Report: Trump Administration Working on Strategy To ‘Eliminate’ Venezuela’s Maduro | Headline USA

(Dave DeCamp, Antiwar.com) The Trump administration is working on a strategy to “eliminate” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, according to a report from POLITICO’s National Security Daily.

The report focused on US special envoy Ric Grenell, who was recently instructed to halt his diplomatic efforts with the Venezuelan government. Sources told NatSec Daily that they didn’t think the move meant Grenell was on the outs, but rather that the US was now focused on escalating its efforts to oust Maduro.

“The president is serious. No more mixed messages. No more excuses,” a person familiar with the Trump administration’s thinking told NatSec Daily. “There is now a coherent whole-of-government strategy to eliminate Cartel de los Soles and its leader.”

The “Cartel de los Soles” is a term used to describe a network of Venezuelan government officials allegedly involved in drug trafficking. The group does not actually exist as an organization, but the US has declared it a “terrorist” group and has claimed Maduro is its leader.

Maduro and other Venezuelan officials have strongly denied the US allegations, pointing to data that shows the majority of the cocaine that is produced in Colombia doesn’t go through Venezuela. President Trump has framed the military campaign in the region, which has involved bombing at least four boats, as a response to overdose deaths in the US due to fentanyl, but fentanyl isn’t produced in Venezuela, and it does not go through the country on its way to the US.

The Trump administration appears to be determined to escalate things to the next level, which could involve bombing Venezuela or attempting to seize strategic ports or airfields in the country, steps that would almost certainly provoke a full-blown war with the government.

According to The New York Times, advocates of diplomacy with Maduro within the Trump administration, which includes Grenell, have warned that any attempts to carry out regime change in Venezuela risk putting the US into an extended war. The first Trump administration attempted to oust Maduro by backing opposition figure Juan Guaido and imposing harsh economic sanctions on Venezuela, an effort that failed but exacerbated an exodus of millions of migrants from the country.