Washington’s Escalating War on Venezuela: Narco-Myths and Imperial Designs

By William Camacaro  –  Aug 12, 2025

New York – Since the election of Hugo Chávez in 1998 Washington has waged a relentless war against the Bolivarian revolution. The Trump administration continues to deploy political, economic and military measures aimed at the overthrow of Venezuela’s government and the reversal of advances in regional independence and integration: the two pillars of the Bolivarian cause. At the present juncture, it is critically important to make no mistake about Washington’s duplicitous policy towards the Maduro administration of simultaneous negotiation and intensifying aggression. This aggression is not a mere show to placate the Trump administration’s hard line anti-Chavista allies in Miami; it is an imminent threat to Venezuela’s national security and part of a strategy to recuperate U.S. domination of the Americas.

On June 12, 2024, newspapers astonishingly published Donald Trump’s incredibly candid admission: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken all the oil.” This is why it comes as no surprise when Miami-based Venezuelan opposition journalist Carla Angola comments that Donald Trump is interested in having absolute control of Venezuela’s oil reserves. She adds that the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado is promising the United States government absolute control of these natural resources, not because this radical sector of the Venezuelan opposition is interested in managing them, but rather in privatizing them.

Orchestrating Regime Change in Venezuela
The threat to Venezuelan security is no exaggeration. Last week Venezuelan intelligence discovered three kilograms of TNT planted in Caracas’s Plaza de la Victoria, a location of significant public importance. Officials said the bomb, which was found near gas pipelines, could have caused catastrophic destruction and an incalculable loss of life. Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello announced that a coordinated investigation with several security agencies successfully dismantled this plot, revealing a sinister connection between far-right opposition elements and their international allies.

This terrorist plot cannot be written off as an isolated incident. Washington is pulling out all the stops to prepare public opinion for new acts of aggression by portraying President Nicolas Maduro, through U.S. corporate media, as a narcotrafficker with a price on his head.

The most recent and series of  attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution began with a press release by  the U.S. Treasury Department on July 25 of this year. Titled “Treasury Sanctions Venezuelan Cartel Headed by Maduro,” the release designated the so-called “Cartel of the Suns” as a terrorist entity and named President Maduro as its head. It further pointed to his alleged relationships with both the Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, and accused them of being “violent narco-terrorists.” A few days later President Donald Trump directed the Pentagon to prepare options for the possible use of U.S. military force against drug cartels designated as terrorist organizations  authorizing military intervention in countries with drug trafficking. This came weeks after Secretary of State Marco Rubio publicly accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being the head of the “Cartel of the Suns.” In a further escalation, Rubio stated that the recent designation of the “Cartel of the Suns” as a “terrorist organization” now provides a pretext for Washington to use military and intelligence tools against Maduro and his allies. 

All of these accusations sound very ominous, but there is no evidence for them. This narco-mythology is viewed by some political analysts as political cover for eventual attacks on not only Venezuela but also its regional allies like Nicaragua, Cuba, and Bolivia. For this reason Venezuelan security forces have issued strong statements of loyalty and defiance in the face of threats from the North.The Trump administration is doubling a reward to $50 million for the arrest of President Maduro, accusing him of being one of the world’s largest drug traffickers and working with cartels to flood the U.S. with fentanyl-laced cocaine. Historically, rewards of this magnitude for political leaders are rare. The first similar historical case was the reward for the apprehension of Pancho Villa after his raid on Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9, 1916. The reward for Pancho Villa was $5,000, while a smaller reward of $1,000 was offered for his lieutenants. More recently, the State Department formalized its “Rewards for Justice” program in 1984. Its first high-profile case was Manuel Noriega of Panama in 1989, accused of drug trafficking. The reward for Saddam Hussein in 2003 was $25 million.

Drug trafficking ruse for U.S. intervention
Washington demonstrates its contempt for the people of the Global South by treating their presidents as pawns, making accusations without any evidence, and imposing unilateral and illegal sanctions against those who resist imperial domination. This latest bizarre accusation should remind us of the allegations of the existence of weapons of mass destruction that served as an excuse to destroy Iraq, murder a million people, displace thousands from their homes, and deprive the nation of control over their natural resources.

The hypocrisy of the narco-mythology could not be more blatant. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has publicly supported former Colombian President Álvaro Uribe, particularly in the context of Uribe’s recent conviction for witness tampering and bribery. Rubio’s statements have drawn criticism from some who view it as interference in Colombia’s judicial system. Rubio’s defense of the former Colombian president is nonetheless troubling given that the same entity he leads designated Alvaro Uribe in 1991 as a major drug trafficker, a member of the cartel of Medellin and a personal friend of Pablo Escobar. .

Colombian President Gustavo Petro affirmed that his Venezuelan counterpart, Nicolás Maduro, has backed the fight against drug trafficking on the border and that this “support has been forceful and must continue.” Petro warned last Sunday that a military operation against Venezuela without the approval of “brother countries” would be an act of aggression against Latin America and the Caribbean.

There have also been a series of strong pronouncements from Tegucigalpa, Havana, Managua, La Paz and the Caribbean countries against this designation that seeks to stigmatize the Bolivarian Revolution. After the US attorney general accused the Venezuelan president of working with the Sinaloa Cartel, Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum responded, “Mexico has no investigation under way and no proof that Maduro is linked to the Sinaloa Cartel.”

