Key Points and Summary – As tensions spike over Venezuela, President Donald Trump has pointedly refused to rule out sending U.S. ground troops, even as he hints at possible talks with Nicolás Maduro.
-Washington has just labeled the Cartel de los Soles a foreign terrorist organization and surged naval power into the Caribbean, including the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) transits the Mediterranean Sea, August 1, 2025. Gerald R. Ford, a first-in-class nuclear aircraft carrier and deployed flagship of Carrier Strike Group Twelve, is on a scheduled deployment in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of operations to support the warfighting effectiveness, lethality, and readiness of U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa, and defend U.S., Allied, and partner interests in the region. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Brianna Barnett)
-Inside the Oval Office, Trump is weighing “a host of options” with senior advisers, from targeted strikes to broader operations against narcotics networks across Latin America.
-Maduro, for his part, publicly calls for “dialogue, not war,” but both rhetoric and deployments suggest real escalation risk.
Trump Not Ruling Out Using US Troops in Venezuela
Fort Lauderdale, Florida – With tensions continuing to rise and the anxiety level in South Florida higher perhaps than in most other parts of the country, United States President Donald Trump has said he would not rule out the possibility of employing US troops in Venezuela.
“I don’t rule out anything, we just have to take care of Venezuela,” Trump said in an Oval Office press event when asked about deploying American personnel “on the ground” in Venezuela.
This statement would seem difficult to reconcile with his comments on Sunday evening that in the near future his administration “may be having some discussions” with Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s strongman leader.
In his interaction with reporters late on Sunday, Trump had intimated that Maduro had indicated he “would like to talk” and that his administration might also be prepared to listen. A diplomatic solution rather than an outright military assault on Venezuela—despite the many problems created by and questionable actions of the Venezuelan leader—is favored by most of the nations in the region.
Trump has repeatedly criticized and challenged the legitimacy of Maduro’s rule in the past weeks, and has accused Maduro of using his government to run a narcotics organization, known as the Cartel de los Soles. The American president has also blamed the Venezuelan head of state for trafficking drugs and “dumping” his nation’s most violent criminals in the United States.
On Sunday, the US State Department announced that, effective as of November 24, it will designate the Cartel de los Soles as a foreign terrorist organization. The administration has previously imposed this designation on other Venezuelan groups, such as the Tren de Aragua gang.
The Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and the Italian aircraft carrier ITS Cavour (CVH 550) transit the Atlantic Ocean March 20, 2021, marking the first time a Ford-class and Italian carrier have operated together underway. As part of the Italian Navy’s Ready for Operations (RFO) campaign for its flagship, Cavour is conducting sea trials in coordination with the F-35 Lightning II Joint Program Office’s Patuxent River Integrated Test Force to obtain official certification to safely operate the F-35B. Gerald R. Ford is conducting integrated carrier strike group operations during independent steaming event 17 as part of her post-delivery test and trials phase of operations.
The Rhetorical and Military Build-Up
This move is seen as a third or “supplemental” method of undermining the Maduro regime. Financially pressuring or isolating elites close to the Venezuelan leader or the Cartel de los Soles could potentially turn those elements against him.
In the meantime, the US President has been ratcheting up his rhetoric, while there has also been a parallel and commensurate level of military escalation. Piece by piece, a sizeable armada of US Navy vessels and airpower has been deployed into the Caribbean in the past few weeks.
In the past 48 hours, the combination of combustible rhetoric and an increasing military presence—including the recent arrival of the CVN-78 USS Gerald R. Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier—has created an almost sense of inevitability about military action. Recent satellite photos clearly show the carrier and its complement of escort and support vessels, which make up its strike group, in position off the coast of Venezuela.
In a response to these developments and Trump’s comments late on Monday, Maduro stated he was willing to have “face-to-face” talks with US representatives.
“The message has been always there … Dialogue. Call, yes. Peace, yes. War, no. Never, never war,” Maduro said during his weekly broadcast on Venezuelan state television. “Anyone who wants to engage in a dialogue with us will find people of their word.”
Attack: When and How?
An assembly of high-ranking US political and military officials has been deliberating on whether there should be a strike on Venezuela, as well as how it should be conducted.
Reports to this effect have been circulating since last week, according to unnamed sources who spoke to US media outlets in Washington, DC.
On Friday, Trump said he had “sort of made up my mind” about how he would move forward on any military action in Venezuela. According to sources who spoke to The Washington Post, “a host of options” had been presented to the president.
Those involved in these discussions were reported to include: Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff USAF Gen. Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller.
Trump’s more recent statements on Monday were that he is prepared to take military action in any Latin American country where these cartels are operating.
He had also said he would be prepared to launch strikes on targets in Mexico “to stop drugs” and that he would “be proud” to be able to take out “cocaine factories” in Colombia.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of the Asia Research Centre at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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Jim
November 19, 2025 at 5:51 pm
Unfortunately it’s not hard to imagine happening, but it’s hard to see it work out well.
Caracas, the capitol, stands at 3,000 feet in elevation and is roughly 15 miles inland from the coast up a winding highway surrounded by high ground with more than one tunnel on the route.
The international airport sits on the coast along with various port facilities.
At present, estimates put landing forces available to the task force of somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers.
This would be enough to land on the coast, take the airport and port facilities, but not march on the capitol.
Regime change would likely require taking and occupying the capitol for an extended period of time.
Airborne assault on the capitol would be extremely risky as Venezuela’s military has BUk surface to air missiles making the drop zone highly problematic for an airborne assault and it risks after the parachute drop being isolated in the capitol without reinforcements because the seaborne landing can’t reach Caracas and stays bottled up on the coast.
Prolonged occupation with potential casualties has a notoriously short political shelf-life.
Nobody is quite sure what kind of resistance Venezuela’s army would put up and also what kind of guerrilla & partisan resistance the citizenry would mount on behalf of Venezuela and Maduro.
There’s no cake walk launching a military operation against Venezuela. And there’s all kinds of warning bells suggesting a military operation could easily be a disaster both militarily and politically.
Considering Trump never mentioned military conflict with Venezuela during the campaign and Democrats in the Senate signaled reluctance at best in a test vote, the political risks are as significant as the the military risks of such an operation.
Rumor has it, Trump wants a very favorable agreement for oil & minerals… regime change maybe a bridge too far.
If this was the old game show, “Let’s Make a Deal,” I’d advise Trump to take the Deal instead of the Box.
Too many unknown dangers and risks are in the Box.
The best deal includes a good price on Venezuela’s heavy, sour (high sulfur content) oil as it just so happens several refineries in the U. S. have been built with the specific refining ability to process this heavy, sour oil (Venezuela’s heavy oil has a lower market price as most refineries can’t use it).
A Win-Win deal is better than a military failure and a political disaster with the mid-terms less than a year away for Trump and Republicans.
That’s not the kind of political headwind one wants to face coming into an election.