On Thursday Donald Trump declared that “very soon” they would begin ground attacks in Venezuela, on Friday the newspaper New York Times published a note with US and Venezuelan government sources stating that Trump and President Nicolás Maduro had held a telephone conversation a week earlier; and now on Saturday, Trump declared Venezuela’s airspace “completely closed,” without any legal basis.
With this schizophrenic policy, in which it offers dialogue and at the same time threatens, the United States government is aimed at keeping the rich oil and mineral resources in progress. This is indicated by the largest deployment of military force by the US Army and Navy since 1962, during the so-called “Missile Crisis” that almost sparked a military confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union.
At all times, the Trump government’s weak justification is that this military deployment is to stop drug trafficking to its country, which is supposedly led by the Cartel of the Suns led by Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro himself. The designation of this cartel as an “international terrorist organization” has only intensified US threats against the sovereignty of Venezuela.
Since at the beginning of September President Trump ordered the Pentagon and the Navy of his country to attack vessels that were allegedly transporting drugs, the armed forces of this country have increased their presence in the Caribbean and in a threatening manner just a few kilometers from the Venezuelan coast.
At the beginning of this week, the head of the War Department, Pete Hegseth, announced the deployment of the so-called “Southern Spear” operation. In the past three months, the United States has deployed 15,000 soldiers in the region, several ships and the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which alone has an “air capacity superior to that of any Latin American country,” according to a Peruvian academic. In addition to the deployment of vessels near the coast of Venezuela, the United States has an operational base in the Bahamas, the Guantánamo military base in Cuba, a naval base and an airport in Puerto Rico, and “cooperative security” bases in El Salvador, Aruba and Curacao, according to a count on the portal. German wave.
Trump and his government have stated that this military deployment is to stop the trafficking of drugs, specifically fentanyl, across the sea to their coasts. Since this deployment began in early September of this year, the United States has attacked 21 vessels and murdered 83 people, without trial for what even the UN described as “extrajudicial executions.”
Clearly the military deployment is totally disproportionate to meet the objective of stopping small boats that transport (if true) packages of drugs, especially cocaine. It’s absurd. The aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, the most powerful in the world, is not sent to chase boats in the Caribbean.
The real purpose is to depose the government of Nicolás Maduro and keep the rich oil and mining resources of Venezuela. “Although Trump emphasizes Venezuela’s role in drug trafficking or illegal migration when he addresses the issue in public, in private he has spoken of the country’s enormous oil reserves and American companies being able to access them,” published the New York Times on November 18, 2025 in a report that revealed that Donald Trump had authorized CIA plans for a covert operation in Venezuela.
In fact, presidential advisors have presented different options to Trump to get rid of Maduro and keep the rich oil, gas and mineral reserves of the South American country. consulted “off the record” by him Times, US officials indicated that Trump has considered these options: 1) he could accept a diplomatic agreement so that US companies have greater access to Venezuela’s oil resources; 2) could push for a resolution that allows Maduro to voluntarily leave power; 3) could demand that the United States forcibly remove the Venezuelan President. But everything indicates that the White House has opted for a fourth option, which consists of a strategy to increase pressure on Maduro. But the determination is to remove him from power.
Although the US military deployment has increased as it has not happened for 60 years in the region, faithful to his strategy of threatening and dialogue, Donald Trump has maintained informal channels with the Venezuelan government. And according to the same report Times, “In these informal conversations, Maduro has signaled his willingness to offer access to his country’s oil wealth to American energy companies,” in exchange for staying in power. But Trump rejected it.
What is clear so far is that the United States wants Venezuelan resources. With more than 303 billion barrels of proven oil, Venezuela is the country with the largest reserves in the world, and the United States under the Trump government is determined to keep them, against all international law. This was stated by Delcy Rodríguez, Minister of Hydrocarbons of Venezuela, who said last Monday that the United States has targeted Venezuela due to its vast crude oil reserves. “They want Venezuela’s oil and gas reserves. In exchange for nothing, without paying,” he said.
The most recent action in the strategy of this intensification of threats against the Venezuelan government is that this Saturday, November 29, Donald Trump declared Venezuela’s airspace “completely closed”, without presenting any legal argument. “To all airlines, pilots, drug dealers and human traffickers, please consider that the airspace over and around Venezuela is completely closed,” Trump posted on his social networks.
In response to this measure, the Venezuelan government declared that it was a “colonialist” measure. In a statement from the Foreign Ministry it was noted. “Venezuela denounces and condemns the colonialist threat that seeks to affect the sovereignty of its airspace, […] a new extravagant, illegal and unjustified aggression against the people of Venezuela,” the text states.
Regardless of the position one has towards the Maduro regime, what should not be allowed is for a country to claim the right to invade a sovereign country and appropriate its resources based on its military power. Not only is it imperialism, it sounds like a policy based on piracy.
Put in a broader context in the interstate system of contemporary capitalism, we are witnessing the decline of the United States as a hegemonic power in the world order, but instead of admitting that a multipolar world now exists, the Trump administration is dusting off the old imperialist Big Stick policy and behaving like the neighborhood bully. Just as harassers should not be accepted in the closest spaces, the thuggish and imperialist behavior of the United States should not be accepted either.