Is US President Donald Trump preparing to strike Venezuela?

United States President Donald Trump declared on Saturday that Venezuelan airspace had been “closed”, without offering any further details, spiking tensions between Washington and Caracas amid months of military build-up in the Caribbean.

Venezuela has accused the US of a “colonialist threat” in Latin America, as millions of people in the country remain on edge. President Nicolas Maduro had earlier warned that Washington was fabricating claims as a pretext to justify military intervention in Venezuela.

Venezuela has been conducting regular drills over the past few weeks and has announced a large-scale mobilisation in preparation for any possible attack.

The Trump administration has deployed massive naval assets in the Southern Caribbean since launching a series of strikes on alleged drug boats in early September. Washington has not provided any proof that the targeted boats were involved in drug trafficking. At least 83 people have been killed in those attacks.

Ramping up pressure on Maduro last week, Washington designated what is known among Venezuelans as the Cartel de los Soles, or Cartel of the Suns in English, as a “foreign terrorist organization”.

The Trump administration says it is targeting Venezuela as part of a push to combat drug trafficking. However, political analysts and human rights observers warn Washington against laying the groundwork to unlawfully remove Maduro from power.

So, will Trump strike Venezuela after announcing the closure of Venezuelan airspace? Can the US military action be legally justified? And what is driving Trump’s hostile policy against Maduro?

Will the US go to war against Venezuela?
Since returning to power in January, Trump has ramped up rhetoric against Maduro, blaming Caracas for drug trafficking and the flow of immigrants from Venezuela.

Within a few weeks into his second term, Trump nixed Venezuelan oil concessions granted by his predecessor, Joe Biden, imposed 25 percent tariffs on countries buying oil from Venezuela, and doubled the reward for the arrest of Maduro to $50m, designating him a “global terrorist leader”.

In recent weeks, Trump confirmed that he has authorised the CIA to carry out secret operations in Venezuela, as his administration deployed the world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R Ford, other warships, thousands of troops, and F-35 stealth jets to the Caribbean.

Last Thursday, Trump said land strikes inside the country could come imminently.

Amid heightened military tensions, Trump reportedly spoke with Maduro last week, as per reporting by The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal, before sanctions against Cartel de los Soles came into effect.

On November 25, Trump, on board Air Force One, was asked by reporters if he planned on speaking with Maduro. “I might talk to him. We’ll see. But we’re discussing that with the different staffs. We might talk,” Trump told reporters.

When asked why Trump wants to talk to a leader of the designated “foreign terrorist organization”, he took the moral high ground.

“If we can save lives, we can do things the easy way, that’s fine. And if we have to do it the hard way, that’s fine, too,” he replied.

Can the US military action be legally justified?
Critics of the Trump administration have argued that the administration’s military actions violate the US Constitution in addition to international laws. Rights observers and legal scholars have said the deadly boat strikes amount to “extrajudicial killing” and violation of human rights.

A report in The Washington Post says that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the military to kill all the passengers on board a boat suspected of carrying drugs.

Hegseth has rejected allegations, calling the report “fake news”. The “fabricated and inflammatory” report, he said, was aimed at “discrediting our incredible warriors fighting to protect the homeland”.

The defence secretary has said the strikes in the Caribbean are “lawful”.

Meanwhile, the US Congress on Saturday ordered an inquiry into the incident. “At this point, I would call them extrajudicial killings,” Republican Senator Rand Paul told Fox News Sunday in October.

Bruce Fein, a US constitutional expert, concurred with Paul.

“Trump is acting extra-constitutionally and committing murder,” said Fein, who served as associate deputy attorney general under Republican President Ronald Reagan.

“Only Congress can authorise the offensive use of the military,” said Fein, adding that Trump’s executive orders in this matter do not have a legal standing. “The victims are engaged in warfare against the United States, except in Trump’s fantasyland – a page from George Orwell’s 1984.”

By designating the Cartel de los Soles, which now Washington equates with the Venezuelan state, as a “foreign terrorist organization”, the Trump administration is posing that this is no longer a war between two nations that requires congressional declaration, but a counterterrorism operation against a non-state actor.

Cartel de los Soles emerged in the 1990s when Venezuelan generals and senior officers were investigated for drug trafficking and related crimes. In Venezuela, it is not a cartel, but rather a common reference to military officers and officials involved in corruption and other illegal activities.