The Current - Why is Venezuela in Trump's crosshairs?

Episode Date: October 22, 2025

Donald Trump is using the American military and the CIA to blow up small boats off the coast of Venezuela suspected of carrying drugs. But what's motivating this renewed interest in Central America; drugs, crime, immigration? Or is this about political ideology? Journalist Jon Lee Anderson breaks down what he calls "old-fashioned gunboat diplomacy" and why Trump is set on ousting Venezuela's president.

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Donate at lovescarbro.cairbo. This is a CBC podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. Tensions continue to build between the United States government and Venezuela and President Nicolas Maduro. Since September, the U.S. military has carried out at least five known strikes on boats off the coast of Venezuela, killing dozens of people. The sixth strike targeted a suspected drug submarine late last week.

U.S. President Donald Trump claims he's engaged in an armed conflict with drug cartels and on Thursday confirmed that he authorized covert CIA operations in Venezuela. I authorized for two reasons, really. Number one, they have emptied their prisons into the United States of America. The other thing of drugs, we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela. Meanwhile, the United States has been ramping up its military presence in the Caribbean. Since August, it's sent 10,000 troops, military aircraft, and ships to that region. John Lee Anderson has been a staff writer at The New Yorker since 1998, has written extensively about Venezuela.

and reported on armed conflicts from several countries in Latin America and around the world. John Lee Anderson, good morning. Matt, great to be with you. Great to have you here. Why is the U.S. military bombing boats off the coast of Venezuela, not just boats, but submarines as well? Yeah, it's a good question. I think the jury is out on why exactly President Trump wants to do this. More than anything else, given his other behavior.

behavior, it seems like a way to send a message to, I think the people he regards as his chief international rivals, Vladimir Putin and Premier Xi of China, that he too has a near beyond or a backyard that he can impose his will upon without any interference from anybody else. He says this is about drugs. The drugs are flooding in to the United States from Venezuela, and that's why these boats in particular have been targeted. Yes, I know. But in fact, most of the more deleterious, the more lethal drugs, which are fentanyl, comes out of Mexico,

from China via Mexico, and in any case, leaves the ports of Ecuador and the Pacific and Colombia on the Pacific side of the United States. A relatively small amount, according to drug experts, are leaving through the Caribbean in the fashion. that they do. Colombia happens to be a

country that's long been tied in with American counterinsurgency, counter-narcotics programs, and yet, except for the spat between President Trump and the left-wing president, the current left-wing president of Colombia, there isn't

as big an effort to demonize that country for being the primary producer of cocaine in the world, which it is. Venezuela next door, of course, you have Nicholas Maduro, a Chavista president, having succeeded in power to Hugo Chavez, long a kind of smart aleck as seen from the U.S. perspective in the region, made, you know, making friendly with Russia, with China, spouting left-wing rhetoric is a convenient beating boy, if you know what I mean. And no doubt, drugs leave Venezuela through the Caribbean and route to the United States and other markets. But this seems to be more about imposing a Yankee will, if you will, than anything else.

You've met Maduro. How would you describe him? He is a large man, a big man. He must stand 6'2, 250 pounds. He's a big guy, very kind of hail and heart. he is very much a streetwise Venezuelan. By that, I mean he's quick, he's quick-witted. Despite some clumsiness when he gives speeches, he'll break into a dance. He is very much a kind of man of the people's successor of Hugo Chavez, who set this, the so-called Bolivarian revolution

into action over 25 years ago. And he has a, he has a, he has. as he is engaged in what they call a civilian military pact with the country's armed forces. So it's a kind of negotiated system of power whereby Maduro is the front man, but a series of other powerful figures, including military men in Venezuela, have a great deal of power as well. It's a very chaotic country, but he himself is very personable in person. He's got a good sense of humor. He comes from the left. He was the member of an urban left-wing guerrilla group that didn't get very far in the 1970s when he was young. And then he was a union leader for the bus driver's union of Venezuela and quickly came under Chavez's elbow and served him in a variety of posts, including foreign minister, before he became his anointed successor, just before he died.

2013. What sort of support does he have in the country? The economy has cratered in Venezuela, something like 9 million people have fled the country. What sort of support does he have? Yeah, he has the great misfortune to have assumed power at the same time as the world oil prices tanked and precipitously dropped. And Venezuela being like a lot of oil producers, it never created a kind of an additional economy. And so the exodus began pretty soon after Madudas took power. And he, you know, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, he, we're not talking about an efficient regime at all.

