President Trump is reportedly considering carrying out military strikes inside Venezuela to hit drug cartel targets and destabilize dictator Nicolas Maduro’s grip on the South American country.
Trump, 79, has not yet decided whether to order strikes on the mainland, but Tuesday’s sinking of a drug smuggling boat linked to Venezuelan narco-terrorists is just the start of a larger campaign aimed at eradicating drug cartels and forcing Maduro out of office, multiple sources told CNN Friday.
“The preferred course of action is for Maduro to leave on his own, to read the tea leaves,” a source with knowledge of the Trump administration’s plans told the outlet. “And then I think the message is ‘Do you want it to be easy or do you want it to be hard?’”
A White House official told the outlet: “If there is an opportunity to kill terrorists, [Trump] will immediately give them the green light to do so.”
The White House did not respond to The Post’s request for comment.
The Pentagon and State Department declined to comment on the possibility of military action inside Venezuela.
The US Navy has deployed at least eight warships to the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks as part of Trump’s effort to crackdown on narcotics trafficking conducted by Venezuelan drug cartels that have been designated as foreign terrorist organizations.
On Trump’s orders, US forces conducted an airstrike Tuesday on a drug boat operated by “positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists,” killing all 11 people on board.
Two days after the strike, Venezuelan warplanes flew over a Navy ship in the region in a “highly provocative move,” the Pentagon said Thursday.
“I don’t want to talk about that, but if they do put us in a dangerous position, they’ll be shot down,” Trump said of the threatening show of force Friday.
Sources told The Post Friday that the US will deploy 10 F-35 fighter jets to Puerto Rico as part of its fight against drug cartels. It’s unclear exactly what role the highly advanced aircraft will play in Trump’s drug cartel crackdown.
Trump, however, was adamant Friday that regime change in Venezuela is not on his mind.
“We’re not talking about that,” he told reporters, before adding, “But we are talking about the fact that [Venezuela] had an election, which was a very strange election, to put it mildly.”
Trump was referring to last year’s presidential contest in Venezuela where electoral fraud is widely believed to have allowed Maduro to stay in power.
“The Maduro regime is not the legitimate government of Venezuela,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said last month, when asked by reporters about the possibility of US troops conducting operations in Venezuela. “It is a narco-terror cartel, and Maduro, it is the view of this administration, is not a legitimate president. He is a fugitive head of this cartel who has been indicted in the United States for trafficking drugs into the country.”
She added that Trump “is prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice.”
The Justice Department last month placed a $50 million bounty on Maduro’s head, citing his involvement with drug cartels.
