USA and Venezuela. Fighting a fantasy cartel with a spear

The US and Venezuela: Fighting a fantasy cartel with a spear

President Trump's war against alleged drug mafias is so pointless that it can only be a pretext.

By Toni Keppeler

[This article posted on 11/20/2025 is translated from the German on the Internet, https://www.woz.ch/2547/usa-und-venezuela/mit-dem-speer-gegen-ein-fantasiekartell/!E8SE74VSEQPK.]


Ordered from the North Sea to the Caribbean: The US aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford with escort. Photo: Gladjimi Balisage, Imago

It is the largest deployment of US forces in Latin America since the invasion of Panama in December 1989. Last weekend, the USS Gerald R. Ford, the largest and most modern aircraft carrier in the US Navy, reached the waters off the coast of Venezuela. Half a dozen other warships were deployed to the Caribbean weeks ago. In addition, there are fighter jets stationed in Puerto Rico and a good 15,000 soldiers. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth gave the operation a name earlier this week: Southern Spear. The stated goal: “To drive the narco-terrorists out of our hemisphere.” The rationale: “The Western Hemisphere is America's neighborhood – and we will protect it.” By “Western Hemisphere,” Hegseth means America, and by “America,” he means the US. In other words, he sees the US as the dominant protective power of the continent, and everything else as a protectorate. Hegseth thus stands for a revival of the so-called Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which marked the beginning of the neocolonial subjugation of Latin America by the US.
Attacks on fishermen

In recent weeks, US aircraft have sunk more than twenty boats in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific. More than eighty people were killed in the process. US President Donald Trump claimed that they were transporting drugs. There was never any evidence of this. The family of a Colombian fisherman who was killed is now suing the US government, and Colombia's President Gustavo Petro speaks of “murders.” But the real target of the “southern spear” is Nicolás Maduro, the autocratic president of Venezuela. According to US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, he too is a “narco-terrorist,” the head of the Cártel de los Soles drug mafia, a criminal fleeing US justice. The US government has put a bounty of fifty million US dollars on his head.

Maduro is not a fugitive; he conducts his government business in full view of the public. The Cártel de los Soles – the Cartel of the Suns – does not exist; it is a figment of the US government's imagination. In Venezuelan colloquial language, this expression does not refer to a drug cartel, but to a clique of corrupt military officers. They are called “Cártel de los Soles” because the rank insignia on generals' uniforms is a golden sun.

Back in the 1980s, the US government accused Manuel Noriega, then the ruler of Panama, of being a drug dealer. However, it failed to mention that he had been on the payroll of the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) for over ten years. The invasion in December 1989 was not about drugs, but about the Panama Canal. In 1977, US President Jimmy Carter had agreed with Omar Torrijos, then leader of a military junta in Panama, to return the strategically important waterway at the turn of the millennium. Noriega wanted to stop renewing the license for US Army bases as early as the 1980s, which the then US President George Bush senior did not accept.

Interest in oil

Nor was today's threat scenario in Venezuela created for the sake of drug mafias. Venezuela plays a minor role in drug trafficking. At most, eight percent of the cocaine that comes mostly from Colombia and is smuggled into the US is shipped via its coast. Synthetic drugs such as fentanyl all come from Mexico. What Trump is likely to be much more interested in about Venezuela are the world's largest known oil reserves. As long as Maduro is in power, he has no access to them.

On December 20, 1989, the US Army invaded the small Central American country of Panama with 20,000 soldiers. The fighting with the local armed forces lasted just four days. A good 300 Panamanian military personnel were killed, along with between 1,000 and 4,000 civilians. Just 24 US soldiers died. Noriega fled to the Vatican embassy, and after it had been blasted with deafening heavy metal music day and night, he surrendered on January 3, 1990.

If a similar attack on Venezuela is planned, it will certainly not be so easy. Maduro may be unpopular with the majority of the population because of the never-ending economic crisis, corruption, and his authoritarian style of government.

But he can still mobilize one or two million militiamen in addition to the 120,000 soldiers. They have the advantage of local knowledge. An invasion attempt would therefore cost the lives of many US soldiers. Masses of black body bags would damage the US government, and Trump's advisors will know that. Such a scenario is rather unlikely.

Secret service operations are more likely. Trump approved them weeks ago. No concrete details have been released yet. However, it can be assumed that several groups of agents are working on plans to arrest or kill Maduro and his inner circle. If something goes wrong, there is a sufficiently large military force off the coast of Venezuela to quickly get such agents out of the country.