The United States (US) is mounting its most aggressive military posture toward a Latin American neighbour in decades.

More than 10% of all US naval assets now sit in the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, and over 10 000 soldiers. Their target: Venezuela.

Over recent months, the Trump administration has intensified its "war on drugs" in the Caribbean, destroying several alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling vessels. On Thursday, Trump suggested the campaign might soon move to land.

"The sea drugs coming in are 5% of what they were a year ago," he said. "So now they're coming in by land. The land is going to be next."

But the scale of force does not match the stated mission. Venezuela serves primarily as a transit corridor for Colombian drugs. If interdiction were truly the goal, the fleet would be in the Pacific, where most Colombian cocaine travels northward.

Instead, it sits positioned for what the USS Gerald R. Ford was built to do: project power through the threat of airstrikes.

The sense, then, is not whether the United States is targeting drugs, but whether it is preparing for regime change in Venezuela – a country that the American administration charges is essentially a narco-terrorist state, pursuing a strategy to destabilise the US via fuelling drug addiction in cities. Of course, eliminating the drug issue might most easily be achieved through regime change, meaning both objectives are symbiotic.

Ideological force

The ideological force behind this shift appears to be Marco Rubio, now both Secretary of State and acting national security adviser, a rare concentration of power that allows him to turn conviction into strategy.

The son of Cuban immigrants, Rubio has long viewed Nicolas Maduro, the President of Venezuela, as a terrorist and an ideological ally of Cuba's Communist regime. He declared in 2018: “I believe there is a very strong argument… that Venezuela and the Maduro regime [have] become a threat to the region and even to the United States.”

Under Maduro, Venezuela has descended into kleptocracy, sustained by corruption and coercion. Maduro clings to power by allying with military elites and criminal networks. The US accuses him of running drug and terror operations to fund his regime. Trump and Rubio have labelled him a “narco-dictator” and “terrorist,” noting his links to Latin American gangs Middle Eastern jihadi groups, such as Hezbollah.

Rubio's first foreign trip as Secretary of State was a five-nation tour through Central America and the Caribbean. His message to regional leaders was blunt: “One of my priorities is to ensure that US foreign policy sends a signal that it’s better to be a friend than an enemy.” He labelled Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua: "enemies of humanity."

Transactional

When Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, Venezuela initially looked like a transactional opportunity. The country holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, and Trump’s envoy, Richard Grenell, explored reopening limited oil trade, signalling a potential thaw despite years of hostile rhetoric. That approach lasted only months. By mid-2025, Rubio had sidelined Grenell and pushed US policy toward a much harder line.

The shift became clear in October when Maduro reportedly offered to open Venezuela’s oil sector to US companies, redirect exports from China to the United States, and cut ties with Russia and Iran. Trump confirmed receiving the offer but said he rejected it, claiming Maduro: “offered everything” because he: “doesn’t want to mess with the United States.” The decision suggests Washington’s aims go far beyond oil.

Analysts describe the new posture as a return to the Monroe Doctrine, the 19th-century policy declaring the Western Hemisphere an exclusive American sphere of influence. Venezuela now represents multiple threats: Maduro’s authoritarian rule and the country’s growing ties with Russia, China, and Iran.

Moscow has supplied arms and advisers, while Beijing has invested heavily in infrastructure and energy. The presence of these rivals so close to US shores may be the real red line.

Broader regional actions

Trump has also taken broader regional actions, sanctioning Colombian President Gustavo Petro, threatening to “take back” the Panama Canal, and offering financial incentives to Argentina to secure alignment with US interests.

The administration frames the Caribbean military buildup as deterrence, while Maduro sees it as preparation for invasion and has mobilized his forces.

Human rights lawyers and former Pentagon officials warn that the US may be entering legally murky territory. The administration now defines its campaign against drug cartels as a “non-international armed conflict”. Critics argue this stretches the boundaries of both US and international law.

Venezuela has become a test of how far the United States is willing to assert its influence in the Western Hemisphere. Trump is expected to brief Congress early next week, and the risk of the US escalating its military posture remains tangible.