He also showed himself to be more willing to use violence directly against opposition, uh, politicians, dissidents, demonstrators and the like. It's generally become a more degraded social and political atmosphere in, in Venezuela ever sense. by all accounts he lost last year's election and it was won by a straw candidate put up by the band Maria Corina Machado, a very outspoken female politician who was not allowed to run but put a candidate in her stead. According to the opposition, they won handily and Maduro stole it. you know it all depends on who shouts louder and in the case of venezuela it's long been a case of

maduro and the people around him shouting the loudest so it's not it's not an even playing ground for for the opposition to be sure but they've also not helped their case by fighting amongst themselves and going into exile at the drop of a hat i mean it's also interesting that marina korena mashado won the Nobel Peace Prize um exactly she's in she's in hiding since that election, she's gone underground, is in, as they say, undisclosed locations. Why do you think that was, that she was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize? Well, I think it was the Nobel Committee's ruse not to have to give it and get it into a spitting match with Donald Trump, who'd be very clear that he thought he deserved it. And Maria Coordina Machado at least represents the opposition

in Venezuela as a cause. We know that it's dear to Trump and his. enterage's heart, and that this was a way to shift, to shift the attention away from them. They did not, I have sources who told me that they did not want to give it to Donald Trump. They had another, an entirely, another recipient in mind, a refugee, grassroots refugee supply outfit in Africa. And instead, they decided to give it to Maria Corina Machia. as a way of diverting the ire of Donald Trump. And, you know, by extension, putting the onus on Venezuela again to democratize.

Although it has to be said, it's an odd choice to have given it to Machado, since she had explicitly signed on with these attacks by Donald Trump on boats coming from her country. She credited Donald Trump for winning the Nobel Prize. I mean, she thanked him. She effectively gave it to him. Yes. Yes, yes. It was, I felt it to be a very odd.

choice, and a very political one on the part of the Nobel Committee. And I think, again, it just underscores the very rarefied, kind of toxic atmosphere that we're dealing with in the era of Trump, frankly. So go back to where we started, which is what is Donald Trump, what is his goal in the region? He said that, I mean, he's bombing these boats and submarines off the coast of Venezuela. He said that financial aid for Argentina hinges on the president being reelected. What is he trying to do in the region, do you think? He said what he would do in his inaugural speech. Remember, he mentioned that he would take back the Panama Canal,

I think at least three times his inaugural speech. He spoke about manifest destiny. He spoke about territorial expansion. This is a man determined to impose, to reimpose the Monroe Doctrine and the gunboat diplomacy in the region. He wants to send a message that we rule. Remember, he's always had it in for Hispanics, for Latin Americans, frankly for brown and black-skinned people. In his very first speech, when he announced his candidacy in 2015 before his first.

Coming down that escalator. Exactly. He talked about Mexicans being rapist, thieves, and murderers. And he began to vilify people south of the border since then, something that's only accelerated and escalated in the second term, now with, calling all Venezuelans, gangsters calling Maduro a criminal narco-terrorist. His regime is a cartel rather than a government. And although he wants a Nobel Peace Prize, I think in his mind he thinks that by calling this a sort of police action, where he wouldn't ultimately overthrow Nicholas Maduro and show the neighborhood,

whose boss, that somehow that wouldn't be a war because it's a police action. against the cartel. Do you think that that's on the cards, the idea of, I mean, the phrase is regime changed, that that's what Donald Trump wants to do is install his own flavor in Venezuela? Absolutely. Yeah. And wherever else he can. If he can bail out Millet with $20 billion and make sure that he wins the next legislative

elections when his regime is on the ropes, he'll do that as well. Inasmuch as he's able to create a Trump. a Trumpified Latin America, just as he's trying to do and through, you know, through his people in Europe, he will. I have to let you go. But for those in those countries, not the leaders, but the people in those countries, where does this leave them? On the ropes, watching bystanders. Sadly, once again, Latin Americans have been reduced to being the passive bystanders and ultimately victims of the, of the bully boy. tactics of a handful of blustering politicians. John Lee Anderson, good to speak with you. Thank you very much.

My thanks. Thanks to you. John Lee Anderson is a staff writer at The New Yorker. This has been the current podcast. You can hear our show Monday to Friday on CBC Radio 1 at 8.30 a.m. At all time zones, or you can also listen online at cbc.ca. Or on the CBC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. My name is Matt Galloway.

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