How the US Prepares to Defeat China in the Caribbean

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It seems not a question of whether the United States was now prepared to bring its conflict with Venezuela to a head; by mid-October, it was merely a matter of when and to what degree it would be brought to a resolution.

U.S. President Donald Trump has consistently argued that he would not start new wars but would strive to end wars around the world, even if the United States was not involved in them.

That may explain his mid-October—and earlier—gestures to respond to war against U.S. borders and the U.S. public by Venezuela’s state-enabled narco-traffickers, terrorism, and human traffickers. By this rationale, his escalation of responses to Venezuela’s moves is about ending a war already underway; moreover, a war initiated by Venezuela itself through thinly-disguised proxies.

In so doing, Trump would be taking the war to the People’s Republic of China, in particular, given that Venezuela is now a key provider of energy to the PRC, and a key anchor of Beijing’s unchecked domination of the Caribbean basin.

At least the United States has been making it clear that the Venezuelan hostilities have been undertaken either with the direct initiation or support of the regime of President Nicolás Maduro. It would be difficult, even for pro-Maduro analysts, to argue that the extent of the criminal activities by Venezuelan narco-traffickers or criminal gangs such as Tren de Aragua, and their movement into the United States, is undertaken without the consent or support of Caracas.

This legitimizes the hard, direct military responses by the U.S. Armed Forces, despite claims that attacks on Venezuelan assets—such as narco-running vessels in international waters—are not condoned by “international law.” At the same time, the viability of oil and gas reserves, onshore and offshore Guyana, Venezuela’s neighbor, was to prove so important that Caracas began moving aggressively to claim Guyanan territory, particularly onshore in the Essequibo region, and offshore that region’s Atlantic zone.

By 2025, U.S. energy companies were heavily ramping up oil production in the offshore Essequibo region, and ExxonMobil had announced the discovery of even greater oil resources there.

Significantly, the resultant transformation of U.S. policy under Trump in 2025 coincided with the beginning of the end phase of the PRC’s power, the virtual collapse of the Iranian clerical government’s abilities, and Russia’s preoccupation with the Ukraine conflict. Plus Cuba’s own internal economic and political implosion, and the inability of some other regional allies—such as Dominica—to help Caracas in any way.

The United States and the United Kingdom have shown direct military support for Guyana. The United States has escalated military capabilities adjacent to Venezuela, with first-line Aegis warships, a U.S. Marine Corps MEU (the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit) aboard a major assault ship (the USS Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group), and dedicated U.S. Navy, Marine Corps, and Air Force assets standing by in the Atlantic, Pacific, and particularly in the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico (where basing includes F-35A strike fighters). In total, at least eight surface combatants, one nuclear attack submarine, and some 10,000 ground forces (mostly U.S. Marines). There were a number of strikes by U.S. military and Coast Guard assets against Venezuelan craft, particularly narcotics vessels, during September and October.

On Oct. 15, the U.S. Air Force sortied three B-52H strategic bombers within the Venezuelan exclusive economic zone in the Atlantic, 150 miles off the Venezuelan coast. It was another sign that the U.S. forces were being built up to a point of “energy release” or wind-down. But also on the same day, the U.S. Southern Command’s commander, Adm. Alvin Holsey, who took command in late 2024, would step down by the end of 2025, after Secretary of War Pete Hegseth indicated displeasure with his performance.

The same day, Trump indicated that he had authorized the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to undertake operations inside Venezuela against Tren de Aragua and other Venezuelan narco-traffickers.

The speed with which Holsey is replaced, even de facto until the end of 2025, would indicate the level of urgency in Trump’s actions against Venezuela. But what seemed clear was that the United States is not keen to stage a full land force operation within Venezuela, and that would determine the extent of the capping action, given that Trump said that he was not interested in undertaking “regime change”; the United States would have to effectively destroy all serious military capabilities at Maduro’s disposal by air and ground-special operations actions, and some coastal actions by the U.S. Navy; and Venezuela’s main military allies—Russia, China, Iran, and Cuba—would not come to the aid of Caracas.

This would imply that the United States’ favored actors in Venezuela, such as María Corina Machado, would be ready to claim leadership in the country, with credible international backing, and to call internationally monitored elections to restore Venezuela’s legitimacy. That task is more complex and difficult than the military operation, and would come at a time when the U.S. commitment to stabilizing and rebuilding Gaza could be of overwhelming priority.

A post-conflict Venezuela could move entirely away from Russia, China, and Cuba, which could be critical for those three allies of Caracas, given that Venezuela has been a key energy supplier to all three, using shadow fleets to counter U.S. attempts to isolate them. The war against Maduro, then, is a war against Russia, China, Cuba, and, to a degree, Iran.

So the endeavor by the United States to resolve the dispute with Venezuela—and, by definition, thereby challenge PRC domination of the Caribbean—depends on the priority level Trump can assign to the mission, given all other pressures on his strategic resources and attention. But having already begun the campaign to halt Venezuelan actions, which were started when Beijing, Moscow, and Tehran were feeling confident about the U.S. malaise, Trump may now be compelled to move forward to completion.

Given that position, it would be strategically unwise for Maduro to further raise Venezuela as a priority, and that may force him to attempt to constrain Tren de Aragua and other state-linked criminal enterprises, if he can.

Ultimately, if the narco-traffickers are allowed to act rashly, they could precipitate the U.S. strategic action.