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President Trump’s hard line on Venezuela isn’t theater — it’s a full-on campaign to choke the cartels that have been pouring poison across our southern border. Since early September the administration has carried out multiple strikes on vessels it says were moving narcotics out of Venezuelan waters, and those strikes have cost dozens of suspected traffickers their lives. As of October 17, 2025, U.S. forces have conducted several such strikes and even taken survivors into custody, a dramatic escalation justified by the White House as part of a broader effort to protect American lives.
Washington has backed those strikes with muscle — B-52 bombers, special operations helicopters, F-35s and roughly 10,000 troops have been arrayed in the Caribbean to send a message that America will not tolerate a narco-state sheltering terror networks. The flights of B-52s off Venezuela’s coast were no accident; they were a deliberate show of force to remind Maduro and his enablers that the United States can and will project power to defend its citizens. Those moves matter because the old appeasement playbook failed; strength and deterrence are what keep Americans safe.
This administration has also quietly expanded tools beyond the visible posture, authorizing covert CIA operations aimed at disrupting the networks that enrich Maduro and his patrons. Lawmakers on both sides are rightly asking hard questions about oversight, but asking for caution does not mean ceding the battlefield to traffickers and terror surrogates. If we are in a fight that keeps killing Americans through drug overdoses, our leaders have a duty to act decisively — and that’s what a vigorous covert and overt campaign is designed to accomplish.
Americans should be alarmed at reports that parts of Venezuela, notably Margarita Island, have long served as havens and money-laundering hubs for Hezbollah-linked networks and Iranian proxies. Investigations and regional reporting have repeatedly flagged Isla de Margarita as a staging ground for illicit finance, trafficking and even training that benefits Middle Eastern terror proxies operating in the Western Hemisphere. This is not a conspiracy theory — it is the cold reality of hostile regimes exploiting weak pockets of sovereignty to export chaos and fund terror.
The Iran-Venezuela axis has practical legs: Tehran has used airlines and covert logistics to move materiel and personnel, and the U.S. has already seized aircraft tied to Iranian carriers and the IRGC as evidence of Tehran’s machinations. Those links turn Venezuela from a failing socialist basket case into a forward operating base for anti-American actors, which makes Washington’s campaign not only about drugs but about national security. You don’t let an axis of rogue states build networks two hours from your shores without consequences.
Let’s call the villains what they are: Maduro’s regime protects criminal gangs like Tren de Aragua and lets foreign proxies dig in while ordinary Venezuelans suffer. Those gangs and state-linked actors have become intertwined with narcotics trafficking, graft and regional instability, and cutting off that money is the clearest way to weaken Maduro’s grip. The president’s approach is blunt and unapologetic, and for once it treats the problem with the urgency it deserves instead of the finger-wagging and moralizing that leads nowhere.
The left’s reflexive hand-wringing over “escalation” misses the point: the real escalation has been happening for years in the form of drug deaths, cartels running wild, and foreign regimes embedding terror networks in our hemisphere. Conservatives should stand unapologetically for an America that defends its people, defends its borders, and is willing to use every lawful tool to dismantle transnational criminal and terror networks. Weakness invites aggression; strength restores deterrence.
If you love this country, you should back a policy that shuts down the islands and airfields where our enemies hide, freezes the cash flows that buy loyalty, and brings those who traffic in death to justice. President Trump is doing what leadership looks like in a dangerous moment — and patriotic Americans must demand that our government finish the job, with the law, the muscle, and the resolve that keeps our families safe.
