Marco Rubio's Fingerprints on Washington's Agenda Against Venezuela

By Misión Verdad – Aug 25, 2025

Marco Rubio is one of the main architects of the offensive against Venezuela, to the point of having his obsessive personal agenda gain traction in the White House. His actions reveal a sustained calculation that has influenced presidential decisions.

The aforementioned has deliberately intensified the rhetoric that seeks to portray Venezuela as a threat to regional security.

Although this narrative is not new, the strategy combines media accusations with the dissemination of topics such as the “Aragua Train,” the re-creation of the “Cartel of the Suns,” and the constant promotion of false flag operations at the borders, all designed to amplify the perception of danger.

These elements function as a “spark moment,” deliberately constructed to capture President Donald Trump’s attention and pressure him to prioritize the Venezuela agenda.

This is a basic and well-known plan: the United States has historically used anti-drug rhetoric as a justification for interventions in Latin America.

Since Nixon’s declaration of the “war on drugs” in the late 1960s, the US government has used this framework to intervene politically, economically, covertly, and sometimes militarily in countries such as Panama and Grenada.

In the Venezuelan case, this manual applies because the idea that the country constitutes a “real danger” to international security gets normalized, and once this perception has taken hold, premeditated escalation is applied.

The executive order
That’s why The New York Times‘ report from August 8, which revealed that US President Donald Trump had secretly signed an executive order to the Pentagon authorizing the use of military force against Latin American cartels classified as foreign terrorist organizations, did not go unnoticed.

The exclusive immediately linked to the accusations made days earlier by Rubio, who had been strongly insisting on the need to empower the military to act against these groups.

The former senator asserted that the US military had approval to take aggressive action against the cartels: “It allows us to now target what they’re operating and to use other elements of American power, intelligence agencies, the Department of Defense, whatever—to target these groups if we have an opportunity to do it.” He concluded:

“We have to start treating them as armed terrorist organizations, not simply drug-dealing organizations.”

Following that, various media outlets reported a significant US military deployment in the region. Reuters reported that three Aegis guided-missile destroyers were apparently approaching the coast of Venezuela.

Rubio’s statements, in reality, are not surprising, as they fit his well-worn script. In fact, even though he doesn’t directly mention Venezuela or any other country in the region, it’s not necessary to perform a mathematical integral to understand what he’s getting at.

Force excuses
Rubio began laying out the roadmap from Guyana in March, following the disastrous debut of his first tour as US chief diplomat.

There, the official signed a security memorandum, seeking to lay the groundwork for future false flag operations against Venezuela and thus create pretexts for intervention. Rubio stated:

“If we have information that someone has entered your country [Guyana] who has bad intentions, we want to be able to share that with your government … if we have information on a Tren de Aragua gang member from Venezuela, we want to make sure that we’re—we have collaboration and we’re sharing that information. If we have information that some narcotrafficker is taking up shop here and has decided to try to turn this into a base of operation, which could become–could lead to violence and warfare here, gang warfare, we want to be able to share that with you.”

And, on the other hand, true to his aggressive rhetoric, he described Venezuela without evidence as a “narcotrafficking regime” with “illegitimate territorial claims” and warned, once again, that any action by Caracas against Georgetown or ExxonMobil would have “consequences.”

Guyana offers ideal conditions to serve as an outpost for Washington’s geopolitical interests in the region. The Cuban-American secretary, with his relentless focus on Caracas, has identified this enclave as an opportune front to fuel his destabilizing plan, and has articulated local alliances and prepared the ground for future pressure operations against the Venezuelan government.

On the other hand, in the catalog of necessary pretexts required by the US political class against Venezuela, it is recalled that in July the guilty plea of Hugo “El Pollo” Carvajal before a federal court in New York added to the reissue of the “narco-state” agenda.

Carvajal, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy to import cocaine and narcoterrorism, is being portrayed as part of the “Cartel of the Suns.”

Despite the lack of conclusive evidence, this narrative is sustained by media coverage and judicial accusations, reinforced by confessions like Carvajal’s own.

Thus, the confession acts as a “legitimizing factor” that makes it easier for the US administration to take coercive action.

The media has played its part
The complicity between the small group led by Rubio and figures like María Corina Machado has aligned with the media disinformation machinery, contributing to the policy against Venezuela.

The media encouraged the pantomime of drug trafficking in the context of the “threat to national security”:

In January, Bret Stephens wrote in The New York Times that Venezuela posed a threat to US national security, proposing “coercive diplomacy” and leaving open the option of using force.
In March, the New York Post published an article titled “FBI stepping up operations against cartel linked to Venezuela’s repressive Maduro regime,” reviving the old “Cartel of the Suns” narrative.

Meanwhile, Rubio found echoes in internal voices of the Venezuelan opposition, such as María Corina Machado, who, faithful to her political line clearly misaligned with national interests, went so far as to state:

“Who is Putin’s greatest ally in Latin America? Nicolás Maduro. Who is the Iranian regime’s greatest ally in Latin America? Nicolás Maduro. Venezuela is the only other country in the Western Hemisphere, besides the United States, that has the capability to build combat drones, obviously of Iranian origin.”
“Venezuela is hours away from Florida, not Tehran. That constitutes a real threat.”
“I want to be very clear: this has nothing to do with ‘regime change.’ This is not about changing a political regime. This is about dismantling a criminal structure that poses the greatest threat to the national security of the United States.”

Machado’s statements reflect a calculated irresponsibility, designed to fuel the threat narrative and support the interventionist agenda promoted by external actors. Her intention is to fuel the climate of alarm that Rubio seeks to instill in the Trump administration.

The events described are part of a carefully planned strategy aimed at creating a breeding ground that would justify US actions against Venezuela.

The Cartel of the Suns: Leftovers That Were Never Edible

Every step, every statement and political maneuver ultimately resulted in the executive order of August 8, even though the groundwork had been laid long before, making it clear that the plan unequivocally bears Marco Rubio’s personal stamp.

The strategy of manipulation and pretext-building against Venezuela is accelerating in a strategic context favored by Rubio’s position in the White House.

So far, the naval deployment has not been officially confirmed—beyond media reports—but there is an executive order that, under the pretext of combating drug trafficking, authorizes the mobilization of forces in the region.

This measure did not arise in isolation: its turning point came in May, following the scandal surrounding then-National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and the reconfiguration of the administration’s internal ecosystem, which consolidated Rubio’s influence as Secretary of State and, on an interim basis, as National Security Adviser.

From that strategic position, Rubio expanded his capacity for action beyond diplomacy, directly influencing the US security architecture with international impact.

In broad terms, the logic of this agenda is reminiscent of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when the George W. Bush administration used the false testimony of “Curveball” to justify a military intervention based on nonexistent threats.

Although these accusations were proven false, the manipulation of information had already created the necessary framework for acting with apparent legitimacy.

In the Venezuelan case, the combination of judicial accusations, media operations, and strategic moves within the White House’s inner circle of influence demonstrates that this US administration is following a historical pattern.

(Misión Verdad)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

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