth, who is the Secretary of Defense and Secretary of War, however you want the administration to call him, he is explaining it this way, drawing a line to the so-called war on terror that started after the September 11th attacks on the World Trade Center. Yeah, that's right. He said that these cartels are the Al-Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere who use violence, murder and terrorism to impose their will and threaten U.S.

5:27national security and poison our people, he said. And Donald Trump and others have often said that these are drug smugglers who are bringing fentanyl into the United States and justifying these attacks by saying, you know, you might have four or five people on a boat. they'll kill 25 ,000 Americans in numbers like that. Fentanyl's not produced in Venezuela. There's plenty of cocaine, although apparently it tends not to come through the Caribbean Sea, but a lot of it goes up the West Coast. Fentanyl is not something that will be on these boats. That's made in Mexico from precursor chemicals that come from China.

6:05I mean, some of the justification that the administration's giving for this just doesn't really hold water very well.

6:10Anthony Zurcher:Right. And the way the United States government, the White House has presented it to Congress is that there is an ongoing armed conflict that the Venezuelan drug traffickers are essentially unlawful combatants. And that gives them justification for launching attacks on them the same way that we saw drone strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan against what the Bush administration, even the Obama administration had characterized as unlawful combatants. So it's the same sort of legal gray area we saw during that so-called war on terror now being used to attack targets in the Caribbean. And maybe the reason is because this is international waters.

6:54Anthony Zurcher:There's no outside legal authority that could technically stop the United States from doing this. Congress, at least so far, has not shown any interest in trying to stop this or hold Trump accountable for violations of domestic law, the War Powers Act, which requires administrations to justify the use of military force, ongoing use of military force to members of Congress. The Democrats brought a bill up to try to do that, and the Republicans in a partisan vote voted it down. So let's try and dig into what we think the politics of this are, because the U.S. is not going to win a war on drugs by taking out a few dozen boats, which may be fishing boats, may be smuggling drugs.

7:37I mean, that's not going to solve the problem, even if these were boats trafficking fentanyl into the United States. So what do we think is actually happening here? I think it's very noticeable that Donald Trump and lots of others in his administration post videos of these boats being blown up in a very celebratory, self-congratulatory way. They want people to know they're doing this. It's a bit of a flex.

8:00Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I think it's an attempt to show that they are taking the drug war seriously. In the same way that we saw video of people being deported, you know, loading up onto planes. I mean, it's almost propaganda, right? It's being used to send a message to the American people that this administration is doing something, whether it's addressing undocumented migration, or it's trying to stop drugs from coming in. But you're right. I mean, these are a handful of boats here and there. It's not going to make that much of a difference. Maybe it'll have some kind of a deterrent effect. But most of the drugs coming into this country are not coming on speedboats or partially submersible submarines in the Caribbean.

8:41Anthony Zurcher:It's coming across the U.S.-Mexico border. It's coming in through the mail. Well, fentanyl, as we pointed out in the past, is very potent. And you can have a lot of doses in a small package, which is why Donald Trump could say, oh, we blew up a boat, that fentanyl on it, enough to kill 200 ,000 people. I mean, yes, it's very potent. It could kill 200 ,000 people. It doesn't because it is cut and mixed and spread out over thousands of doses. But it is highly toxic and also highly dangerous. us. I've been wondering whether or not the fact that this is Venezuela is also furthering the anti-immigration deportation agenda because a huge number of migrants in the United States are from Venezuela because of what's happened to that country in recent years.

9:27We know the administration is very keen to find and import as many of them as they possibly can. Does it help to sort of characterize that country as somewhere that's importing drugs into America and demonize Venezuelans generally by showing that you have to take this kind of violent action against what you say is drug smugglers?

9:45Anthony Zurcher:Yeah, I think that's definitely one of the factors here. I mean, there are multiple factors, I think, when it comes to Venezuela. The first is that they are responsible for some drug trafficking. The second is the immigration, the outflux of migrants fleeing the economic hardship, political persecution in Venezuela under the Maduro regime. A lot of them are going to Colombia. Colombia has a huge migrant challenge with all of these Venezuelans, and they've been pretty good about accepting them and attempting to integrate them into Colombian society. But that also leads to more people moving from Colombia up through towards the Americas.

