Trump says he has authorized covert CIA action in Venezuela

President Donald Trump said Wednesday that he had authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to conduct operations in Venezuela, markedly escalating U.S. pressure on President Nicolás Maduro amid a string of lethal strikes against alleged drug trafficking boats in Caribbean waters off that country’s coast.

Trump declined to say whether he had authorized the CIA to overthrow Maduro, a step some of his top national security aides have urged. “I think Venezuela’s feeling the heat,” he said at a White House news conference.

The president was asked about reports that he signed a highly classified document, known as a “finding,” that allows the CIA to conduct covert operations in foreign countries, ranging from clandestine information operations to training guerrilla opposition forces and conducting lethal strikes. Trump’s order was reported earlier by the New York Times. The details of the new authorities now available to the CIA remain unclear.

But people familiar with the matter said the spy agency has surged personnel to the Caribbean and Central America as part of the Trump administration’s move against Western Hemisphere drug cartels. They are there to collect intelligence, not conduct armed operations, said the people, who like some others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters. CIA surveillance drones are also prowling the skies above Mexico, searching for labs that make the deadly drug fentanyl, they said.

Trump’s top national security advisers have feuded bitterly over Venezuela policy, and whether to seek the overthrow of Maduro, whom Washington accuses of stealing last year’s Venezuelan presidential election. That course is favored by Secretary of State Marco Rubio and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, one of the people said. In August, Attorney General Pam Bondi doubled a bounty for information leading to the arrest of Maduro to $50 million, calling him a “threat to our national security.”

Trump has made no final decision on using force to overthrow the Venezuelan leader, one person familiar with the matter said.

But Trump acknowledged he is considering military strikes against land-based targets in Venezuela. “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea under control,” he said.

The White House and the CIA declined to comment on the agency’s new authorities. Trump’s decision to confirm, even in general terms, his instructions to the CIA was highly unusual.

Trump said he authorized CIA involvement because Venezuelan authorities “have emptied their prisons into the United States of America” and because “we have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela.”

Despite the looming confrontation, Caracas has continued accepting deportation flights of its citizens from the United States, which have occurred at a rate of two a week in recent months. Venezuela is not considered a major source of fentanyl or other synthetic opioids responsible for overdose deaths in the U.S., and cocaine trafficked through the Caribbean is mostly not bound for North American markets.

The CIA is not playing a direct role in the lethal strikes against what the White House has described as drug trafficking boats in the Caribbean, current and former U.S. officials said. The five known attacks, which the administration says have killed 27 people, are conducted by Special Operations units under Defense Department command, armed primarily with tactical military intelligence, they said.

CIA personnel are part of a Pentagon-led group tracking drug boats in the Caribbean but are not involved in decisions about which targets are to be struck, one of the former officials said. Agency officials are leery of being too closely involved with the strikes, which some lawmakers have said may violate U.S. and international laws, this person said.

At CIA headquarters, Ratcliffe has boosted funds and personnel for the newly formed Americas and Counternarcotics Mission Center, created by merging units dealing with the Western Hemisphere and counter-drug issues. The center, led by a veteran agency case officer with a reputation for favoring aggressive action, “is feeling pretty empowered,” said a former CIA official.

In the Caribbean, the spy agency has traditionally employed a “hub-and-spoke” approach, with one CIA station covering several islands, the first former official said. Those teams are being reinforced with additional personnel, the people familiar with the matter said.

The agency’s counternarcotics programs in the hemisphere have long centered on alliances with cooperative governments, such as Mexico, Colombia and Peru. CIA officers train and vet local counter-drug units, and provide them with equipment and intelligence.

One former CIA official expressed concern that the agency’s relationships in the region could be damaged — and intelligence-sharing on other topics curtailed — if the United States acts unilaterally against drug traffickers in or around Venezuela and foments a popular backlash in Latin American nations leery of U.S. intervention.

The new authorities for CIA action are the latest in a series of menacing moves by the administration against Maduro’s government, including ramped-up U.S. air and naval activity in the Caribbean near Venezuela’s coast.

The Trump administration has said that Maduro, who has been in power for nearly 13 years, illegally stayed in office after stealing last year’s election. While Trump has given strong rhetorical support to Venezuela’s political opposition and escalated economic pressure on Maduro, he has said his goal is not “regime change.”

But the effective declaration of war against what the administration says are Venezuela-based narcotic traffickers could provide the administration with a legal workaround, according to several people familiar with the administration’s thinking.

Maduro has been under a U.S. indictment since 2020 for narcoterrorism and conspiracy to flood the United States with cocaine. The administration has focused on what it says is Maduro’s role as head of the Cartel de los Soles, which Trump has designated a foreign terrorist organization for alleged distribution of both cocaine and fentanyl.

Trump in recent weeks paused efforts by Richard Grenell, the president’s special missions envoy, to negotiate a deal in which Maduro would offer up U.S. control of Venezuela’s rare minerals and oil assets and reduce ties with China, Russia and Iran in exchange for Washington letting up on its pressure.

Elliott Abrams, in charge of Venezuela policy at the State Department during Trump’s first term, said that a covert finding by Trump does not necessarily mean only military action. “To say that there might be something covert is not to say that it has to involve shooting,” Abrams said, citing attempts to infiltrate the Venezuelan military or launch psychological operations that might cause Maduro to flee into exile.

Another person familiar with recent U.S. history in Venezuela noted that a lack of solid intelligence on what was going on inside that country during Trump’s first term contributed to the failure of a number of indirect attempts to foment military rebellion or cause Maduro to step down.

Trump has designated eight cartels as foreign terrorist organizations, upping the stakes for U.S. security agencies. Other intelligence agencies, including the National Counterterrorism Center, established after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and focused on Islamic militants, have shifted significantly to the counternarcotics fight.

The top Democrats on national security committees in Congress issued a joint statement last month saying Trump has “failed to state a clear military objective” in Venezuela and “provided no explanation of how this use of the military could ever end.”

While some in Congress fear Trump is seeking regime change in Caracas, other congressional aides told The Washington Post that the administration’s CIA plans could be a “psychological operation” aimed at instilling fear and confusion in Venezuela.