The statements by Secretary of State Rubio and Attorney General Pamela Bondi are extremely ridiculous, especially considering that the U.S. has been engaged in a “war on drugs” in Colombia for over 50 years.  Since the 1990s, this war has resulted in over 450,000 deaths. Far from diminishing drug production, this war has seen Colombia become the world’s largest drug producer.

It is notable that the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in its most comprehensive annual report on the subject, the 2023 World Drug Report, states that Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia are the main cocaine producers. The same report identifies Australia, New Zealand, US, and Spain as the largest cocaine consumers worldwide. Curiously, Venezuela is not mentioned in any of these reports, neither as a producer nor as a major consumer.

At a press conference on August 9, Interior Minister Cabello reported that a foiled plot was sponsored by “narco-gangs” of the far-right Venezuelan opposition, in direct coordination with the US government. The plot involved a criminal group from the Zulia region, led by Francisco Javier Linol, and a representative from Colombia’s Guajira Cartel. The authorities arrested José Daniel García, who confessed to being offered $20,000 to carry out the attack. This confession led to the capture of 13 other individuals in Venezuela and an additional suspect in Colombia.

Cabello said “This proves the ties between narco-paramilitarism, the fascist far-right, and the U.S. government… It confirms the script we’ve long warned about.” This underscores the Venezuelan government’s perspective that these are not isolated incidents but part of a larger, orchestrated plan. Two days later, in Monagas state, Cabello displayed a new, massive cache of explosives, including various types of explosives and electric detonators, found in boxes inside a warehouse.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Gil Condemns US Imperialist Actions, Cites Venezuela’s Growth

History of US attacks on the Bolivarian Revolution
These actions are paralleled by diplomatic attacks. On August 6th of this year, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of American States (OAS), an organization from which Venezuela withdrew, launched a virulent attack on Venezuelan democracy. The Rapporteur on the Rights of Afro-Descendants, Gloria Monique de Mees, accused the government of a systematic violation of human rights and the imprisonment of more than 900 political prisoners. This accusation, coming a day before the foiled attack and Rubio’s militaristic rhetoric, adds another layer of coordinated pressure and raises questions about the political motivations behind such reports.

Since its inception in 1998, the Bolivarian Revolution has endured a large number of attacks. The first major blow was the 2002 coup d’état against the elected leader Hugo Chávez. This coup, which was widely celebrated by the corporate media, was ultimately reversed thanks to the massive public support that saw people take to the streets, risking their lives to defend the constitution and demand Chávez’s return to power. This was an unprecedented situation in Latin American history. The celebratory tone of the US media at the time is revealing. For example, the New York Times initially welcomed his removal before being forced to retract its triumphant narrative just a day later when Chávez was reinstated. Shortly after, at the end of that year and beginning of 2003, a brutal oil strike occurred, causing losses of billions of dollars.

After President Nicolás Maduro assumed the presidency, the attacks evolved into multiple hybrid forms, including assassination attempts. One of the most audacious was a drone attack on August 4, 2018, during a live-streamed military event in Caracas. Two drones loaded with explosives were detonated near the platform where Maduro was speaking. This event set a grim precedent as the first assassination attempt using commercial drones against a head of state.

In 2019, a virtually unknown congressman named Juan Guaidó swore himself in as interim president of Venezuela with the immediate support of the U.S. and the European community. This was followed in 2020 by another attack on Venezuelan democracy through a mercenary invasion known as “Operation Gideon.”

Following the 2024 presidential elections, rioters ( comanditos ), some with firearms, took to the streets to demand foreign intervention, leading to small skirmishes in Caracas. The attacks against the Bolivarian Revolution are innumerable, and what has been truly amazing is its capacity to resist and reinvent itself in the face of every challenge.

Current threat
Despite this history of attacks, there is a belief among some supporters of the Bolivarian Revolution that relations with the U.S. are improving. They point to dialogue and the continued operation of Chevron in Venezuela as evidence of an evolving more cooperative relationship. The reality is that it is in Washington’s interest to maintain a foothold in the Venezuelan oil business.

The Trump administration, however, has so far carried out only symbolic actions at détente. Concrete actions would involve dismantling the sanctions and eliminating the bounty on the president and members of his cabinet. They are not going to eliminate them. They do not want Venezuela to stand on its own two feet. The talks underway between Washington and Caracas do not preclude an attack on the constitutional government of Venezuela..

The proximity and interconnectedness of these events—the terrorist plots in Caracas and Maturín, the alleged links to Colombian paramilitary forces and the Venezuelan far-right, and the explicit threats from the United States—serve as a grave warning.

For Venezuela and its supporters, these incidents are not coincidental; they represent a coordinated effort to destabilize the nation through a combination of domestic terrorism, international political pressure, and the looming threat of military intervention. The government’s successful dismantling of these plots has, for now, averted major disasters, but it also confirms the ongoing and complex nature of the threats facing the country.

The Bolivarian Revolution is a project of Latin American integration that represents the search for social justice; it is a project of liberation. Washington commits a huge injustice by deploying more than a thousand unilateral and coercive measures against Venezuela, as these only bring hardship and death to the nation’s most humble citizens.

It is essential to reflect on the fate of Augusto Sandino, who, after leading a 21-year guerrilla war against the U.S. military occupation of Nicaragua, successfully expelled foreign forces from his homeland. A revered revolutionary and emblem of anti-imperialist resistance, Sandino was tragically assassinated by the Somoza regime shortly after initiating a dialogue with representatives of the North American government, following a dinner at the national palace—a dinner with the enemy.

 

(Council on Hemispheric Affairs)