It is easy to imagine that there’s been CIA infiltration into Maduro’s Venezuela for a long time, but covert operations there are now becoming an “open secret” – as fresh Wednesday reporting in the New York Times indicates. “The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian leader,” the Times writes.
Already the Pentagon has been engaged in what could be interpreted as more overt acts of war in regional waters – the targeting of boats off Venezuela accused of being engaged in narco-smuggling operations. Clearly anti-Maduro operations are picking tempo, and ratcheting the temperature.
At this point after five instances of drone attacks on these boats, at least 27 people have died. The Trump administration has alleged the drug traffickers are operating with the blessing and oversight of socialist strongman Nicolas Maduro, which Caracas vehemently rejects.
The US military has further maintained a significant military build-up in the Caribbean, including some 10,000 troops, over several weeks. According to more details from the new NY Times report:
The authorization is the latest step in the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela. For weeks, the U.S. military has been targeting boats off the Venezuelan coast it says are transporting drugs, killing 27 people. American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power.
The new authority would allow the C.I.A. to carry out lethal operations in Venezuela and conduct a range of operations in the Caribbean.
But the below part is somewhat surprising and alarming, given the unpredictable and dangerous implications of the CIA acting “unilaterally”:
The agency would be able to take covert action against Mr. Maduro or his government either unilaterally or in conjunction with a larger military operation. It is not known whether the C.I.A. is planning any operations in Venezuela or if the authorities are meant as a contingency.
But the development comes as the U.S. military is planning its own possible escalation, drawing up options for President Trump to consider, including strikes inside Venezuela.
What is the end-goal here?
Many observers have speculated that it is nothing short of regime change in the Latin American nation known for having the world’s largest proven oil reserves, estimated at over 300 billion barrels.
The NYT actually provides a blunt answer in agreement with the regime change assessment:
The Trump administration’s strategy on Venezuela, developed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, with help from John Ratcliffe, the C.I.A. director, aims to oust Mr. Maduro from power.
Mr. Ratcliffe has said little about what his agency is doing in Venezuela. But he has promised that the C.I.A. under his leadership would become more aggressive. During his confirmation hearing, Mr. Ratcliffe said he would make the C.I.A. less averse to risk and more willing to conduct covert action when ordered by the president, “going places no one else can go and doing things no one else can do.”
Below: F-16s reportedly scramble from Venezuela’s El Libertador Air Base in response to US B-52 bombers nearby…
VENEZUELA scrambles F-16s
Responds to US B-52 bombers nearby
F-16s reportedly scramble from El Libertador Air Base in Arabia
Footage: @RapidReport2025 https://t.co/qFpIshiBLg pic.twitter.com/dJcjPViTMT
— RT (@RT_com) October 15, 2025
And yet it must be remembered that Trump has constantly touted himself as the “peace” president who solves wars and doesn’t start them.
But now, as the NY Times says, there is a highly classified presidential finding which seems to authorize government overthrow in Caracas.
President Trump at the start of this month formally notified Congress this week that the US was entering a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels. Trump’s rationale for the attacks on drug boats in his memo to Congress stated that the cartels are “non-state armed groups” whose actions smuggling drugs “constitute an armed attack against the United States”.
The sight of U.S. B-52 bombers in Venezuelan airspace is a major escalation. Trump’s warmongering has nothing to do with the “war on drugs” & all to do with regime change to plunder Venezuela’s oil. This reckless push for war is a criminal act of international aggression. pic.twitter.com/tHxB6HjpwT
— Manolo De Los Santos (@manolo_realengo) October 15, 2025
In particular the administration has essentially declared war on the Tren de Aragua cartel, and says it is cooperating with the Maduro government, which Caracas has rejected, and so the presence of the cartel’s members in the US is a “predatory incursion” by a foreign nation. In this way he’s trying to cast this as an ‘America First’ policy, and yet if bombs start falling on yet another foreign country which has not militarily attacked the United States, few Americans are likely going to buy it.
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