23 Oct 2025 , 4:52 pm .
Venezuelan oil is the prize behind the regime change Trump is seeking under the guise of the "war on drugs." (Photo: Leonardo Fernández Viloria / Reuters)
On October 20, The Washington Post published an article titled "Local officials and residents debunk Trump's claims about Venezuelan drug boats," which openly acknowledged that recent U.S. airstrikes against Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean were not part of a conventional counternarcotics operation, but rather part of a broader strategy of pressure against the Venezuelan government led by Nicolás Maduro.
The outlet acknowledged that "military strikes are unlikely to reduce overdose deaths in the United States" and stated that Trump administration officials "profess a near-unshakeable belief that Maduro will either be deposed or realize he needs to go into exile."
A day later, Axios elaborated on the same line, revealing that the White House had ordered an expansion of attacks against Venezuelan targets under the guise of "disrupting drug trafficking routes," but assumed the "dual objective" of stopping drugs and, potentially, overthrowing Maduro.
These revelations are not foreign to Washington's modus operandi . Last September, when Trump was questioned about whether he was seeking regime change in Venezuela, he replied that it was "a ridiculous question to answer." However, what the aforementioned media outlets published demonstrates that this denial is part of a disinformation strategy typical of hybrid warfare operations.
Covert operations, manipulation, and fake news as weapons of war
The use of false narratives to justify interventions is not new in the United States' history in Venezuela. The New York Times published an investigation into the increased US military presence in Colombia and the Caribbean, revealing that "the clandestine deployment of elite Special Operations forces suggests that attacks or commando raids inside Venezuela may be in the works."
The alleged Cartel of the Suns has been rumored since the 1980s, but in the last decade, "confessions" from alleged Venezuelan drug traffickers have been fabricated , which have then been disseminated by Colombian and U.S. media outlets as "evidence" of drug trafficking under the Chavista regime.
U.S. officials allege that President Maduro is a narco-terrorist leader, citing an indictment against him issued during Trump's first term. However, the United States has provided no evidence of this, and the National Intelligence Council published an assessment stating that the Venezuelan government does not lead the Tren de Aragua gang, as administration officials claim.
For its part, the global media spreads a rumor, positions it, and then "rectifies" it to regain its lost prestige in the war enterprises of the US corporatocracy. This type of manipulation has precedents such as April 2002, when The New York Times published an investigation demonstrating that the shots fired at protesters opposing President Chávez during that year's coup d'état were carried out by snipers aligned with the opposition, not by forces loyal to the government. The "official" version, however, had been disseminated by media outlets such as CNN en Español and El Nacional, which accused the government of "massacring its own people."
This false flag technique was replicated in 2019 with the burning of "humanitarian aid" trucks on the Colombian border. The New York Times —again— published a forensic analysis that showed the trucks were set on fire by opposition protesters, not by the Bolivarian National Guard, as claimed by Juan Guaidó and the Trump administration.
In 2025, the fentanyl narrative has been the new calling card. Between January and September of this year, the State Department insisted on linking Venezuela to fentanyl trafficking to the United States, despite the DEA's internal acknowledgment that 97% of the drug enters through Mexico and that there is no evidence of laboratories on Venezuelan territory. U.S. Senator Rand Paul recently acknowledged in an interview that fentanyl is not produced in Venezuela, calling into question President Donald Trump's false claims.
The threat against Venezuela and soft breaks in the United States
The head of Southern Command, Admiral Alvin Holsey, resigned after expressing concern about the mission and the attacks on suspected drug vessels. The root of the conflict appears to center on structural legal concerns, given that both Holsey and U.S. lawyers within the War Department have warned of serious legal concerns regarding the attacks being carried out in the Caribbean.
In Congress, Democratic Senators Adam Schiff of California and Tim Kaine of Virginia have introduced an amendment to limit the president's war powers following the October bombings, although they have signed legislation against Venezuela in the past. In a statement , Schiff warned: "Blowing up ships without legal justification risks dragging the United States into another war and provoking unjustified hostilities against our own citizens." Several lawmakers and analysts fear that Trump is repeating the trick of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, this time targeting Caracas.
Within the Democratic Party, there is division; while leaders remain silent , others insist on avoiding another conflict. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are leading the resistance against Trump, but they have not mentioned Venezuela even once in their social media posts or press releases.
Mainstream media outlets, such as The New York Times and The Washington Post , track the statements and actions of US officials by "leaking" information, but ultimately this is due to the internal game of a society that requires blame for its structural crisis, and that is the job of these outlets. One supported previous attempts at regime change in 2019 , and the other, lamenting the possibility that Trump's threats would "turn into a spiral of war," tells its readers that Machado's "economic vision" "could triple the country's gross domestic product in 15 years by harnessing its vast resources" and would "better serve" "US economic interests" than the current Maduro government.
The Post , a newspaper owned by Jeff Bezos, said in its editorial that it hopes Machado "will one day lead the country he is so bravely fighting to save." It doesn't specify the mechanism, but it's clear given the current context and the escalation toward a direct US attack.
Domestic U.S. politics could act as a brake, as opinion polls show that a majority of Americans oppose military action to overthrow the Venezuelan government, and an even larger majority rejects the idea of a full-scale invasion.
Oil as the ultimate loot
The obsession with Venezuelan oil has been constant since at least 2002, when the George W. Bush administration supported the failed coup against Commander Hugo Chávez, and the White House pressured the Venezuelan opposition to grant oil concessions to U.S. companies if it took power.
In 2023, Trump declared at a rally: "When I left, Venezuela was about to collapse. We would have taken it; we would have had all that oil; it would have been right next door." Meanwhile, his first administration's National Security Advisor, John Bolton, clearly stated at the outset of the coup attempt in January 2019, in a Fox News interview, that Washington and US corporations wanted to profit from Venezuela's oil.
In this scenario, the "war on drugs" is nothing more than a convenient facade. As has happened in Colombia, Mexico, and Afghanistan, the fight against drugs serves as an umbrella for intelligence operations, political destabilization, and the reconfiguration of national economies to benefit US capital. In Venezuela, the ultimate goal has remained the same for more than two decades: to overthrow a government that refuses to surrender its energy sovereignty.
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