Weeks after U.S. officials told the New York Times that the real goal of the military buildup (read report) in the Caribbean, and the strategic strikes against drug boats in the region, was regime change, a new NBC News report citing four unnamed sources, including two U.S. officials, now says the U.S. could be nearing a strike phase targeting drug cartels inside Venezuela.

The sources include two U.S. officials familiar with the planning and two others familiar with the discussions, who told NBC News that drone strikes targeting command and control nodes of traffickers, including drug labs, could occur within the next several weeks. They added that President Trump has not yet approved the operation.

Strikes inside Venezuela would represent a significant escalation following the recent U.S. military strikes against three drug boats off the South American country's coast:

Last week, Venezuela's Vice President Delcy Rodríguez released Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro's letter to President Trump. In it, Maduro vehemently denied involvement in narco-trafficking, calling the allegations "fake news propagated through various media channels." He further offered to engage in "a direct and frank conversation with your special envoy."

NBC asked for comment from the Trump administration about the strike plan, receiving this previous statement from the president: "We'll see what happens. Venezuela is sending us their gang members, their drug dealers and drugs. It's not acceptable."

A senior administration official told the outlet that the president is "prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice." 

The administration is using the drug-death crisis, killing 100,000 Americans per year and many of them working-age men and women (or military-aged), as a pretext to clean up the Western Hemisphere under a theme we've called "Hemispheric Defense." This strategy ranges from securing the entire hemisphere with military assets to eliminating transnational gangs from financial networks, as well as disrupting the cartels that flood the U.S. with drugs such as fentanyl, whose precursor chemicals originate from China. 

During the Biden-Harris regime, open-border globalist policies facilitated the invasion of illegal aliens into the U.S., including Venezuelan Tren de Aragua terrorists (read bombshell report). Any U.S. strike on Venezuelan soil could prompt retaliatory attacks by cartel-linked terrorists inside the homeland.

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