Proposed United States invasion of Venezuela

The possibility of a United States-led invasion of Venezuela was frequently discussed during the presidencies of Donald Trump.

In 2017, during his first presidency, Trump said that he was "not going to rule out a military option" to address the worsening crisis in Venezuela. In 2025, during his second presidency, the United States surged military assets to the Caribbean as part of Operation Southern Spear, citing the fight against drug cartels as its stated objective. During this buildup, experts, analysts and current and former government officials stated that the assets deployed were insufficient for an invasion and that they viewed an invasion as unlikely.

In 2026, the United States launched Operation Absolute Resolve, conducting airstrikes on Venezuela and capturing President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores. This led to questions being raised about the possibility of long-term military intervention involving ground troops in Venezuela.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.