While the Trump administration has rationalized its escalating hostilities with Venezuela as an effort to combat drug trafficking, several officials within the Trump administration are suggesting there to be an ulterior motive behind the escalation.
President Donald Trump ordered eight warships carrying 4,500 troops this week to sit off the coast of Venezuela in what the administration described as an “enhanced counter narcotics operation.” Venezuela President Nicolas Maduro has seen a $50 million bounty placed on him by Trump for what his administration says is his involvement in drug trafficking.
Three Trump officials, however, say there’s more to the operation than meets the eye, speaking with Axios under the condition of anonymity and reported by the outlet on Friday.
“Leaving Maduro in power in Venezuela is like making Jeffrey Epstein the head of a daycare,” said a Trump official, suggesting regime change may be an unofficial goal of the increased hostilities.
Another Trump official likened the operation to the United States’ operation to capture Panama President Manuel Antonio Noriega Moreno, who in 1989 was captured after the United States invaded the Central American nation.
“This could be Noriega part 2,” a second Trump official told Axios. “The president has asked for a menu of options, and ultimately, this is the president's decision about what to do next, but Maduro should be s------- bricks.”
The United States has a long history of enacting regime change in South America, sometimes through direct military intervention, and others, through more covert operations. Perhaps the most prominent example is the United States-backed coup in 1973 that overthrew the democratically-elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, done so largely at the behest of American mining and communications companies that were stripped of their control of Chile’s labor and resources under Allende’s leadership.
A third Trump official told Axios that, while the operation was still largely about combatting drug trafficking, ousting Maduro would also be a favorable outcome.
“This is 105% about narco-terrorism,” the official said. “But if Maduro winds up no longer in power, no one will be crying.”