Most of the fentanyl and other contraband is coming from the pacific side, where no action has been taken (other than an attempt to reobtain a U.S. military base in Ecuador).
There must be more to justify this, but the reasoning is opaque.
If you want to learn more about the why, I suggest the book "Gangsters of Capitalism" by Jonathan M. Katz it's about the military exploits of Smedley Butler and how they helped American imperialism.
Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is a dictator - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolás_Maduro#Dictatorship_ch...
> Maduro, the president of Venezuela, is a dictator
Saudi Arabia? The Saudi ruling elite and the USA are best buddies.
What I am pushing back against is that it is simply a "grudge against anti-conservatives".
The EU has condemned Maduro's attacks on democracy and human rights and imposed sanctions related to repression and democratic rollback. However, the EU has not endorsed the US military action. The European Parliament has urged tougher stances (including potentially terrorism designations, like the US has done) but has not become EU policy.
Rubio is a warhawk, hoping it all backfires in this administration's face. Unfortunately now we all have to resign ourselves on living in a more unstable world, the multipolar world order Putin wants so much is in flux...
Less generous but probably true as at least part of the motivation, there’s the usual factor of US companies wanting to “invest” in a foreign country to extract natural resources.
One may guess at other, more-personal motivations for parties involved.
It, transparently, has dick-all to do with drugs.
[edit] ok technically the drug connection is the admin continuing to use that as an obviously-bullshit excuse to use powers they couldn’t ordinarily, and daring the courts to do anything about it. Same as justifying using emergency tariff powers against Canada over fentanyl. They’re counting on the courts to abdicate their power and responsibility to call bullshit on the admin’s lies when it comes to application of existing laws.
Venezuela and even the posturing on Greenland are the DoD war gaming out a firewall from Chinese and Russian influence. They want to stop South American trade with our rivals, and especially prevent basing of foreign troops.
Greenland becomes a strategic part of this once global warming opens the North Sea to large volumes of shipping. It will become the major shipping corridor, and America wants complete control over it.
Not to mention all of the oil and gas exploration both of these countries provide.
Trump isn't thinking 30 years ahead. This is the DoD through and through. They think in terms of decades and centuries.
I think the passivity towards Ukraine is part of relinquishing as seeing Europe as partners or seeing them as part of strategic value. Russia can take Europe, or Europe can fight back, they are good either way.
Because of Maduro and the cocaine, Venezuela is an easy first step. They are both hard to stand up for except in principle. I would not be surprised if Cuba is round two. It's the Truman doctrine on steroids.
I even wonder if the idea is to replace cheap Chinese labour with each South American labor eventually.
Yes, Cuba is next.
The posturing on Greenland is also coming out of the DoD. The Trump admin isn't thinking thirty years ahead for when the North Sea becomes a primary transit corridor.
This is all internal war gaming.
Looks like a resumption of the Banana Wars [1] to me.
And even then I wouldn't look too deep. Maybe Trump just wants to blow stuff up, to show he's strong. Odds are, some people nudging him have their own reasons for encouraging this.
Using the fentanyl crisis as a scapegoat is truly lame, especially when you blow up flimsy boats carrying cocaine and double-tap them to make sure they're dead. Most peaceful president, you wouldn't even believe.
We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;
Sounds pretty transparent to me, especially when you begin to consider who has been investing in Venezuelan energy infrastructure recently.
Trump started out with nonsensical accusations that were clearly thinly veiled regime change plans. Declaring the cartel a terrorist organization, declaring drugs to be de jure military violence worthy of assassination, and declaring the President "Leader of the cartel".
Recently Trump admitted (as he proudly does) that this was all lies. Kayfabe. We started seizing oil tankers, and he put out on Truth Social Tuesday December 16th (it could literally be a thousand posts ago, he hasn't been sleeping), that this was a total blockade, that it was about regime change, and retaking what was ours, and that Maduro had better surrender the oil & oil infrastructure. You could interpret this as a reference to the 1976 nationalization of the oil industry, or the 1990's and 2000's... friction... with the American oil primes, but it's pretty clear Trump is a giant ball of imperialist revanchism that doesn't particularly care about the facts.
> “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America,” Trump posted on Truth Social. “It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Donald Trump, December 16th
^^^^^ In the context of Armada, implying sea-blockade?
Edit: That aside, there isn't much infrastructure like roads, rails, rivers, channels through rough terrain, which would allow to circumvent that meaningfully. Or uncontested borders with neighbors...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venezuela#/media/File:Venezuel... vs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_in_Venezuela
We also have a appreciable fraction of our blue water Navy sitting down there now.
That's exactly what drug cartels are. He obviously wants venezuelan oil but that doesn't mean he's wrong in doing this.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/12/05/business/energy-environme...
Squeeze Ukraine for rare earths and Venezuela for oil. Neither has nukes, easy targets. Give lucrative contracts to mining and extraction buddies, give pardons to financial criminals, get protection from powerful new allies after you leave office.
Ukrainian rare earths are a massive meme. The only argument that is reasonable is that post-war Ukraine will have below 0 environmental protections and accept Congo-style mining.
If it was not economical enough for USSR, it won't be for any actor that knows what ROI is.
A much better economic future for Ukraine as part of Europe would be to make it the breadbasket of the entire EU but it's political suicide given the farmer protests.
[1] - "...According to the Associated Press, within the framework of the crisis in Venezuela, unnamed administration officials stated that an intervention was raised in 2017 to Donald Trump's advisors, including US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and national security advisor H. R. McMaster (who left the Trump administration from that moment on) and later to several presidents of Latin American countries including Juan Manuel Santos.[1] Gustavo Petro, president of Colombia, declared in May 2023 that Trump had made a proposal to then-president Iván Duque to invade Venezuela through Colombia, but that his advisors had stopped him..."
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposed_United_States_invasio...
Money/resources, and power/control/influence.
It's the same with fentanyl as it was with weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Your government is selling you and the world justifications. It's as old as the world, you need a casus belli. The Crusades, for example, were mostly just resource and land grabs etc.
But how did that strategy work out in Libya? Its an absolute mess. Now its a conduit for African migration into Europe. Who knows what destabilizing Venezuela will do.
Not much, if one plays 'area denial' games with the Darién Gap, by mining it?
1. Resources in Venezuela coming under control of Russia and/or China
2. Controlling a completely unstable country to build influence in latin America
3. Styming a port of entry for drugs like Fentanyl that, in reality, are coming from China
4. Preventing China/Russia from dropping mid-range missiles and military installations remotely close to the US
The mass media has absolutely lobotomized people.
However, your point stands. Venezuela stands to benefit from an invasion because the country is unstable and teetering on collapse. It's essentially being sold to the highest bidder. If Russia/China want to put their boots there they will need to defend it and rebuild it. If the US wants to prevent Russia/China from doing that they will need to defend it and rebuild it. The US has far better global power projection and will likely spend considerable resources to ensure it's success as it's also, in some sense, a survival concern for the CONUS itself. I would think it could look a lot 1953 Iran, with the exception that power projection "down the street" (so to speak) is much easier to maintain than across the ocean.
The "Guiana" region (land of waters), was home to the Arawak and Carib peoples, and then there was a colonial scramble between the Dutch, English and French over the last half millennia-- each respectively took over some portion and then slapped their names on it.
Guyana is independently english speaking because they were colonized by the British- centuries ago it used to go by British Guiana.
French Guiana is basically an overseas department of France.
Venezuela is not. They're heavily sanctioned by the USA and have to do their petrol business elsewhere - also not using US dollars as exchange currency. POTUS made clear this situation will not continue as is.
Jtsummers•1mo ago