Trump’s End Game in Venezuela: Block China

M.A. Dworkin

South America - It all sounds very noble,  very American gung-ho, very righteous. The lame-duck President of the United States has declared his own personal war on the Cartels of Venezuela. His stated intent is to wipe out the scum who poison our people, and at the same time to chase out the drug lord’s puppet, the corrupt Maduro regime. 

It all seems very impressive to pursue a war-like agenda by suddenly stationing fleets of warships in the Caribbean, off the coast of Venezuela. In so doing, deciding it is fair game to blow-up every go-fast boat in sight, close to twenty now, and claiming they are transporting drugs into the U.S. to kill and poison Americans via their drug addictions. 

Of course, let us not cast a blind eye on these actions, more than likely those boats are transporting drugs meant for U.S. communities. And the drug traffickers could not give a damn how many die at their hands of distribution. So, on the face of it, there is a certain amount of legitimacy to Trump’s threatened next-step of bringing in heavy maritime artillery and threatening land invasions in order to drive the Cartels to their knees (if that is even possible) and drive out Maduro, all the while. in the process, taking over Venezuela and gaining its oil rich fields as a prize of conquest.

But what is shocking so many about his actions, is that President Donald Trump has taken these war time acts upon himself, not asking for any permissions, or deliberations for his bold actions from the U.S. Congress. He has decided the Cartels must be eradicated. That Maduro must go. And he will accomplish that feat in any way he sees fit. 

Trump has now positioned battleships,  jet fighters, missile carriers, and tens of thousands of sailors and Marines in the Caribbean region to fight this drug addiction scourge that has settled in on certain segments of American society. Yet, for decades, no other U.S. President has decided to fight the war on drugs in such a direct and murderous manner. No one has said, as Trump must have said: “Let’s go down there and wipe them out.”

Again, there is certainly something noble about his intent, something almost heroic, if in fact that is actually his true intent. Still, something seems off about Trump’s sudden unauthorized actions, something seems fishy about this undeclared war. And many Americans sense it. They may very well be asking themselves, do you bring a herd of elephants stomping through the jungle to wipe out a nest of killer ants at the base of a tree? Could the elephants even accomplish such a feat before the killer ants bite them to death? 

No, no, it just seems as if there is something not being divulged, something else lurking behind Donald Trump’s motives for such an enormous military build-up. Currently, ten ships, guided-missile destroyers, guided-missle cruisers, fast-attack submarines, amphibious assault ships, fighter-jets, and tens of thousands of fighting men have settled into the calm waters of the Caribbean Sea. Enough firepower to fuel a small third world war. 

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth recently told sailors and Marines at a stop over in one of the U.S. Navy’s staging areas, in Ceiba, Puerto Rico: 

“What you are doing right now - it’s not training …This is the real-world exercise on behalf of the vital national interests of the United States of America to end the poisoning of the American people.”  

Secretary Hegeseth’s Trump-infused words sound quite noble. But could the real truth of Trump’s war time actions be hidden in a motive that is not so immediately transparent. Could the real truth of Trump’s aggressions into Venezuela have their origins somewhere half a world away, in communist China? 

Xi Jinping, the President of the People’s Republic of China, is not a lame-duck President, and for years he definitely has had his own agenda for expanding China’s influence in Venezuela. That agenda has nothing to do with battling the Cartels or eliminating Maduro, or eliminating any of the other cartel-ruled politicians that run South American countries. Quite the contrary. Xi is probably very happy with maintaining the status quo in Venezuela and South America. His recent moves, on the surface, smack of utter transparency, and they certainly have everything to do with expanding Chinese influence in the region, not by invading it, or cleaning it up, but by   influence-peddling and establishing a ring of close South American allies right smack-dab in the back yard of the U.S.

China is tightening its grip on Venezuela. It has recently unveiled a “zero tariff” trade agreement with Caracas at the Shanghai Expo 2025. The accord covers 400 tariff categories, removing duties on Chinese and Venezuelan goods. Beijing is obviously moving fast into a sanctioned Venezuelan economy that Washington sought best to isolate. 

“This really looks like China is going to completely take over the Venezuelan economy,” said Gordon Chang, an expert on China’s global strategy. “It’s going to decimate Venezuela’s local industry…Venezuela basically sells petroleum to China and very little else,” he explained. “China, of course, is a manufacturer of many, many items. Venezuelan manufacturing is not going to experience a renaissance anytime soon - it’s going in the opposite direction.”

Mr. Chang added that Maduro’s sudden embrace of Beijing stems from fear of Trump’s next move.

