There is no U.S. law that explicitly authorizes the U.S. Navy to attack or sink ships at sea outside of a congressionally authorized war or valid self-defense situation, legal experts and Democratic lawmakers say.
The strikes began in September, but Trump administration discussions about them began soon after Trump moved back into the White House in January
Amid a buildup of U.S. military forces near Venezuela and strikes on alleged drug boats, President Donald Trump told U.S. troops on Thanksgiving that the military operation will soon include strikes on land.
“In recent weeks, you’ve been working to deter Venezuelan drug traffickers,“ Trump said during a call with military service members that alluded to the boat strikes, adding: „We’ll be starting to stop them by land also. The land is easier, but that’s going to start very soon.“
Venezuela‘s communications ministry, which handles all press inquiries for the government, did not immediately reply to a request for comment on Trump‘s post.
The U.S. Defense Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
During the formation of the Bolivarian Base Committee in the Caracas parish of La Pastora, he declared that „those who want to hand over Venezuela, its natural resources, and fascist extremism are encountering the unyielding fist of the organized people. They will not succeed against us.“
Rodríguez emphasized that the US has decided to declare war on the entire planet, „and Venezuela must be prepared to defend our sovereignty. Who is going to come and give us orders from another country? Nobody, nobody gives us orders. The only one is the Venezuelan people, who are well organized.“
As the USS Gerald R. Ford streams into the US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) area of responsibility, bringing with it 4000 US sailors and dozens of tactical aircraft, Venezuelan President Nicholas Maduro ordered its military operations be amped up within the coming hours to confront “imperial threats.”
A release from Venezuelan Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez earlier today announced that a higher phase of “Independencia 200” operations- the country’s national defence and mobilisation framework- will be in effect from 4.p.m. until tomorrow.
Es el mismo guion imperial del barco Maine y del Golfo de Tonkin: fabricar un conflicto para imponer intereses ajenos a nuestra región.
Venezuela actúa con firmeza y responsabilidad: en nuestro territorio se está desmantelando una célula criminal financiada por la CIA vinculada a esta operación encubierta. Esperamos que Trinidad y Tobago haga lo propio y no permita que su territorio sea usado para maniobras que amenazan la paz del Caribe.
Respetamos al pueblo de Trinidad y Tobago y confiamos en su conciencia para impedir que su país sea arrastrado a una operación sucia de guerra.
Venezuela no caerá en provocaciones, pero nadie se confunda: defenderemos nuestra soberanía sin titubeos. La Primera Ministra Kamla Persad-Bissessar debe asumir su responsabilidad ante el Caribe y ante la historia: o se pone del lado de la paz o se hunde en la agenda de la CIA.
The allegation came a day after Venezuela said it had arrested what it called mercenaries linked to the CIA.
“On our territory a criminal cell financed by the CIA and linked to this covert operation is being dismantled,” Gil said.
US President Donald Trump said recently he has approved covert action in Venezuela and is considering launching operations on Venezuelan territory.
(18 hours ago)
Venezuela says it has thwarted what it calls a CIA-linked plot to attack a US warship anchored in Trinidad.
It claims the US would have blamed Venezuela for the attack on the USS Gravely, a guided-missile destroyer, to justify aggression against it.
The allegation comes a day after Venezuela said it had arrested mercenaries it alleged were connected to the US intelligence agency.
Venezuelan Foreign Minister Yvan Gil said in a statement he had advised Trinidad and Tobago of the alleged false-flag operation.
In this episode, Nigel exposes the full story behind Venezuela’s decision to suspend its gas agreements with Trinidad and Tobago — and why it could devastate our energy future.
Venezuela’s Vice President, Delcy Rodríguez, announced the suspension of all joint projects with Trinidad, citing betrayal after Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar welcomed U.S. warships into our waters. But this isn’t just political drama — it’s economic suicide. The Dragon Gas Field held over 4 trillion cubic feet of gas, nearly half our remaining reserves, and could have secured decades of energy and revenue for Trinidad and Tobago
„I have approved the measure,“ Maduro said.
His order immediately suspended all aspects of the energy agreement with Trinidad and Tobago, he said, and Congress and the Supreme Court will be asked to weigh in with additional recommendations.
