President Trump has told his advisers he's planning to speak directly with Nicolas Maduro, even as the U.S. designated the Venezuela president Monday as the head of a terrorist organization, administration officials tell Axios.
Why it matters: Trump's decision is an important milestone in his
gunboat diplomacy aimed at Venezuela — and could be a sign that U.S. missile strikes or direct military action on land are not imminent, those sources say.
- "Nobody is planning to go in and shoot him or snatch him — at this point. I wouldn't say never, but that's not the plan right now," according to one official familiar with the discussions.
- "In the meantime, we're going to blow up boats shipping drugs. We're going to stop the drug trafficking."
- At least 83 people have been killed in 21 separate missile strikes on boats that allegedly were carrying drugs during the U.S. military action in the Caribbean known as "Operation Southern Spear."
Driving the news: Word of Trump's interest in talking coincides with the State Department's decision Monday to label an alleged drug cartel in Venezuela as a "Foreign Terrorist Organization," which provides the U.S. more of a pretext to take military action in and around the South American nation.
- Also Monday, Gen. Dan Caine — the military brains behind Southern Spear — visited Puerto Rico, where as many as 10,000 troops, sailors and pilots are stationed.
The big picture: Officially, Southern Spear is a drug-interdiction force. Unofficially, it's about regime change in Caracas, which
Axios first reported before Trump returned to office in January.
- "We have covert operations, but it's not designed to kill Maduro. It's designed to stop narcotrafficking," a White House official said. But "if Maduro leaves, we would not shed a tear."
Zoom in: No date has been set for a Trump-Maduro call, which is "in the planning stages," one U.S. official told Axios. No one would hazard a guess as to what Trump will say to Maduro or how he plans to say it; the cliché "all options are on the table" applies.
- "Maduro is a narcoterrorist. Always lead with that word if you want to represent the president's thinking," the administration official said.
- "The diplomats tell us that Maduro is going to say, 'Trust me. I'll have new elections in three years. You can come and have all the oil. I'll stop sending it to Russia.' He has said many things like that over many years and he never keeps his promise. So the diplomats tell us we should be suspicious."
Zoom out: Oil-rich Venezuela has long been an opponent of the U.S. and has helped prop up Cuba's dictatorship, which furnishes security that helped install Maduro in 2013 and keep him in power. Venezuela also is an ally of Iran, China and Russia.
- Part of the challenge of persuading Maduro to leave, U.S. officials say, is that his Cuban handlers might execute him if he yields to American pressure and quits.
- In Trump's first term, in 2020, Maduro was indicted by the Justice Department as a leader of the group called Cartel de los Soles, or "Cartel of the Suns." Maduro has denied the charges and said the group is a fiction.
- Venezuela's leaders and military have publicly been linked to the group since at least January 2007.
Reality check: Critics of Trump's Venezuela policy repeatedly have tried to blame Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio for the military buildup. But administration officials say Rubio was put in the twin positions because he reflects what Trump wants.
- "The hawk in Venezuela is Donald Trump, followed by [White House Deputy Chief of Staff] Stephen Miller, followed by Marco Rubio," a third U.S. official said.
- In 2019, when Trump was considering military action in Venezuela after Maduro stole Venezuela's presidential election, Rubio talked the president out of it by saying there weren't enough military assets in the region to effectively pressure Maduro.
- Today, Trump has that option. Officials say Rubio and Caine, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have stitched together an operation to "preserve optionality for the president." Rubio has purged and minimized the State Department and national security bureaucracies of personnel who object to Trump's aggressive style on foreign policy.
The timeline: Before launching Southern Spear, Trump played good-cop/bad-cop with Maduro by appointing adviser Ric Grenell to act as a friendly envoy to Venezuela.
- Maduro offered up his country's riches to the U.S., The New York Times reported in October, which Trump said was a sign that Maduro realized "you don't want to f**k around with the United States."
- But Maduro wanted to remain in power. And that was a nonstarter for Trump, officials say.
- Last week, after more entreaties from Venezuela, Trump said he "may be having some discussions with Maduro, and we'll see how that turns out."
What's next: Since then, the president has made up his mind to speak directly with Maduro, the sources said, and there's more talk about talking and less talk about bombing.
- "I see a diplomatic solution as being very likely," one Trump adviser said.
- "Donald Trump hasn't said this in as many words, but he wants his legacy to be that he did everything he could to stem the flow of illegal drugs into this country."