10:22Anthony Zurcher:And then there is a general dissatisfaction with the authoritarian, left-wing socialist regime of Venezuela, something that has been angering particularly conservatives for quite some time now. Going back to Donald Trump's first term, going back to Marco Rubio, the current secretary of state, when he represented Florida, which has a very large population of Venezuelan expatriates, South American expatriates who view the Maduro regime as on a par with the communists in Cuba. They're evil and they should be combated any way possible. So they're going to celebrate anything the United States does to try to put the screws to the Maduro regime.

11:04Anthony Zurcher:And while we haven't explicitly called, I believe, for regime change, it certainly seems to be maybe a subtext in all of this. The all powerful Stephen Miller, who is the deputy chief of staff in the White House, but seen as a big kind of intellectual force behind Trumpism, isn't he? He got involved in this when he was asked about drug cartels that had infiltrated the Maduro's government in Venezuela. There's a$50 million reward for the return of Nicolas Maduro. Not just him, his henchmen have also been indicted. So it is a drug cartel that is running Venezuela. This is a very important point.

11:40It's not a government, it is a drug cartel, a narco-trafficking organization that is running Venezuela. And this has been documented in federal court and indictments have been secured. The people of Venezuela have been suffering and struggling under the reality of a nation that is so rich in resources, so rich in reserves, that is run by Maduro, the head of the Cartel de los Soles. That is absolutely one of the most ruthless criminal cartels on the planet.

12:09Anthony Zurcher:And many Americans may not realize that the drugs killing their kids are coming from Maduro, and also the criminal aliens killing their kids are coming from Maduro. So he's sending his drugs. He is sending his killers, his assassins into our communities. And he's working directly with other designated foreign terrorist organizations like the FARC in Colombia and all the Mexican drug cartels. So it's one continuous loop. Fifty million dollar reward for capturing and bringing to the United States Nicolas Maduro. That's more than was ever on Osama bin Laden's head, I think. I mean, that's a pretty overt way of saying that the U.S.

12:45wants to get rid of him.

12:47Anthony Zurcher:If you listen to that clip, it's pretty clear that Stephen Miller, who is driving a lot of the policy decisions in this administration, as you point out, he's the person who's the point person on immigration in particular. But now he is apparently overseeing and directing some of these strikes on boats and overseeing the military operations in the Caribbean. He is putting a big target on Maduro and is holding him up as the central figure responsible for all of these ills, drugs and crime and undocumented migration, which Maduro has got a long track record of human rights abuses. Most Western nations have concluded that he lost the 2024 presidential election, but rigged the voting in order to win.

13:33Anthony Zurcher:He was the heir of the Venezuelan government from Hugo Chavez, who first came to power, much more charismatic guy, but he died. And Maduro is now the second in line of this kind of left-wing dictatorship that's been running Venezuela. And I think if you listen to Maduro now, he's getting concerned that maybe the United States is less interested in having some sort of negotiated settlement with the Venezuelan regime working with Maduro, which seemed like a possibility at the beginning of this year when Trump officials were engaging in negotiations about maybe lifting sanctions and getting some of Venezuela's oil and reaching some sort of a step down in the tensions.

14:12Anthony Zurcher:And instead, now we have Maduro here himself worrying about maybe even being invaded, about military strikes on Venezuelan soil. Let's listen to President Nicolas Maduro directly appealing to Trump and the American people for peace during a televised address just last week. And he starts in Spanish and then switches as if to emphasize the point of who he's talking to, switches to English.

14:38Tell the people of the United States no to war. We do not want war in the Caribbean or South America. No, not war, just peace. No war, just peace on the people United States, please. Please, please, please. He's appealing for peace, not war. Are we seriously saying there is any prospect of a full-on armed conflict between the US and Venezuela? I mean, we did hear Donald Trump earlier saying that they were looking at land now, not just the sea. And there are something like 10 ,000 troops built up in Puerto Rico. So, you know, moving into the region, along with other Navy ships and other materiel.

15:24Is this just a threatening posture? I mean, the U.S. isn't going to go and invade Venezuela, is it?

