For two and a half months now, the United States has kept a combat fleet in sight of the Venezuelan coast – at least eight warships, a nuclear submarine, several amphibious assault groups, fighter and surveillance aircraft and some 10,000 marines–, now reinforced with the arrival of the aircraft carrier Gerald Ford and its corresponding escort ships.

According to Washington, the motive is to put an end to drug trafficking that comes from Venezuela to the United States. USA; It has already destroyed a score of alleged narco-boats, causing some eighty deaths. Indirectly, there are recurrent US calls for Maduro to be overthrown through an internal coup that it would be willing to support militarily to ensure its success; not to carry out a full-fledged invasion for such purposes.

From Caracas, while Maduro is focused on strengthening internal unity, adopting measures against the “invader” and repeating his desires for peace, María Corina Machado is firmly committed to the U.S. option.

Are ending drug trafficking–to rid Americans of such a scourge–and promoting the overthrow of Maduro –to return Venezuela to “freedom and democracy”– Trump’s true and only reasons? Radically not. Let us see how they are not even the main ones, but once again, and as on so many occasions before in its history, we are facing a new exercise of Roosevelt’s “Big Stick” strategy, or if you want Wilson’s “14 points” or, better yet, and in combination with the previous ones, with that of the Caribbean as “North American Mare Nostrum”; in short, although updated to our time, a new phase and example of the Monroe doctrine of “Manifest Destiny”, whose motto “America for the Americans” was always, in reality, “America for the Americans”.

In the eyes of International Law, which is violating even the simplest things – with the active or passive acquiescence of the Western “democracies” so susceptible in other cases just as fragrant, and you know which ones I am referring to–, the US lacks the slightest legitimacy to do what they are doing, no matter how much the Maduro regime is what it is; allowing it to do so sets a new precedent, in addition to further undermining if possible the credit of the UN, which should by now dissolve itself for reasons, these and many others before, obvious.

The main reason given by Washington, that is, to put an end to drug trafficking originating in Venezuela, falls by itself:

• Drug trafficking enters the United States mainly and very prominently from Mexico both by land and by air and sea for obvious reasons, and not only the drugs that are produced in the Aztec country itself, but also that which comes from Colombia, also Venezuela, and other countries of Central and South America, but, and this is very important, the one that comes from China and other Asian countries, especially the very destructive fentanyl.
  
• In addition, although the cartels of the aforementioned countries are very powerful, no less so are the American mafias, a true enemy in their own home.

So, if this were really the reason, that is, to put an end to drug trafficking, what the United States should be doing is adopting forceful measures –even military?– to put an end to the cartels and their routes that supply most of the drugs that devastate the United States from Mexico.

USA; as well as with its own mafias and, of course, with its huge American consumers. To put an end to a few narco-boats, of whose activity as such Washington has not even bothered to present even the slightest proof, which no one asks of it, is little or nothing. For this reason, this “reason” is radically discarded.

The other reason, although he tries to disguise it, at least in form, although with little success, is his intention to end the Maduro regime to return to Venezuela “freedom and democracy”, an allegation that has been used on numerous occasions throughout its history, especially after World War II, under which the achievement of some geostrategic, economic or even purely military interest of power and global or partial domination of some fundamental area of the planet was always hidden. Therefore, this purpose must also be to be completely discarded in its literal statement; It is another thing if other less altruistic, liberating and democratic interests are hidden under it.

Then what? Let’s look at three main factors, among other minor ones:

1. For some time now, and due to the mistakes and especially the manifest and serious crisis that the United States is suffering, the United States has been suffering from the United States. In many respects in the US, Washington has neglected what it has always considered its backyard and exclusive zone of influence, that is, South and Central America, leaving the field free, or at least accessible, to third powers, in this case, and above all, to China, whose strength has led it to set its sights on such areas of the American continent.
   
   Many examples could be given, but I will limit myself to two current ones derived from the so-called “Latin American Belt and Road” by Beijing, which has become a priority Chinese target for its penetration in that continent and a fundamental piece in the trade war between China and the US. a) At the end of 2024, the megaport of Chancay (Peru) was inaugurated, a project of great geoeconomic scope financed entirely by China, and b) At the IV China-CELAC Ministerial Forum, held last May in Beijing, under the presidency of Xi Jinping, which gives an idea of its importance, China offered more than nine billion in credits and financing for projects in that region. Against this, the United States has not yet been able to do so. The U.S. still hasn’t found the most effective way to compete.
   
2. As soon as he became president, Trump came out with something that seemed to be part of one more of his eccentricities, but that was not at all. The president said he was renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” If we take into account that for the United States the word “America” has always meant “American”, although for obvious reasons and to mislead it has never recognized it, the intention of Trump and with him the United States to appropriate, starting with the name, such a Gulf, whose geostrategic importance is not overlooked and there is no need to justify it, is clear.
   
3. Another of Trump’s novelties was that he wanted to recover the very important Panama Canal, which was also taken as an outburst of such a histrionic character, but nothing could be further from the truth. What he achieved, after some diplomatic pressure on the basis of his statement, was that the government of José Raúl Mulino canceled various initiatives that Beijing had presented for that country and channel and were about to be approved.

To the three examples mentioned above, we could add others that have brought concern to the Central region of America, especially when the US military presence has multiplied with the excuses, not reasons, as we have said, of drug trafficking and Venezuela.

So, and even considering such excuses as something that the US would also like to achieve, it is another thing if they are really willing to do it with cannon fire according to that other policy of “the gunboat” that they not infrequently used, what Trump and with him the US are really pursuing with their military deployment in the area is: 

1. To materialize the old policy of the “American Mediterranean” —Mare Nostrum Americana— whose architect was Alfred Mahan who saw in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, and even more and of course since the construction of the Panama Canal, a geostrategic value that is particularly relevant for the US. This was especially true because of its extreme proximity to it, and whose absolute dominance had to be ensured at all costs.
   
2. From Venezuela, causing the change of government to another manipulable one, which María Corina Machado assures her not only because of her ideas and defects, but above all if she comes to power thanks to the help of the the U.S. and even military oil are the immense reserves of Venezuelan oil that are now largely vetoed and with which China could get its hands on.
   
3. Hinder or even neutralize commercial penetration China in the area.
   
4. Remind the countries of the area that, whether they want it or not, the United States is the owner of it, that it is not willing to cede it to anyone and that whoever opposes it can very well follow Venezuela’s example in case it finally managed to overthrow his current regime; even at the cost of being invaded.

Finally, although in the long term, and which should not be ruled out, the US would have one more objective, which would be to “disconnect” this region from the new model of international relations, from that a multipolar world that seems to continue to gain ground and that originating in Eurasia is even extending to the American continent. 

How events evolve we do not know. What we do know is that to date, and after two and a half months, Venezuela resists, the invasion capacity of the U.S. military in the area, although large, is not enough to invade it –in the invasion of Panama, much easier, the U.S. suffered 400 dead and about a thousand wounded–, and it does not seem that there is anyone in Caracas willing to overthrow Maduro whose military praetorian guards, police and intelligence are in the effective hands of Cubans who, in addition to ideology, know that they are also fighting for their country, Cuba, every day in a more lamentable situation, which is completely dependent on Venezuelan oil and which is also in the Caribbean, in that American Mare Nostrum, so much, almost everything, goes into it.  the same as others such as Ortega’s Nicaragua or Petro’s Colombia.