Since October 2025, the United States Navy (USN) has sent ever more ships to patrol off the coast of Venezuela. The USN ships have significant firepower, and of course its aircraft carriers have more planes than some air forces. The Trump Administration’s rhetoric towards the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is increasingly bellicose.
Venezuela is a Spanish-speaking country in South America that contains some of the largest oil reserves in the world. A country blessed with such bounteous resources ought to be affluent, yet many of its people have long been afflicted by poverty due to gross inequality and mismanagement. Also, drug-dealing gangs have long been a serious power in the country.
In the 1990s, a left-wing-minded army officer called Hugo Chavez attempted to overthrow the democratically elected government. His farcical coup was abortive, and Chavez was imprisoned. He was released several years later and won the presidency legitimately. His policies were supposedly about lifting people out of poverty. Chavez achieved some genuine successes, such as providing oil for cost price to Cuba in return for Cuban doctors working for a pittance in Venezuela. Cuba’s ‘medical missionaries’ are there for ideological reasons, not solely humanitarian ones. They earn valuable foreign exchange for Cuba. Moreover, they are also alleged to prescribe medicines according to a patient’s ideology, i.e., a left-winger will be prescribed more effective medicines than a right-winger.
Chavez managed the economy into the ground. The middle class hated his tax increases, and many of them emigrated. Oil production fell and fell.
Venezuela, over the last 20 years, has drawn closer to the anti-Western Bloc. It is most amicable with Cuba, China, Russia and Iran.
President George W Bush was famously hostile towards Hugo Chavez. No US President in Chavez’s time had cordial relations with Venezuela. Chavez died of natural causes in 2013. His second-in-command, Nicolas Maduro, was elected in room of him.
Maduro has persisted with the same left-wing policies. He rigged an election in 2019. The USA and the European Union refused to recognise Maduro as the rightful president. Some Americans were arrested in Venezuela allegedly plotting a putsch.
Under Maduro, there are severe food shortages and frequent power cuts. His socialist economy has made things much worse than they were under capitalism.
In 2025, the US Navy destroyed several Venezuelan fishing vessels and killed the fishermen. The US claimed that the fishermen were smuggling narcotics. This might be true but is unproven. Even if it is, that is no justification for murder. The US could have arrested these men and charged them with a crime. The USN has far, far more firepower than any drug boat. There was no need to launch attacks on these boats. They could have been apprehended. This is piracy on the high seas.
The last time the United States invaded a Latin American country was in 1989. President George H W Bush ordered the invasion of Panama. Hundreds of Panamanians were killed, and Manuel Noriega, the dictator of the country, was overthrown and arrested. Noriega was put on trial in the United States for trafficking drugs into the USA. He was found guilty and served a long sentence in the United States. Thereafter, he was extradited to France where he was convicted of crimes against French citizens, and he spent the rest of his life incarcerated in France. George Bush Senior’s decision to invade Panama was highly contentious. It was because a Panamanian civilian murdered a US soldier. The US Military had a presence in the Panama Canal Zone. If a Panamanian soldier stationed in the US was murdered by an American civilian, the United States would not consider it permissible for Panama to invade them.
The United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly did not approve of the US action towards Panama. Some held it to be illegal. It makes no bones that Noriega was a dictator. There were dozens of them in the world at the time. Some of them were backed by the United States. Only a few years earlier, Noriega had been a key US asset despite the United States knowing full well that he was a drug kingpin.
Donald J Trump neither knows nor cares about laws foreign or domestic. In his 2016 election campaign, he repeatedly encouraged the crowd at his rallies to commit violent crime against demonstrators. Such violence occurred, and he was never prosecuted. It is his 5th Avenue doctrine: ‘I could shoot someone dead in broad daylight on 5th Avenue and get away with it.’ He has lived by that principle: flagrantly committing the most egregious crimes, believing in his impunity. In this he has been largely correct. 5th Avenue is the main thoroughfare in New York City.
Donald J Trump is under significant pressure at home. The Republican Party is unhappy that he reneged on an electoral pledge to publish the Epstein Files. The Democrats published parts of it and the Republicans published parts of it. In both cases, it was selective in a partisan manner. It has finally been published in its entirety, and it looks bad for Trump.
The US economy has slowed due to his tariffs. Tourist numbers are down 13% due to the US arresting German and British tourists just for trying to holiday and imprisoning them for up to two weeks. America’s insane paranoia about illegal immigration has even led to the incarceration of people with tourist visas – people who come from rich countries and are very unlikely to want to live permanently in the US illegally. The numbers of foreign students are down due to the US Government’s extreme suspicion towards foreign students and expelling some who protested for human rights.
Trump has not ended the Ukraine War. He bragged he would do so in 24 hours. The Gaza Conflict has not quite ended. Israel has murdered hundreds of Palestinian civilians since the so-called ceasefire and demolished over 1,500 buildings.
The approval rating of Donald J Trump is tanking. Marjorie Taylor Greene was one of his most fanatical advocates in the House of Representatives. Mrs Taylor Greene has announced her resignation from the House because she feels badly betrayed by Trump. This will trigger a special election that will be difficult for the Republican Party.
The Republican Party is jittery about the midterms due in November 2026. Zohran Mamdani won the mayoralty of New York City. Mr Mamdani is a Democrat, and his party usually wins NYC – that is not surprising. What is shocking for the Republican Party is that Mamdani is a self-avowed socialist. Mamdani may prove to be a gift to the Republican Party. In the USA, many consider socialism to be evil.
A short glorious little war against Venezuela could be just the tonic for the Republican Party. Raining bombs on a foreign country always raises a president’s approval rating – in the short term. But it is also risky and divisive. Trump promised to bring the troops home and avoid foreign conflicts.
The US could invade Venezuela and defeat its military – that’s the easy part. They take Caracas – what do they do when they get there? Do they want to occupy a teeming slum of 2 million people with many gangsters armed to the teeth? The US Military could suffer significant losses. It could not tell civilian from combatant and may end up committing massacres. The Americans could be mired there for years. As experience in Iraq and Afghanistan shows, winning the peace is much trickier than winning the war.
Could the US put a compliant Venezuelan in place who has the confidence of the people of that nation? Could the country hold proper elections? Could the country’s oil production go back to the levels of the 1990s? If so, world oil prices would tumble, and it would reduce the incomes of Russia and Iran – two countries that the US is keen to enfeeble.
Trump has a weathervane mind. It is hard to predict him because he is so erratic, and his impulsivity is notorious.
There are more limited options Trump can use. He could launch airstrikes to degrade the Venezuelan military. But that would be unlikely to lead to regime change.
All Trump’s bluster and aggression play well with many in the US. They mistake cruelty for toughness.
Vice President J D Vance is less sanguine. He is by far the front runner to be the Republican Party’s candidate in 2028. He is deeply sceptical about foreign wars. He served in the US Marines in Iraq. A military intervention in Venezuela would make a presidential campaign difficult for him. Vance has refrained from warlike flights of rhetoric regarding Venezuela. He will be a restraining influence on Trump and likely talk him into restricting any military action to airstrikes. That means the US could inflict damage while facing minimal risk itself.
On balance, it is improbable that the US will invade.