By Donald Trump’s account, his campaign of lethal maritime strikes is an attempt to extinguish powerful drug cartels, not a prelude to attempted regime change in Venezuela. But even by that standard, the operation is already proving counterproductive, straining alliances essential to U.S. counter-drug strategy and starving officials of information central to battling criminal groups.
Veterans of U.S. law enforcement and counter-drug operations warn that the administration’s militarized effort—including 21 missile strikes, which have killed more than 80 people, on small boats that the administration claims were trafficking fentanyl and cocaine—will have little to no impact on the Mexican and Colombian cartels responsible for moving billions of dollars’ worth of drugs into the United States each year.
Trump also is casting in anti-narcotics terms his long-standing interest in seeing Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan strongman, driven from power. Five years ago, the U.S. indicted Maduro and several associates, alleging that they were the kingpins of a narcotics organization that permeated the Venezuelan military called “Cartel of the Suns,” a figure of speech among Venezuelans for generals corrupted by drug money and a reference to the sun insignia on their uniform.
The U.S. just classified the organization as a terrorist group. Trump said Saturday that Venezuela’s airspace should be considered closed, a possible prelude to further action. “President Trump is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country,” Anna Kelly, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement.
But Venezuela is primarily a transit country for cocaine bound for Europe. Cartels in Colombia and Mexico are responsible for almost all of the shipments of cocaine and fentanyl that arrive in the U.S.—the supply that the White House has repeatedly said it wants to stanch. Three months of deadly boat strikes off the coast of Venezuela and in the eastern Pacific, which many legal experts contend violate international law, have strained U.S. relations with several countries that have worked jointly with Washington for decades against the groups that control most of the illicit-drug trade in America and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere.
Not to mention killing random civilians is a pretty excellent way to get the commoner to side with the cartels.
Easier to bomb Mexico when they refuse to work with you ☝️