It’s been nearly a month since Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was captured in the dead of the night by elite U.S. forces during a stunning raid in Caracas. The extraordinary, unilateral military operation sent shock waves across the globe and marked the first-ever direct attack on a South American country by the United States. Latin America is facing an unsettling new reality undergirded by rising fears that no country is considered off-limits to U.S. President Donald Trump.
The shifting justifications that the Trump administration has offered in recent months for its actions, which have ranged from a focus on taking the fight to so-called narcoterrorists to gaining control over Venezuela’s oil, are “really quite terrifying from a Latin American perspective,” Oliver Stuenkel, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, told Foreign Policy.
“Military planners across the region have been having conversations that are quite unprecedented about their national security, about their vulnerabilities vis-à-vis the United States, about the need to diversify procurement processes, about technological independence,” Stuenkel said.
Much has happened in the United States and around the globe in the time since the Maduro raid, and Trump’s attention has drifted in many different directions—often due to crises of his own making. But the United States maintains a sizable military presence in the Caribbean, in one of many indications that the Trump administration is not moving on from the region. Meanwhile, Trump has made it clear that he believes the Western Hemisphere should be controlled by Washington, even if it means clashing with allies and flouting international law.
“American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again,” Trump said after Maduro’s capture. The White House has framed this new focus and aggressive posture in the Western Hemisphere as the “Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.” The Trump administration’s new National Defense Strategy, released last Friday, placed heavy emphasis on this as well. “We will actively and fearlessly defend America’s interests throughout the Western Hemisphere,” the document states, with the Pentagon vying to restore U.S. military dominance in the region.
In the months leading up to Maduro’s capture, there were numerous indications that the United States was preparing for a major intervention and that Caracas was in the White House’s crosshairs. The Jan. 3 attack on Venezuela was preceded by dozens of U.S. strikes on alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which coincided with a massive buildup of military assets in the region that was widely considered far too extensive for the sole purpose of counternarcotics operations.
And the United States still has roughly 15,000 troops and a dozen warships in the Caribbean—including the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford. The U.S. has also reopened shuttered military bases in Puerto Rico, which is one of the biggest signs that Trump has long-term plans in Latin America. “All the evidence points to a permanent U.S. military presence, at least as long as Trump is president,” Stuenkel said.
In the days since the Maduro raid, Trump has issued veiled or direct threats toward a number of countries around the globe, including several in Latin America: Colombia, Mexico, and Cuba. Leaders across the region have clearly been rattled by his actions and rhetoric. The Cuban government on Jan. 3 warned the entire region to “remain alert, as the threat hangs over all.”
The Trump administration has not hidden that it desires regime change in Cuba, though it has danced around questions on whether it would use the U.S. military to achieve this. “We would like to see the regime there change,” Secretary of State Marco Rubio said of Cuba during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday, before adding that this doesn’t mean that Washington is going to make it change.
The Trump administration is seemingly operating under the belief that Havana is more vulnerable than ever after the U.S. captured Maduro, one of the Cuban regime’s key allies, and as Cuba contends with myriad economic problems. Recent reporting indicates that the administration is searching for insiders who can help hasten the collapse of the regime, and Trump has publicly urged Havana to “make a deal.”
Havana is far from the only capital nervously watching for Washington’s next move. Colombian President Gustavo Petro recently warned that his country faced a “real threat” of U.S. military action. Trump has railed against Petro over the Colombian president’s criticism of U.S. actions in the region, placing major strains on relations with a country that has historically been a close ally of Washington’s.
After the Maduro raid, Trump said Petro should “watch his ass.” The two have since spoken and are set to meet in Washington on Feb. 3 in an effort to reduce tensions. In a Truth Social post on Jan. 9, Trump said, “I am sure it will work out very well for Colombia, and the U.S.A., but, cocaine and other drugs must be STOPPED from coming into the United States.” Perhaps in an effort to pacify Trump ahead of his meeting with Petro, the Colombian government on Jan. 28 announced that security forces had killed five members of a leading cocaine cartel.
Trump has also repeatedly expressed a desire to launch strikes on Mexican drug cartels. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum has consistently thrown cold water on the prospect of the United States taking such actions. Last week, Mexico sent 37 cartel members to the United States at the request of the Justice Department. Sheinbaum said this was a “sovereign decision,” pushing back on suggestions that the move was a response to Trump’s pressure.
Despite Trump’s bombastic rhetoric, experts doubt that the United States would take direct or unilateral action in countries like Mexico and Colombia. “I don’t see that happening at all,” Brian Fonseca, director of Florida International University’s Jack D. Gordon Institute for Public Policy, told Foreign Policy.
“The U.S. is going to continue to lean on the military as a credible instrument of national power in pursuit of its foreign-policy interests. I don’t see it deploying the military unilaterally in places like Mexico or Colombia,” Fonseca said, though he left open the possibility of the Trump administration leveraging the military in “the context of disrupting or effecting change in places like Cuba or Nicaragua.” But Fonseca said this would be unlikely to involve a “pronounced U.S. military footprint” or full land invasion and would more likely include targeted strikes or military buildups “to create pressure points as part of its gunboat diplomacy.”
Fonseca said that the United States doesn’t have an appetite for committing large numbers of troops abroad, as that would run counter not only to Trump’s pledge for “no new wars” but also the appetite of the American public—especially against the backdrop of multiple crises across the globe.
The U.S. military has been relatively inactive in Latin America since Maduro’s capture. The pace of strikes on alleged drug boats in the region has slowed down considerably over the past month—there has been only one documented strike in the month of January.
