{"id":32500,"date":"2025-10-13T00:02:28","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=32500"},"modified":"2025-10-13T00:02:28","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T00:02:28","slug":"trump-refuses-to-rule-out-striking-venezuela-whats-next-for-trumps-war-on-drugs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/investmentbankingrules.com\/?p=32500","title":{"rendered":"Trump refuses to rule out striking Venezuela. What\u2019s next for Trump\u2019s war on drugs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Donald Trump has launched an unprecedented war against cartels and has threatened narco-terrorists, saying he will \u2018blow you out of existence\u2019 as his administration seeks to curb the influx of drugs into the U.S.\u00a0
\nThe White House sent lawmakers a memo Sept. 30 informing them that the U.S. is now participating in a \u2018non-international armed conflict\u2019 with drug smugglers \u2014 on top of conducting four fatal strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean since September.\u00a0
\nThe Department of War recently announced a new counter-narcotics Joint Task Force in the Southern Command area of responsibility, according to Secretary of War Pete Hegseth.\u00a0
\nThe aim of the task force is to \u2018crush the cartels, stop the poison, and keep America safe,\u2019 Hegseth wrote on X Friday. \u2018The message is clear: if you traffic drugs toward our shores, we will stop you cold.\u2019<\/p>\n

These recent developments suggest that Trump is eyeing targets within Venezuela, not just those within international waters, according to Geoff Ramsey, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council international affairs think tank.
\n\u2018This is a sign that President Trump is taking the US war on drugs in Latin America to the next level,\u2019 Ramsey said in a Monday email to Fox News Digital. \u2018By involving the military, the president is going after drug cartels in a way that no previous US administration has dared to so far. I think it is likely that we will see the Pentagon evaluate targets inside Venezuela.\u2019
\nAdditional strikes could target more drug shipments or drug flights, which often take off from covert airfields near the Colombian border, Ramsey said.\u00a0
\n\u2018It\u2019s a bad time to be posted in a guerrilla camp on the Colombian border or operating a Tren de Aragua safe house along the Caribbean trafficking route,\u2019 Ramsey said.\u00a0
\nEven so, Ramsey said it would be challenging to strike within Venezuela\u2019s territory. Doing so would require the U.S. to dismantle Venezuela\u2019s air defense system, which would escalate hostilities by openly engaging with Venezuela\u2019s military, he said.\u00a0
\nThat\u2019s a departure from the current approach, in which the U.S. has intentionally avoided targeting Venezuelan military assets, Ramsey said.\u00a0
\n\u2018When two Venezuelan F-16s flew over a US destroyer last month, the fact that those planes weren\u2019t blown out of the sky suggests that the US is not interested in a shooting war with Venezuela\u2019s military,\u2019 Ramsey said.\u00a0
\nTrump himself has not ruled out conducting strikes within Venezuela though, and signaled such strikes could happen when he told military leaders in Quantico, Virginia, Sept. 30 that his administration would \u2018look very seriously at cartels coming by land.\u2019<\/p>\n

So far, the Trump administration has utilized maritime forces to address drug threats, and has beefed up naval assets in the Caribbean in recent months. For example, Trump approved sending several U.S. Navy guided missile destroyers to bolster the administration\u2019s counter-narcotics efforts in the region starting in August.\u00a0
\n\u2018I expect these deployments to continue for months or more than a year, with new ships rotating in to replace those that need to return home for maintenance or crew rest,\u2019 Bryan Clark, director of the Hudson Institute think tank\u2019s Center for Defense Concepts and Technology, told Fox News Digital in September.\u00a0
\nNathan Jones, a nonresident scholar in drug policy and Mexico studies at Rice University\u2019s Baker Institute for Public Policy, predicted the strikes are unlikely to impact the flow of fentanyl into the U.S. That\u2019s because fentanyl precursors originate in China, and are then produced in labs in Mexico before they head north without a pathway into the Caribbean.\u00a0
\n\u2018I wouldn\u2019t expect your drug flow to be affected because of these strikes,\u2019 Jones told Fox News Digital Tuesday. \u2018This could, though, leave transnational criminal organizations running a little scared in terms of what the administration is going to do.\u2019\u00a0
\nStill, Jones said that he predicted drug flow routes would adapt and that land or aerial drug routes would take precedence over sea routes in the Caribbean.\u00a0
\nThe strikes have prompted members of Congress to question their legality and senators Adam Schiff, D-Calif., and Tim Kaine, D-Va., filed a war powers resolution in September that would block U.S. forces from engaging in \u2018hostilities\u2019 against certain non-state organizations.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u2018There has been no authorization to use force by Congress in this way,\u2019 Schiff told reporters Wednesday. \u2018I feel it is plainly unconstitutional. The fact that the administration claims to have a list and has put organizations on a list does not somehow empower the administration to usurp Congress\u2019s power of declaring war or refusing to declare war or refusing to authorize the use of force.\u2019\u00a0
\nHowever, the measure failed in the Senate by a 51\u201348 margin Wednesday. Even so, the measure attracted support from Republicans Rand Paul of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who voted alongside their Democratic counterparts for the resolution.\u00a0
\nOther Republicans have defended the strikes though, and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Sen. Jim Risch, R-Idaho, said that Trump\u2019s actions were well within his rights and that the resolution was \u2018unreasonable.\u2019\u00a0
\n\u2018When he sees an attack like this coming \u2014 an attack of drugs or explosives or anything else that\u2019s going to kill Americans \u2014 he not only has the authority to do something about it, he has the duty to do something about it,\u2019 Risch said Wednesday before the vote.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This post appeared first on FOX NEWS<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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