Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has publicly accused former U.S. President Donald Trump of attempting to instigate regime change in Venezuela. This charge comes just after Trump’s recent military intervention in the Caribbean. He deployed eight warships and a submarine — a move that Maduro views as the United States’ first direct military threat to his government.
In reaction to these real and imagined threats, Maduro has called for strengthening of Venezuela’s military capabilities. In a portentous speech, he said that the country needed to be ready to respond to what he called an invasion by the U.S. Thousands of impoverished Venezuelans are lining up to enlist in an expanded civilian militia. They are responding to Maduro’s invitation to strengthen national defenses in the face of escalating threats.
The backdrop to this escalating situation includes the recent decision by the Trump administration to decertify Colombia as an ally in the fight against drugs. Last week, they dropped a bombshell of a decision that further soured relationships and deepened the economic worries. The Trump administration refused to sanction Colombia economically.
The administration’s military posturing has Trumped alarm bells inside of Venezuela, where a U.S. invasion is a very real fear among ordinary citizens. In his rhetoric, Trump has issued stark warnings to drug traffickers, declaring, “To every terrorist thug smuggling poisonous drugs into the United States of America, please be warned that we will blow you out of existence.” This hardline rhetoric is consistent with his earlier pledges to destroy drug traffickers both inside and outside of U.S. borders.
In an unprecedented act, Gustavo Petro, the new president of Colombia, has called for a criminal prosecution of Trump. He’s calling for prosecutors to investigate other U.S. officials. We must ensure accountability for the actions that propelled us into such dangerous and reckless military strikes. Yet these strikes have tragically led to civilian deaths. He focused, rightly so, on the urgent need for justice. The General Prosecutor answered with these words: “We need to begin a penal procedure against those American officials. This reaches the senior official who issued the order in the first place— President Trump himself.
The strikes have allegedly led to more than a dozen fatalities on at least three boats. UN human rights experts have denounced this tragic incident as an example of an “extrajudicial execution.” Petro’s remarks underscore the ongoing complexities rotten at the core of U.S.-Latin American relations, specifically in the context of drug policy and militarized interventionism.
In his justification of U.S. military operations, Trump claims that his administration’s operations are aimed at ending drug smuggling. He reiterates that most of these actions are targeted at people in extreme socioeconomic situations. He noted that many cartel bosses reside in the United States and that those involved in trafficking are often “young people who simply wanted to escape poverty.”
As tensions rise between Venezuela and the U.S., both countries are likely to suffer the consequences in the long term. Photo by Alejandra Jaramillo Colombia’s leaders are demanding that Trump be prosecuted for war crimes. Continuing with this move would deeply undermine the pursuit of diplomacy and order across South America.