President Donald Trump has authorized the CIA to operate in Venezuela as the administration considers conducting airstrikes in the country.
So far, the administration has stuck to carrying out airstrikes against Venezuelan boats that were believed to be carrying illicit drugs into the United States. Now, it appears the White House is ready to escalate, according to The New York Times.
President Trump said he had authorized covert C.I.A. action in Venezuela and was considering ground strikes. Venezuela’s foreign minister called the American actions a policy of aggression.Adriana Loureiro Fernandez for The New York Times
The Trump administration has secretly authorized the C.I.A. to conduct covert action in Venezuela, according to U.S. officials, stepping up a campaign against Nicolás Maduro, the country’s authoritarian leader.
The authorization is the latest step in the Trump administration’s intensifying pressure campaign against Venezuela. For weeks, the U.S. military has been targeting boats off the Venezuelan coast it says are transporting drugs, killing 27 people. American officials have been clear, privately, that the end goal is to drive Mr. Maduro from power.
Mr. Trump acknowledged on Wednesday that he had authorized the covert action and said the United States was considering strikes on Venezuelan territory.
“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” the president told reporters hours after The New York Times reported the secret authorization.
Because nothing says “America First” like a secretly “authorized,” covert CIA regime-change campaign in Venezuela. https://t.co/aWi9OLPCxO
— Justin Amash (@justinamash) October 15, 2025
While speaking with reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday, Trump explained the reasons for his actions, noting that Venezuela’s government “emptied their prisons into the United States of America.”
He also brought up the drug smuggling issue, noting that there are “a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea…but we’re going to stop them by land also,” according to BBC.
Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro pushed back against the move. "No to regime change, which reminds us so much of the endless, failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and so on," he said.
CIA should recruit a bunch of dissident Venezuelan exiles and finance them to covertly land in Venezuela, rally the support of locals to their cause, and topple the Maduro regime
— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) October 15, 2025
Just have to find a good place to land them, a bay perhaps… but otherwise this is a can’t miss plan https://t.co/hiS4DLn9Fv
Foreign Minister Yván Gil said in a statement on Telegram that the country "rejects the warmongering and extravagant statements of the president of the United States.”
The Trump administration has carried out at least five airstrikes on boats in the southen Caribbean since September. The White House says it is targeting “narcoterrorist” drug-smuggling vessels near Venezuela. Officials contend that the attacks were justified because they occurred in international waters.
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