“Maduro probably doesn’t have a choice,” he said. “He realizes he’s got a problem in the form of Donald J. Trump. There’s a U.S. aircraft carrier not far from his shores, and a lot of military assets bearing down on him. He needs a friend, and he’s desperate…I don’t see this trade deal as strengthening Venezuela. I see it strengthening China’s stranglehold over Venezuela,” Mr. Chang concluded.

“China has leveraged multibillion-dollar loans and the establishment of satellite positioning and surveillance facilities to secure strategic control over Venezuela’s natural resources and critical infrastructure,” said Isaias Medina III, an Edward Mason Fellow at Harvard University and a former Venezuelan diplomat to the U.N. Security Council. “Under the banner of so-called 21st Century Socialism, initiated by Hugo Chavez and expanded by Nicolas Maduro, the nation has evolved into a forward operating base for regimes openly hostile to the United States and its allies.

“Iran, Russia, China and Cuba have entrenched themselves across Venezuelan territory,” he went on. “Using the country as a platform for asymmetric warfare, intelligence operations, and ideological expansion throughout Latin America…The Maduro government, shielded by the absence of the rule of law or legitimate governance, has replaced statecraft with criminal enterprise. Grand corruption is not the exception, it is the system.”        

This type of globe-conquering move, which the Chinese are rolling out in several parts of the world, including Africa and the Middle East, must nail Mr. Trump right between the eyes, causing him to blink hard and think of any way, any ruse, to stop the Chinese dead-in-their-tracks from further establishing a strong foothold throughout South America.

No doubt, China’s influence in the region is significant and growing, primarily through trade and investment in resources, energy and infrastructure. China is now South America’s largest trading partner and a major investor, financing projects like the new megaport Chancay in Peru, which will act to facilitate direct trade into China, therefore bypassing traditional routes. China’s investments in the region are primarily in energy and raw materials, especially mining for critical metals like lithium. China has invested heavily in power plants and grids, such as its ownership of 50% of Sao Paulo’s hydropower generation in Brazil and a significant portion of Chile’s electricity distribution. Chinese development banks in the region have provided significant financing, often surpassing the combined lending of the dominant World Bank and the Interdevelopment Bank. 

But the “humanitarian toll is catastrophic,” says Mr. Medina. “Over 30% of Venezuela’s population has been forcibly displaced. Starvation has been weaponized as a tool of social control, amounting to a war crime under international law. Despite the enormity of these crimes, many United Nations member states continue to recognize and engage with this illegitimate regime., thereby perpetuating its impunity. The failure to confront this crisis decisively enables a coalition of adversaries, state and non-state actors alike, to project power dangerously close to U.S. territory.”

China is definitely on the move in South America. Whether they are looking for a staging area for a future nuclear war or whether they are looking for world dominance on the economic stage, Xi has become a worldwide political dynamo and he has positioned China to be a half-step behind the U.S. in many geopolitical and technological areas that make up the new world order.  

This dicey war-like move by Trump must of course invoke memories of the U.S. move against Cuba back in 1961, as President John F. Kennedy failed miserably in trying to overthrow the Castro regime, and in the process block the Russians from deploying nuclear weapons a mere 90 miles off the shores of the U.S. mainland. The Russians eventually withdrew their attempts, but the oppressive communist Castro regime became even stronger and endures to this day. 

“The underlying reality hasn’t changed,” said Mr. Chang. “China cannot protect Caracas from U.S. hard power. It certainly can launch a propaganda blitz. But it can’t project military force in the region. It’s really up to what President Trump does. China does not have the military strength to oppose American intervention if that’s what Trump decides…Just three hours from U.S. shores, this narco-terrorist regime has become the operational convergence of organized crime, drug trafficking, money laundering, and human rights atrocities,” Mr. Medina has stated, as he urges a Western response combining “diplomatic isolation, targeted sanctions, and, when necessary, defensive deployments.” 

If Trump would come out and say what his real intentions are in Venezuela, that he is going to patrol the waters off of South America to stop the Chinese from bringing their warships into the region in order to protect their interests, perhaps his critics, which are worldwide, might understand what he is trying to accomplish. But by blowing up boats and killing dozens of people, without a trial or inquisition, it makes the U.S. look like a country that has no scruples, a country that doesn’t care to live by the words of its own Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, which guarantees rights to criminal defendants, including the rights to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury.  

Because without that Sixth Amendment Right, brilliantly granted by the Founding Fathers, how is the U.S., in a manner of speaking, that much different than the corrupt and ruthless regimes like Maduro and Castro?