That would likely mean Venezuela would revoke the license to develop the massive Dragon natural gas field, among other projects.
The licence on the field permits the British multinational oil and gas company Shell and Trinidad’s National Gas Company to develop the Dragon gasfield off Venezuela despite the sanctions targeting Maduro’s government.
Shell is separately developing the Manatee gas project, which crosses the maritime border into Venezuela but has received permission from the Maduro government to be developed on the Trinidad side independently. It was not immediately clear whether that project could also be at risk, the Reuters news agency reported.
(October 26, 2025)
“There will be a congressional briefing about a potential expanding from the sea to the land. I support that idea, but I think [Trump] has all the authority he needs,” Graham added.
Starting in early September, the president authorized a series of strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing at least 43 people.
(October 26, 2025)
„I think President Trump‘s made a decision that [Nicolas] Maduro, the leader of Venezuela, is an indicted drug, drug trafficker, that it‘s time for him to go, that Venezuela and Colombia have been safe havens for narco-terrorists for too long, and President Trump told me yesterday that he plans to brief members of Congress when he gets back from Asia about future potential military operations against Venezuela and Colombia,“ Graham said Sunday on „Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.“
In this regard, he recalled that since Venezuela broke relations with the DEA, the country has been able to advance autonomously and sovereignly in its strategy. „And today Venezuela is a country completely free of drug trafficking and all those things.“
He insisted that the Americans are inventing a new eternal war. „They promised they would never get involved in another war, and they‘re inventing a war that we‘re going to avoid. With what? With the mobilization of the people of South America, because South America and the Caribbean, everything, says no to war, yes to peace, yes to prosperity, yes to harmony and coexistence,“ were the words of the president, referring to the siege the country is under.
“They promised they would never again get involved in a war and they are fabricating a war that we will avoid,” said Maduro. Trump has accused him, without providing evidence, of being the leader of the organized crime gang Tren de Aragua.
“They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one,” Maduro added. “Venezuela is a country that does not produce cocaine leaves.”
The mobilization began at 4:00 a.m. in the states of Zulia, Falcón, Carabobo, Aragua, Miranda, La Guaira, Anzoátegui, Sucre, and Nueva Esparta—that is, along the entire Venezuelan coast.
They activated 105mm towed artillery pieces, ZU-23 systems (towed twin anti-aircraft automatic cannon) and Igla-S anti-aircraft missiles, as well as VN1 amphibious armored vehicles, among other equipment.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford and its strike group to deploy to U.S. Southern Command to “bolster U.S. capacity to detect, monitor, and disrupt illicit actors and activities that compromise the safety and prosperity of the United States,” Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a social media post.
The U.S. military flew a pair of supersonic, heavy bombers up to the coast of Venezuela on Thursday, a little over a week after another group of American bombers made a similar journey as part of a training exercise to simulate an attack.
In the message posted on his X account, Castillo wrote the following: “They ask T&T citizens to stay close to the coast because at sea they can be bombed by their American allies. This is not a joke; it speaks volumes.”
Two T&T citizens were killed last Tuesday by the United States’ Government, following an attack on a vessel sailing in the Caribbean Sea.
The victims were fishermen and lived in Las Cuevas. One of them was identified as 26-year-old Chad Joseph, and the other victim was known as Rishi Samaroo.
(October 16, 2025)
“Self-determination of peoples—no to interference or invasion,” she said, clarifying that her stance was not only personal but also aligned with the Mexican Constitution.
Sheinbaum’s remarks came amid a growing climate of U.S. military aggression near Venezuela, which several Latin American governments have described as a threat to regional peace and stability.
(October 12, 2025)
The Nicaragua Solidarity Coalition demands an end to US aggression against Venezuela, which is on the brink of outright war. Any escalation in the violence against Venezuela will cause more suffering and deaths in the South American country, destabilize the region, and endanger all countries seeking a path independent from US domination, especially Cuba and Nicaragua.
