The U.S. now has a force of more than 10,000 troops, warships, and aircraft in and around the Caribbean. We have so far bombed more than a dozen vessels from South America. The death toll so far is 57 people, from Venezuela and Colombia.
Trump has offered no evidence to support his claim that these vessels were smuggling drugs to the United States. America has never before bombed vessels and executed civilians on them out of mere suspicion.
Meanwhile, the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford — the world’s biggest warship, which can host up to 90 attack planes and attack helicopters — is now on its way to the Caribbean.
What’s the real purpose of all this war-making and death? I’ve heard four views:
1. Pressure Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to resign or be toppled. Trump has accused Maduro of being a drug kingpin and the leader of the organized crime gang Tren de Aragua. Trump has in effect declared war on Venezuela to get rid of Maduro.
But Trump has offered no evidence of Maduro’s role in the drug trade. Moreover, Trump has pledged that his foreign policy would not seek regime change. (By the way, several of the vessels sunk by the U.S. were apparently Colombian, not Venezuelan.)
2. Demonstrate to world leaders the military might of the United States. Trump might believe that a show of military force in Latin America will display to other world leaders how much damage the U.S. is capable of inflicting — thereby eliciting their cooperation on drugs, trade, and other issues. (Arguably, Teddy Roosevelt took much the same approach with his “Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine” to ensure U.S. dominance in the hemisphere and secure the Panama Canal Zone.)
But world leaders already know how much damage the United States can inflict. The size of the U.S. military and its arsenal is no secret.
3. Show Americans that Trump has the power to summarily execute anyone he wants to. Some have posited that this is another step in Trump’s attempt to turn the United States into a police state. If he can execute anyone he deems an “enemy combatant” — as he describes sailors on the vessels he has bombed — he might establish a precedent for targeting and executing people he considers “enemies within” the United States, as he has described his opponents.
But Americans would never tolerate a president executing his political opponents; such acts would violate the Constitution, rule of law, and fundamental tenets of democracy.
4. Distract attention from Trump’s many failures and from the Epstein files. It could be that Trump is drumming up a war in the Caribbean in order to take attention away from rising prices in the U.S. caused by his tariffs, his failure to create manufacturing jobs, his failure to end the Ukraine war “on day one,” and his refusal to divulge the Epstein files.
But a war in the Caribbean based on little or no evidence that America’s national security is being threatened could become a political liability for Trump larger than any of these other considerations.
What’s the real reason Trump is going to war in the Caribbean?
