Sources close to the White House confirm that the purpose of the Trump administration’s military buildup in and around Venezuela is nothing less than the removal of the nation’s de facto ruler, Nicolás Maduro.

“He had the chance to leave on his own volition. He refused and now will face the consequences,” a person close to the White House tells The New York Sun.

“Maduro’s time is up,” a former Venezuelan counter-narcotics chief and founder of the Global Organization for Security and Intelligence, Johan Obdola, tells the Sun.

For years, critics accused Washington of letting Venezuela’s criminal regime operate at will on America’s doorstep. That era, officials say, is likely over. The Trump administration’s new campaign has redefined Venezuela as a battlefield in the hemispheric war on organized crime.

“It’s almost impossible to see a scenario in which Maduro continues in power into the new year,” a research professor at the United States Army War College Strategic Studies Institute, Evan Ellis, tells the Sun.

The Trump administration is being careful not to characterize the purpose of its recent military actions — which include a major military build-up near Venezuela’s coast and targeted strikes on suspected drug boats that have killed 27 people thus far — as seeking “regime change.”

But that is largely a semantic distinction since administration officials do not consider Mr. Maduro — whose re-election in July 2025 was marred by blatant fraud — as the president at all. America formally recognizes his challenger in that election, Edmundo González Urrutia, as the legitimate president of Venezuela.

Asked before a White House luncheon Friday about any concessions that Mr. Maduro might have offered, Mr. Trump said, “He has offered everything. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to f*** around with the United States.”

Nevertheless, few in Washington believe Mr. Maduro, who has already announced the mobilization of millions of citizen militia members, will step down without a fight.

“Maduro isn’t going to leave on his own,” a person close to the White House said.

In recent weeks, the administration authorized an aggressive campaign blending counter-narcotics and counter-terrorism authorities to dismantle the criminal networks that finance the Venezuelan regime. The new doctrine empowers the CIA and the United States Southern Command to target cartel elements operating under state protection.

President Trump on Wednesday confirmed that he had approved covert CIA operations against Venezuelan drug-trafficking organizations. Within days, American forces conducted a series of maritime strikes, destroying several suspected drug smuggling vessels and killing at least 27 traffickers allegedly linked to Caracas’s security apparatus.

American B-52 bombers staged a show of force off Venezuela’s coast, while a task force of warships and 10,000 personnel enforced maritime interdictions across the region.

Two survivors from one of the sunken boats were pulled from the water and are being held on board a Navy ship, unnamed sources told Reuters on Friday. Their capture of the men, the first to be taken alive,raises questions of whether they will be treated as prisoners of war in light of Mr. Trump’s justification for armed attacks on the suspected drug vessels.

Mr. Trump has hinted that American forces may next turn their attention to targets on the Venezuelan mainland, telling reporters this week, “We are certainly looking at land now because we’ve got the sea very well under control.

Amid the growing show of American force, Admiral Alvin Holsey, who leads American military operations in Latin America, announced his resignation effective December 12.

The timing surprised many, especially as American F-35 fighter jets, a nuclear submarine, and missile destroyers are now in the Caribbean. Admiral Holsey did not state any reason for his resignation but published reports have linked it to tensions with the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth.

In 2020, the U.S. Department of Justice charged Mr. Maduro with narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import tons of cocaine into the United States, detailing how Venezuela’s armed forces facilitated shipments through the Cartel de los Soles, a network of senior officers who turned the state into a trafficking enterprise. 

Washington initially offered a $15 million for information leading to Mr. Maduro’s arrest. In August, as the campaign escalated, the bounty was raised to $50 million under the Narcotics Rewards Program. 

Mr. Maduro’s own family has also been accused of involvement in drug-trafficking circles. In 2015, two nephews of his wife, Cilia Flores, were arrested in Haiti attempting to smuggle 800 kilograms of cocaine into America. 

Both were later convicted in federal court and sentenced to lengthy prison terms. Their ties to the presidential family, prosecutors believe, underscore how the the Maduro clan has converted state power into a personal trafficking empire.

“The $50 million reward money, and the operation of CIA and other intelligence assets in the country, would make locating key leadership targets, and securing local cooperation in capturing or neutralizing them, relatively straightforward, if the president decides to do so,” Mr. Ellis tells the Sun.

In response, Mr. Maduro is bolstering military preparedness by ordering military exercises to be conducted inside shantytowns in Caracas and Miranda state. In a message posted on Telegram, a social network, Mr. Maduro confirmed he was deploying the military, police, and a civilian militia to defend Venezuela’s “mountains, coasts, schools, hospitals, factories and markets.”

“We view with extreme alarm the use of the CIA, as well as the military deployments announced in the Caribbean, which amount to a policy of aggression, threat, and harassment against Venezuela,” the nation’s foreign minister, Yván Gil, said in a message on Telegram.

Mr. Trump defended his decision to authorize the CIA to plan operations in Venezuela, telling reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday he did so because the county had “emptied their prisons in the United States” and due to ongoing drug flows.

“We have a lot of drugs coming in from Venezuela, and a lot of the Venezuelan drugs come in through the sea, so you get to see that, but we’re going to stop them by land also,” Mr. Trump said.

Mr. Maduro has characterized the allegations of his involvement in the Cartel de los Soles as “imperialist propaganda.” But the regional security expert, Mr. Obdola, believes Mr. Maduro is not just complicit — he’s the architect.

“His involvement in drug trafficking is absolutely central — not peripheral. The Cartel of the Suns has been under the full control of the Venezuelan revolutionary regime since the early 2000s,” Mr. Obdola tells the Sun. 

The cartel, he said, has served as the financial and operational engine of the regime since 2002, when a former Venezuelan president, Hugo Chávez, absorbed it into the state apparatus.

It was after Mr. Maduro took office in 2013, Mr. Obdola added, that he recognized the “astronomical” profits that were generated by the drug trade, “much of it literally stored in bunkers inside Venezuela, and later moved to places like Guinea-Bissau, Iran, and Russia.”

In July 2025, the U.S. Treasury formally designated the Cartel de los Soles as a terrorist organization, citing its coordination with transnational groups including Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel and Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua gang. Mexico’s president this week denied any such affiliation. 

The designation allows American forces to treat cartel operatives as enemy combatants, removing the legal barriers that once confined counter-narcotics efforts to policing. Washington is now aiming to dismantle the financial and logistical arteries of the Venezuelan state itself, which has long operated as a money-laundering hub for cocaine revenues and illicit gold exports.

After years of diplomatic half-measures, the White House is responding to Mr. Maduro not as a head of state but as a drug lord who reigns supreme over a regime built on narcotics, corruption, and repression. For military experts, it’s a clear indication that Mr. Maduro’s time as president may be coming to an abrupt end.