15:29Anthony Zurcher:That seems unlikely. What seems possibly more likely is targeting with airstrikes or missile strikes forces on the land or drug cartels on the land. Trump has talked about this before. Even in the first term, he was rumbling about maybe using U.S. military to strike cartels in Mexico. So I guess it wouldn't be too much of a leap to say, all right, well, maybe not Mexico. because of the diplomatic ties we have with Mexico, but Venezuela, which we don't really care what the Maduro regime thinks about us, let's start hitting things on their land. And obviously that is an escalation. And it is also not just destabilizing to the Maduro regime, which I think Americans may be perfectly fine with, and certainly the White House seems to be fine with, but it's destabilizing to the entire region.

16:14Anthony Zurcher:And already we're seeing signs of Colombia is starting to object to this. The Colombian national, as we mentioned, several have been killed apparently, but also one has been captured and returned to Colombia. It is creating the potential for a regional crisis. And if we start bombing land targets, that's only going to get worse. Yeah, actually, the president of Colombia, Gustavo Petro, posted on social media after one of those attacks that a Colombian boat was adrift and had its distress signal up due to an engine failure when it was struck and said he was waiting for explanations from the U.S.

16:50government. That's the most direct refutation of the idea that these are all drug smugglers that I've heard.

16:56Anthony Zurcher:Right. And you've heard J.D. Vance, the vice president, joke about how it's not a good idea to go fishing in that part of the Caribbean Sea, almost dismissive of the risk of civilian casualties. And here we have the president of Colombia saying essentially that this was one of those unintended targets. And the United States has not provided any more details about that strike beyond just saying that everyone they're hitting with these missile attacks, they're all drug smugglers. It's entirely possible that this threatening posture is meant to intimidate other countries in the region as well, of course.

17:30I mean, Donald Trump hasn't been shy of accusing the Colombian president of being an illegal drug leader, saying that Gustavo Petro is a low rated, very unpopular leader with a fresh mouth towards America. he better close up these killing fields immediately or the United States will close them up for him and it won't be done nicely, he said, and then announced that all U.S. subsidies and payments to the country are being cancelled. So, I mean, he's, yeah, I mean, he's throwing himself around the region a bit. And then the New York Times came out with a story, didn't they, saying that he had authorised covert CIA activity in Venezuela, which he was asked about in the Oval Office.

18:10Anthony Zurcher:Why did you authorize the CIA to go into Venezuela? And is there more information you can share about these strikes on the alleged? Well, I can't do that, but I authorized for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. They came in through the, well, they came in through the border. They came in because we had an open border policy. and they've entered there. They've allowed thousands and thousands of prisoners, mental institution, people from mental institutions, insane asylums, emptied out into the United States. We're bringing them back, but that's a really bad thing.

18:50And they did it at a level that probably not many, many countries have done it, but not like Venezuela. They were down and dirty. And the other thing are drugs. We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs coming through the sea. So you get to see that. But we're going to stop them by land also.

19:06Anthony Zurcher:Does the CIA have authority to take out Maduro? Oh, I don't want to answer a question like that. That's a ridiculous question for me to be given. Not really a ridiculous question, but wouldn't it be a ridiculous question for me to answer? Yeah, that's remarkable. I mean, the president acknowledging that the CIA could be operating in Venezuela. I don't know, this may date me, but do you remember the movie Clear and Present Danger in the 90s? I mean, the central premise of this is based on a Tom Clancy book with Harrison Ford. The central premise was that the president got so fed up with drug deaths and cartels operating in South America that he launched a covert military operation in Colombia that predictably led to complications, American deaths.

19:50Anthony Zurcher:And the big finale was when this covert operation was exposed to the public and Congress and there were oversight hearings and it became a huge political scandal. Well, here we are, the president of the United States now just saying, yeah, this is what we're doing. Not only are we bombing, acknowledging that we're bombing targets in the Caribbean, but now we're acknowledging that we're launching covert actions. It turns the premise of that movie on its head and it kind of shows how differently Donald Trump operates than past politicians. Is it still a covert operation when you've said the quiet part out loud and admitted that it's going on.

20:27Anthony Zurcher:It's an overt operation, I suppose. You know, you talked about Colombia and the Trump administration, Trump himself has some history with Colombia as well. It was, I think, late January, he threatened to remove aid to Colombia if they didn't accept repatriated Colombian citizens. And that was a big diplomatic dust up and Colombia backed down. And then you were up in Ungar, I think, just a few weeks ago. Petro was on the streets protesting along with people who were decrying the immigration enforcement that the Trump administration was doing. And that really ticked off Trump. And I think they tried to revoke his visa authorization for being on U.S.