US actions indicate a strike on Venezuela is imminent:
After the Trump administration designated international drug-trafficking groups as “foreign terrorist organizations” (FTOs), without any evidence it accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being their ringleader. By July, a “secret directive” authorized military operations against FTOs at sea and on foreign soil.
Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, today expressed Cuba’s solidarity with the people and government of Venezuela, in light of the recent approval by the United States government of covert CIA operations against the Bolivarian nation.
“The United States has now reached a critical point where we must use force in self-defense and defense of others against the ongoing attacks by these designated terrorist organizations,” the notice reads.
In a tepid message, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva expressed his commitment to peace on Friday in the face of regional tensions generated by the recent deployment of U.S. warships off the coast of Venezuela.
In this regard, he stated that the South American nation „will be on the side it has always been, on the side of peace,“ emphasizing that war only brings death and poverty.
„If there‘s a disagreement between two nations, there‘s nothing better or cheaper than sitting down at a negotiating table and talking,“ he added, reaffirming that Brazil neither has nor wants any international conflict.
A set of Venezuelan military aircraft flew near a U.S. Navy vessel in international waters Thursday, two days after the U.S. said it struck a Venezuelan drug vessel, according to a Defense Department statement posted to X.
Two Venezuelan F-16s conducted the aggressive maneuver over the USS Jason Dunham, an Arleigh Burke-class Aegis guided missile destroyer, in a clear “show of force,” a U.S. defense official confirmed to Navy Times.
In this regard, he said that imperialism attacks Venezuela with the threat of its warships for two reasons: „One is that they come for Venezuela‘s wealth. They come for the oil, for the world‘s largest oil reserves. The fourth largest gas reserves, they come for the natural reserves, for our soil,“ he listed.
„The second is that they are here for Simón Bolívar‘s project. They want to try to root out the great liberation project, so that the example doesn‘t spread to the world,“ he reflected.
He added that the U.S. government doesn‘t want the world to see „that a country‘s budget isn‘t spent on wars, it‘s invested in education, youth, and progress.“
Venezuela would struggle to hit back with its small, dubiously effective aircraft fleet, „under-serviced frigates“ and an „aging submarine,“ Solar said. The U.S. would likely come out as the victor in a second wave of torpedoes, guided munitions and surface-to-air missiles the deployed force boasts, Solar said.
In a secret assessment in April, U.S. intelligence agencies said that Maduro’s government “probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.” Rather, the assessment said, the Venezuelan regime, while sometimes tolerating the gang’s activities inside Venezuela, largely views it as a potential security threat.
The assessment contradicted Trump’s claim that Maduro controls the group, a rationale he used in invoking the Alien Enemies Act as justification to deport alleged gang members without due process.
The ruling barred the use of the act in Texas, Mississippi and Louisiana, which fall under the Fifth Circuit‘s purview. The Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The Justice Department will almost certainly appeal to the wider appeals court or the Supreme Court.
(August 20, 2025)
President Nicolás Maduro announced on Monday, August 18, that he is activating “over 4.5 million militia members across the entire national territory” of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in response to the US deployment of three Navy guided-missile destroyers and 4,000 military personnel to the Caribbean. The White House has described the deployment as an anti-drug trafficking operation in the region, while some analysts have called it a new threat against Venezuela – the country with the largest oil reserves in the world.
The US military deployment comes after Washington raised its bounty on the Venezuelan president from USD 25 million to USD 50 million, alleging links to drug cartels.
(August 18, 2025)
USA stufen Venezuelas Präsidenten als Gefahr für nationale Sicherheit ein. Caracas warnt vor Intervention
Washington has accused Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of leading a drug cartel and has doubled the bounty for his capture to $50 million.
The U.S. has, however, made no public threat to invade Venezuela.
Caracas announced on Monday the deployment of 15,000 security forces to the Colombian border for anti-drug trafficking operations.
A day later, Venezuela announced that it would patrol its territorial waters with drones and navy ships.
Over the dissents of conservative Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, the emergency decision prevents authorities from removing the migrants under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 as a legal challenge proceeds, a win for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which is suing on the migrants’ behalf.
But the justices declined the ACLU’s additional request to leapfrog the lower courts to immediately take up the issue of whether President Trump can invoke the rarely used law outside of wartime.