Why is US President Trump threatening Venezuela’s President Maduro?

US President Donald Trump is increasing pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The Trump administration has doubled the reward for information leading to Maduro’s capture, and its warships are within striking distance of Venezuela. Dozens of people have been killed in attacks on boats transporting drugs from the South American country.

Trump also reportedly gave Maduro an ultimatum to leave Venezuela in a phone call between the two men on November 21.

Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under the leadership of leftist President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, replaced Chávez and has been president since 2013.

During Chávez and Maduro’s 26 years in power, their party has gained control of key institutions, including the National Assembly, most of the judiciary, and the Electoral Council.

In 2024, the Electoral Council declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election, even though polling data collected by the opposition showed that their candidate Edmundo González had won by a landslide.

The US was one of several countries that declared the election invalid and recognized González as “president-elect”.

But because of Maduro’s strong control over the army, police and legislature, he remains in power and Gonzalez has fled into exile out of fear of arrest.

Trump has made curbing immigration a priority during his second term and blames Maduro for the influx of Venezuelan migrants to the US.

Since 2013, it is estimated that approximately eight million Venezuelans have fled the economic crisis and political repression in Venezuela, which has worsened under Maduro.

Most have fled to Latin American countries, but hundreds of thousands have gone to the United States.

Without providing evidence, Trump has accused Maduro of “emptying out his prisons and mental asylums” and “forcing” his prisoners to be transferred to the US.

Trump has also focused on fighting the influx of drugs – particularly fentanyl and cocaine – into the US.

As part of his war on drugs, he has designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Souls – as foreign terrorist organizations and alleges they are led by Maduro himself.

Maduro has vehemently denied being a cartel leader and accused the US of using the “war on drugs” as a pretext to remove him from office and get its hands on Venezuela’s vast oil reserves.

Analysts have also pointed out that Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical group but an umbrella term. He says it is used to describe corrupt Venezuelan officials who have allowed cocaine to transit through the country.

The US has deployed 15,000 troops and several aircraft carriers, guided-missile destroyers and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

The stated purpose of the deployment – ​​the largest since the US invaded Panama in 1989 – is to stem the flow of fentanyl and cocaine into the US.

Since the beginning of September, US forces have carried out more than 20 strikes in international waters on boats allegedly carrying drugs. More than 80 people have been killed in the attacks.

The Trump administration argues that it is engaged in a non-international armed conflict with alleged drug traffickers, whom it accuses of waging irregular warfare against the US.

The US has also described the people on board the ship as “narco terrorists”, but legal experts say the attacks are unlawful because the designation “does not turn them into legitimate military targets”.

A former chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court told the BBC that the US military operation amounts to a planned, systematic attack against civilians during peacetime.

In response, the White House said President Donald Trump acted consistent with the laws of armed conflict to protect the United States from cartels “trying to bring poison to our shores … destroying American lives.”

Counternarcotics experts have pointed out that Venezuela is a relatively small player in global drug trafficking, and that it serves as a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled while en route to their final destination.

Its neighbor, Colombia, is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, but much of it is smuggled into the US through other routes, not through Venezuela.

According to a 2020 US Drug Enforcement Report, it is estimated that about three-quarters of the cocaine reaching the US is trafficked through the Pacific, while only a small percentage arrives via fast boats in the Caribbean.

In September, Trump told US military leaders that the boats targeted were “filled with bags of white powder, mostly fentanyl and other drugs”.

However, fentanyl is produced primarily in Mexico and reaches the US almost exclusively by land via the southern border.

Trump has confirmed that he spoke to Maduro on the phone on November 21.

Although he did not specify what was said in the call, Reuters news agency reported that Trump had given Maduro a one-week ultimatum to leave Venezuela with his close family. It said Maduro did not take them up on their offer of safe passage.

A day after the deadline passed, Trump announced the closure of airspace around Venezuela.

Trump has already threatened to take action “from the ground” against Venezuelan drug traffickers, but has not explained how such an operation would unfold.

Trump’s press secretary also did not rule out the possibility of deploying US troops on the ground in Venezuela, telling reporters that “the President has options on the table”.

He did not elaborate on the options, but military analysts have said for weeks that the U.S. deployment to the Caribbean region is far larger than needed for the anti-narcotics campaign.