US increases pressure on Maduro with strike that kills 11 off the Venezuelan coast

The United States has moved from rhetoric to action. The White House celebrated as a major event the military strike on a boat that had departed from Venezuela on Tuesday. None of the 11 crew members on board survived what appears to have been a missile strike, according to images released by the U.S. government. The emphasis that U.S. President Donald Trump has placed on the attack, which took place in international waters, increases the pressure on Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, whom Washington wants to bring to justice for allegedly leading an international drug cartel. The Venezuelan president, in a televised appearance, did not explicitly address the missile strike. Instead, he alluded to it ironically at the end of the broadcast by playing a famous song by Rubén Blades called “Tiburón” (Jaws), a metaphor for American intervention in Latin America.

For almost three weeks, the Chavista government has been under unprecedented military pressure. Trump has deployed three destroyers, P-8 spy planes, battleships, and a nuclear submarine to an undetermined point in the Caribbean Sea. Although their exact location is unknown because their electronic systems block radar signals, some experts place the contingent on the border with Venezuelan international waters. This show of force is intended to intimidate the drug cartels that send their shipments to the United States, but not only them. It also intimidates a certain individual named Nicolás Maduro.

The Venezuelan president has gotten the message: he has deployed troops to the border and says he’s ready to declare an armed conflict. Throughout the country, people are being encouraged to join a militia to confront a hypothetical U.S. military incursion, even though they could be clearly outnumbered. The U.S. State Department claims that Maduro is leading the Cartel of the Suns, an organization it has declared a terrorist organization so that it can be confronted with military means. (So far, no evidence has been shown that Hugo Chávez’s successor is behind this organization.)

Maduro has experienced many moments of uncertainty in his 12 years at the helm, but none of this magnitude. He has found himself internationally isolated since declaring himself the winner of a presidential election last year, the results of which were clearly rigged. The Chavista regime unleashed a repression in the country, with thousands arrested. The presumed real winner of those elections, Edmundo González, went into exile in Spain. Not even leftist powers in Latin America, such as Colombia, Mexico and Brazil, recognized Maduro’s self-proclamation. However, he managed to remain in office in a way that has been very successful for Chavismo: the wear and tear that comes with the passage of time. Little by little, the Venezuelan political situation faded from the international agenda.

Trump’s return to the White House was enthusiastically celebrated by María Corina Machado, the absolute leader of the Venezuelan opposition. The tycoon arrived accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a personal friend of Machado’s. Rubio has used very aggressive language against the regimes of Cuba and Venezuela throughout his political career and is considered the main advocate within the Trump administration in favor of sanctions and economic pressure against those countries. However, the U.S. president grew closer to Maduro in his first months in office by sending his special envoy, Richard Grenell, to Caracas. The American official was photographed with Maduro at Miraflores Palace, the presidential residence, while both looked at a sword once owned by Simón Bolívar. He took six Americans imprisoned in Venezuela back on the plane. In Washington, it was said that Grenell, who is close to the interests of oil companies, had an advantage over Rubio on this issue.

Later, an agreement was reached for the oil company Chevron to continue operating in Venezuela, a vital source of income for its public coffers. And authorization was also granted for local deportees to arrive from the United States. Many interpreted these moves as a way to give the Maduro government some breathing space. Chavismo trusted—and still trusts—the non-interventionist policy with which Trump came to power, which advocates limiting the United States’ military and diplomatic commitments abroad. However, they also know that he is an unpredictable person who unsettles his own advisors—they recommended he not attack Iran, yet he did.

“Our main enemy is Marco Rubio,” a Chavista leader says via text message. He asserts that the president’s entourage is “calm” and doesn’t believe an invasion will occur. “We’re open to talking about anything,” he adds. Chavismo moves, as it always has, between two tensions: using harsh and provocative rhetoric while always showing a willingness to negotiate. In fact, it rarely attacks Trump head-on. In his speeches, the target of Maduro’s criticism is usually Rubio, whom he accuses of poisoning the president with his ideas.

The situation has escalated in a matter of weeks to levels no one imagined. The deployment in the Caribbean Sea was an initial wake-up call for Maduro, but it was time to see what Washington’s next step would be. A declassified video has shown what it was: destroying a boat in a matter of seconds and annihilating everyone on board. The message has been delivered.

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