Trump Sets the Stage for Coup in Venezuela

With much of the world focused on the coronavirus pandemic, the Trump Administration has begun a major military buildup in the Caribbean, sending U.S. warships and aircraft to the region while planning for the ouster of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. 

Already, the Trump team has placed significant pressure on the Venezuelan government by implementing harsh sanctions, encouraging Venezuelan military officers to seize power, and making military threats.

“We’re deploying additional Navy destroyers, combat ships, aircraft, and helicopters; Coast Guard cutters; and Air Force surveillance aircraft, doubling our capabilities in the region,” President Trump announced in a press briefing at the White House on April 1. 

Administration officials say they are increasing the U.S. military presence to deter the flow of drugs into the United States. But they acknowledge being particularly focused on Maduro, whom the Justice Department indicted at the end of March on drug trafficking charges. 

Maduro denies the charges, saying they are part of a politically motivated plan to undermine his leadership and overthrow the Venezuelan government. 

It is no secret that the Trump Administration has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government. In February, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo boasted in a major address that the administration is “leading a fifty-nine-nation coalition to oust Maduro.”

Already, the Trump team has placed significant pressure on the Venezuelan government by implementing harsh sanctions, encouraging Venezuelan military officers to seize power, and making military threats. The administration has worked closely with the country’s opposition, pledging funding for various programs while portraying opposition leader Juan Guaidó as the true leader of the country.

“Congress has voted a fair amount of money to help the democratic opposition in Venezuela,” State Department official Elliott Abrams acknowledged earlier this year. 

The day before President Trump announced the military buildup, State Department officials introduced a plan to create a new government in Venezuela, posting it on their website and sharing it in several press briefings. Their plan creates a pathway for Maduro to leave office and for Guaidó to gain political power through elections.

“When we put together this pathway to democracy, we worked closely with him,” Pompeo said, referring to Guaidó.

But any military intervention would risk spreading coronavirus among U.S. soldiers, who cannot practice social distancing, and could dramatically worsen a terrible economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. 

Previously, Guaidó and his associates had reached out to U.S. Southern Command, requesting U.S. military assistance in their struggle against Maduro. Although the Trump Administration has kept silent about the request, its allies in Congress have long been calling for military action.

“The U.S. must be willing to intervene in Venezuela the way we did in Grenada,” U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, wrote last year in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal, citing the U.S. military’s invasion of Grenada in 1983.

One of the most striking aspects of the Trump Administration’s military surge is that it has received virtually no pushback from Congress. Previously, some members of Congress had criticized the administration’s attempts to overthrow the Venezuelan government, but Congress has done nothing to prevent the Trump Administration from militarily intervening in Venezuela. 

“A U.S. military intervention in Venezuela would be illegal and foolish,” U.S. Representative David Cicilline, Democrat of  Rhode Island, tweeted early last year, when the Trump Administration was reportedly considering an intervention. 

During a Congressional hearing in March 2019, Representative Eliot Engel, Democrat of New York, the chairperson of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, proclaimed that “we cannot just stand here and shrug our shoulders.”

“I think it would create an extremely messy situation, and it would be prolonged,” former Defense Department official Rebecca Chavez told Congress last year. “It would be ugly. There would be massive casualties. So I think that the picture is very grim.”

Yet in recent weeks, Congress has largely shrugged off Trump’s moves toward intervention.

It is possible that the Trump Administration has other motives, such as psychological warfare that intimidates Maduro and emboldens the opposition. About a decade ago, when the United States had organized another military operation in the Caribbean, then-U.S. Ambassador to Venezuela William Brownfield wrote a secret memo praising the military buildup for intimidating then-Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, a target of the administration of George W. Bush.

“This is a win-win for us,” Brownfield wrote. “The Strike Group does its operational training; we advance drug and humanitarian interests in the region; and we give Chávez opportunities to make a mistake by feeding his paranoia.” The military operation would “get his goat,” Brownfield commented, referring to Chávez.

What is different today is that the Venezuelan economy has largely collapsed, nearly five million people have fled the country, and the world is struggling to slow a global pandemic that has killed more than 100,000 people. 

To date, Venezuela has been relatively unscathed, reporting just 181 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and nine deaths as of April 13.  

But any military intervention would risk spreading coronavirus among U.S. soldiers, who cannot practice social distancing, and could dramatically worsen a terrible economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela. 

“While the world battles COVID-19, we are witnessing the largest U.S. military operations in Latin America in thirty years,” tweeted Medea Benjamin, cofounder of the anti-war group CODEPINK. “Congress should remind President Trump that he has NO authorization for military intervention in Venezuela.”