Three United States warships were deployed off the coast of Venezuela and could arrive as early as Sunday. In response, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro announced the mobilization of more than four million militia fighters to defend the country. Allegedly intended to help curb drug trafficking by Latin American cartels, the Trump administration’s dangerous escalation made clear that it has learned nothing from the bloody failures of the United States’ decades-long “war on drugs” in the region.
The deployment followed a string of U.S. actions meant to ramp up pressure on Venezuela. On August 7, the Trump administration doubled its reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, accusing the Venezuelan leader in a video announcement by U.S. Attorney General Pamela Bondi of being “one of the largest international drug traffickers in the world.” Maduro was also accused of ties to “foreign terrorist organizations” like the Sinaloa Cartel and the Tren de Aragua, as well as leadership of the Cartel of the Suns, which the Trump administration had recently sanctioned and designated as a terrorist organization. The next day, The New York Times reported that the president had secretly ordered the Pentagon to prepare for the use of military force against Latin American drug cartels.
Regional pushback against the prospect of military intervention, as well as challenges to the characterization of Maduro as a narcotrafficker, have not slowed Washington’s campaign. After announcing the deployment of more than 4,000 marines and sailors to the southern Caribbean, the administration escalated its rhetoric. This week, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt declared that the “Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela, it is a narco-terror cartel,” and called Maduro a “fugitive head” of such a cartel.
The U.S. claim that Maduro is the head of a cartel, a terrorist, and thus a legitimate target for intervention, is both dubious and familiar. The Trump administration's labelling of Maduro as a “narco-terrorist” leader harkens back to the smear tactics of earlier phases of the U.S. drug war. Since the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan used the charge of “narcoterrorism” as a rhetorical weapon to wage war against Cuba and Nicaragua, Washington has repeatedly framed adversarial governments as drug traffickers spreading terror to create a pretext for intervention. This strategy later expanded to left-wing insurgencies such as Colombia’s M-19 and FARC, Peru’s Shining Path, and Hezbollah—an approach intensified after 9/11, when the War on Terror supercharged U.S. counterterror and counterinsurgency operations around the world.
Yet history shows that the use of military force against governments branded as drug traffickers is destined to fail. Decades of supply-side drug eradication campaigns in Latin America have not curbed production or weakened entrenched cartels. Instead, they have destroyed the environment with deadly pesticides, empowered abusive security forces that have committed horrific human rights abuses, prolonged civil conflicts, and contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians across the region.
A key reason for the failure to stop the flow of drugs into the United States, besides the country’s insatiable demand for narcotics, lies in Washington’s historic partnerships with traffickers themselves—from the Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s, to Panamanian strongman Manuel Noriega, to Colombian paramilitaries more recently. This trend continues today. As journalist Seth Harp argued this week on Democracy Now!, if Trump were serious about stopping the drug trade, he should first “look closer to home:” U.S. special forces themselves have repeatedly been implicated in drug trafficking, often in collaboration with the very cartels against which the government claims to be waging war.
Besides indicating that the warships will form part of a broader operation against Latin American drug cartels, the exact nature of their mission remains unclear. What is clear, however, is that the United States is once again using the “war on drugs” as a pretext for intervention in Latin America.
A newly expanded edition of Oscar Olivera’s book revisits the grassroots uprising that defeated water privatization 25 years later, offering lessons on sovereignty, solidarity, and defense of the commons.
The action was announced by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who called the Venezuelan government a “criminal organization."
IMAGE OF THE WEEK
Rodrigo Paz, the center-right candidate who came out on top after the first round of presidential elections in Bolivia, celebrates alongside his supporters on Sunday night. (Benjamin Swift)
AROUND THE REGION
BOLIVIAN LEFT IS DEFEATED—The Bolivian left’s two-decade leadership run has come to an end. On August 17, Bolivians overwhelmingly rejected the presidential candidates of a fractured left, instead advancing two conservatives—Senator Rodrigo Paz Pereira and former president Jorge “Tuto” Quiroga—to a runoff. Paz Pereira, the son of former President Jaime Paz Zamora who ran on a platform of “capitalism for all,” stunned observers by quadrupling his expected vote share to finish first with 32 percent. His unexpected rise has been attributed in part to his running mate Edman Lara Montaño, a former police captain with a Bukele-inspired image and large social media following. Quiroga, a more intensely right-wing candidate, came in second, building his campaign around fearmongering that Bolivia risked becoming another Venezuela, Cuba, or Nicaragua. A former IMF and World Bank official, Quiroga has proposed an IMF rescue package and harsh austerity measures to confront Bolivia’s economic crisis. Former President Evo Morales, who called on his supporters to cast null votes,claimed victory through a creative tally that added abstentions plus null and blank votes. Meanwhile, left-wing candidates Eduardo del Castillo and Andrónico Rodriguez barely surpassed 10 percent of the vote, garnering 3 and 8 percent respectively. Businessman Samuel Doria Medina, projected by some to win outright, came in third with 20 percent. The runoff is scheduled for October 19.
URIBE RELEASED—A Colombian appeals court has ordered former President Álvaro Uribe released from house arrest as he contests his bribery and witness tampering conviction. The ruling, issued Tuesday by Bogota’s superior court, overturned Judge Sandra Heredia’s decision two weeks earlier that Uribe begin serving a 12-year house arrest sentence immediately. Responding to an injunction from Uribe’s defense team, the magistrates found that Heredia had violated Uribe’s due process rights by enforcing the sentence before the appeals process concluded. Uribe wasted no time returning to the campaign trail. On Wednesday, he rallied supporters with an hour-long speech about the need to “save the country” from the grips “neocommunism supported by narcoterrorism”—an ironic charge given his recent conviction. The former president, who has remained an influential voice in right-wing politics even under house arrest, also called for a symbolic march to honor Miguel Uribe Turbay, a presidential candidate from his party who died last week after being shot on the campaign trail in June.
BOLSONARO PLANNED TO FLEE—Brazil’s Federal Police revealed Wednesday that former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro drafted plans to seek political asylum in Argentina last year, according to a document that they found on his phone. While it is unclear whether the 33 page draft asylum request directed to Argentine President Javier Milei was ever sent, police argued the document demonstrated Bolsonaro’s intent to evade their inquiry into his alleged support for a 2022 plot to remain in power. The revelations were contained in court documents filed by police as part of Bolsonaro’s ongoing coup-attempt trial. Bolsonaro faces a four decade prison sentence if convicted in a trial that is set to conclude early next month. In response to the revelation, a Supreme Court justice gave Bolsonaro 48 hours to explain himself. This is not the first time he has been suspected of seeking asylum: in February of last year, days after his passport was confiscated by police, he reportedly spent two nights at the Hungarian Embassy in Brasilía in an apparent bid for asylum.
BOLUARTE SAVED BY COURT, FOR NOW—Peru’s constitutional court ordered the suspension of a series of open investigations into President Dina Boluarte on Tuesday, arguing that the cases can only proceed after she leaves office. The ruling shields Boluarte from accountability for her role in mulitple scandals, including her government’s dismantling of a police task force investigating corruption, a bribery scandal known as “Rolexgate,” and the deaths of protesters following the 2022 overthrow of left-wing President Pedro Castillo. The court’s granting of temporary impunity over protest-related killings is particularly controversial, as national and international human rights organizations have accused Boluarte of involvement in the extrajudicial execution of 49 people. The ruling, issued in response to a petition filed by the executive branch, also curtails Congress’s oversight by limiting its ability to investigate the president to a narrow subset of crimes. Boluarte’s term is set to end on July 28, 2026.
