Why does US President Trump threaten Venezuelan President Maduro?

US President Donald Trump has been increasing pressure on Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro.

The Trump administration has doubled down on a reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, and his warships are within striking distance of Venezuela. Dozens of people were killed after an attack on a ship allegedly transporting drugs from the South American country.

Trump also reportedly issued an ultimatum to Maduro to leave Venezuela during a phone call between the two on November 21.

Nicolás Maduro rose to prominence under leftist President Hugo Chávez and his United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).

Maduro, a former bus driver and union leader, succeeded Chavez and has been president since 2013.

During the 26 years that Chávez and Maduro have been in power, their parties have controlled key institutions, including the National Assembly, much of the judiciary, and the electoral commission.

In 2024, the electoral commission declared Maduro the winner of the presidential election, despite votes collected by the opposition showing their candidate Edmundo Gonzalez winning in a landslide.

The United States was one of many countries to declare the election illegal and recognize González as the “president-elect.”

But Maduro remains in power with his firm control of the military, police and legislature, while González lives in exile for fear of arrest.

Trump has made stemming immigration a top priority of his second term, blaming Maduro for causing a surge of Venezuelan migrants entering the United States.

Since 2013, nearly 8 million Venezuelans are estimated to have fled Venezuela’s economic crisis and political repression, both of which have worsened under Maduro.

Most fled to Latin American countries, but hundreds of thousands also fled to the United States.

Without providing evidence, Trump accused Maduro of “emptying his prisons and insane asylums” and “forcing” inmates to immigrate to the United States.

Trump has also focused on combating the flow of drugs into the United States, particularly fentanyl and cocaine.

As part of his war on drugs, he has designated two Venezuelan criminal groups – Tren de Aragua and Cartel de los Soles – as foreign terrorist organizations, claiming the latter are led by Maduro himself.

Maduro vehemently denies being the leader of the cartel and accuses the United States of using the “war on drugs” as an excuse to try to oust him and seize Venezuela’s rich oil reserves.

Analysts also pointed out that Cartel de los Soles is not a hierarchical organization, but an umbrella term. They say the term is used to describe corrupt Venezuelan officials who allow cocaine to transit the country.

The United States has deployed 15,000 troops and a series of aircraft carriers, guided missile destroyers and amphibious assault ships to the Caribbean.

The deployment, the largest since the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1989, was explicitly aimed at stemming the flow of fentanyl and cocaine into the United States.

Since early September, the US military has carried out more than 20 attacks in international waters on ships allegedly carrying drugs. More than 80 people have died in the strike.

The Trump administration has argued that it is involved in a non-international armed conflict with the alleged drug traffickers, whom it accuses of waging unconventional warfare against the United States.

The United States also described those on board as “narco-terrorists,” but legal experts said the attack was illegal because the designation “does not transform them into legitimate military targets.”

Former Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court Tell the BBC that the US military operation is a planned and systematic attack on civilians in peacetime.

The White House responded that President Donald Trump’s actions were consistent with the laws of armed conflict to protect the United States from cartels “seeking to bring poison to our shores … destroying American lives.”

Counter-narcotics experts note that Venezuela accounts for a relatively small share of global drug trafficking and is a transit country through which drugs produced elsewhere are smuggled to their final destination.

Its neighbor Colombia is the world’s largest producer of cocaine, but most cocaine is smuggled into the United States via other routes than through Venezuela.

According to a 2020 report by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, it is estimated that nearly three-quarters of the cocaine arriving in the United States is trafficked through the Pacific Ocean, with only a small portion being trafficked via speedboats in the Caribbean Sea.

In September, Trump told U.S. military leaders that the targeted ships were “cluttered with bags of white powder, mostly fentanyl and other drugs.”

However, fentanyl is primarily produced in Mexico and reaches the United States almost exclusively overland via the southern border.

Trump confirmed that he had a phone call with Maduro on November 21.

While he did not disclose the contents of the call, Reuters reported that Trump gave Maduro a week-long ultimatum to leave Venezuela with his family. Maduro allegedly did not accept his offer of safe passage.

One day after the deadline, Trump announces closure of airspace around Venezuela.

Trump has threatened to take action against Venezuelan drug traffickers “by land” but has not specified how such an operation would unfold.

Trump’s press secretary also did not rule out the possibility of deploying U.S. troops to Venezuela, telling reporters that “there are options available to the president.”

She did not elaborate further on the options, but military analysts have noted for weeks that the scale of U.S. deployments in the Caribbean is far larger than needed for counternarcotics operations.