Trump, who after capturing Maduro has said that the United States is in “control” of Venezuela and its oil industry, said on Jan. 9 that he called off a second wave of attacks on the country. The primary focus of U.S. forces in the area in recent weeks has seemingly been on seizing sanctioned oil tankers linked to Venezuela as the Trump administration moves to shore up control of the country’s oil industry.
Delcy Rodríguez, who was Maduro’s vice president, is now the country’s acting president and has taken some steps to placate Trump, including by releasing political prisoners and calling for more foreign investment in the country’s state-run oil industry. After Maduro was captured and transferred to the United States, where he is now being prosecuted on various charges such as drug trafficking, Trump warned Rodríguez that she could face a “situation probably worse than” her predecessor if she did not cooperate.
Trump has not shied away from the fact that his primary interest in Venezuela moving forward is not promoting democracy—he’s endorsed a Maduro loyalist over opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado—but profiting off of the country’s oil. Venezuela is home to the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and Trump sees this as a major opportunity for U.S. companies (though those companies do not seem to share his enthusiasm).
The United States in mid-January completed its first sale of Venezuelan crude oil, valued at $500 million. Along these lines, Trump appears to be keeping so many U.S. military assets in the Caribbean as part of a coercive strategy to help ensure the money keeps flowing.
“The troops are there to project influence and, if needed, to threaten governments to comply with U.S. demands,” Stuenkel said, and this is especially true regarding Venezuela as Washington moves to solidify its control over what’s left of the government after Maduro was ousted.
But it’s an open question whether the continued presence of U.S. forces in the Caribbean will be enough to achieve Trump’s goals in Venezuela. There have already been signs of instability within the country since Maduro’s ouster, with the State Department on Jan. 10 urging U.S. citizens to leave the country due to threats from armed militias. There are also reportedly concerns within the U.S. intelligence community that Rodríguez will not formally cut ties with U.S. adversaries such as Iran, China, and Russia, as the Trump administration has demanded.
On Sunday, Rodríguez signaled that she was growing weary of U.S. commands. “Enough already of Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela,” she said. But Trump on Tuesday brushed this off, stating that he wasn’t aware of her comments and that the two had a “good relationship,” per CNN.
Lawmakers in Washington have continued to question the scale of the U.S. military presence in the region, though legislative efforts to rein in Trump’s war powers and prevent him from taking further military action in Venezuela without congressional approval have fallen short—as the administration continues to be opaque about the broader objectives of U.S. forces in the Caribbean.
In a revealing moment, Lt. Gen. Francis Donovan, the Marine Corps general nominated to oversee Southern Command, told the Senate Armed Services Committee during his confirmation hearing in mid-January that he didn’t know what the long-term plan was for all of the troops, ships, and aircraft currently in the region.
When asked about the long-term objectives of the U.S. military in the Caribbean and Latin America, a Pentagon official told Foreign Policy that “U.S. military forces in the Caribbean are a direct application of ‘Peace through Strength.’ Our mission is to defend the Homeland by dismantling narco-terrorist threats and countering malign foreign actors, ensuring our hemisphere remains secure from adversaries.”
Critics of the U.S. buildup have also questioned whether it limits Trump’s ability to respond to developments in other parts of the world, such as the recent mass protests in Iran. Trump has continued to threaten Iran with military action, warning on Wednesday that a “massive armada” is moving toward the country. But it’s taken considerable time for Trump to shift naval assets to the region amid the demonstrations. He vowed to come to the rescue of peaceful Iranian protesters weeks ago if the regime “violently kills” them. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime has killed thousands, with the death toll estimated to be over 6,000.
Though the Trump administration does not believe that occupying Venezuela will be necessary to control the government, it’s also not ruling out further military actions.
“The president never rules out his options as commander in chief to protect the national interest of the United States,” Rubio told lawmakers on Wednesday. “I can tell you right now, with full certainty, we are not postured to, nor do we intend or expect to have to take any military action in Venezuela at any time. The only military presence you will see in Venezuela is our Marine guards at an embassy.”
Earlier this week, the State Department informed Congress that it is taking initial steps to potentially reopen the shuttered U.S. Embassy in Venezuela. Some lawmakers in Washington have expressed serious reservations about such steps and the potential for the situation to spiral out of control. In an interview on Jan. 8, Democratic Sen. Adam Schiff told Foreign Policy that he’s concerned that the United States will get “bogged down” in Venezuela and spend a lot of money while potentially putting the lives of U.S. service members at risk.
“You put boots on the ground to protect the diplomats, and then you put more boots on the ground to protect the boots on the ground protecting the diplomatic presence. And pretty soon, you have a pretty large military presence in the country,” Schiff said while discussing the prospect of the embassy being reopened.
“You have a lot of violent elements within Venezuela who have an interest in making us unsuccessful there. You also have a lot of foreign adversaries like Cuba, like Iran, like Russia, operating in Venezuela that also want us to be unsuccessful,” Schiff added. “The dangers are high, the probability of successfully running the country at a distance seems very small and certainly represents the triumph of hope over expectation and expectation over the lessons of the past.”
Schiff also said he’s concerned about the potential for Trump’s threats toward other countries in the region and the potential for him to make good on them after capturing Maduro.
“One thing we have seen through the course of last year is a kind of drunkenness on power within the administration,” Schiff said. “Flush with a successful military operation, he [Trump] seems emboldened to use the military in far-flung places, from Nigeria to Iran to closer to home in Mexico or Colombia or even in Greenland.”
