Trump Escalates Tensions with Venezuela and Colombia

United States officials have privately admitted that the escalating pressure campaign is aimed at forcing Nicolás Maduro from power, according to CNN. The move risks triggering a prolonged and unstable confrontation across Latin America.

The White House asserts that Venezuela is associated with drug cartels and migrant flows. President Donald Trump said the CIA’s mission targets “the flows of migrants and drugs” from the country. He confirmed that he authorised covert operations inside Venezuela, a move that has heightened fears of direct U.S. military action. “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump told reporters last week.

In response, Maduro has mobilised the Bolivarian Armed Forces and claimed that eight million volunteers have joined his militias. However, analysts dispute those figures.

Meanwhile, tensions have now spilt beyond Venezuela. Colombia recalled its ambassador to Washington after a U.S. strike in the Caribbean killed a Colombian fisherman. President Gustavo Petro accused the Trump administration of “murdering” a Colombian fisher in a mid-September strike on a vessel in its territorial waters. Petro said it was a “direct threat to national sovereignty” and that the victim was a “lifelong fisherman” and a “humble human being”.

Trump responded by calling Petro an “illegal drug dealer” and vowed to impose new tariffs and halt U.S. aid, further deepening the diplomatic rift. He also ordered Petro to “close up” drug cultivation sites, warning that if he did not, “the United States will close them up for him, and it won’t be done nicely.”