[News] Trump’s Maduro obsession resurfaces with new CIA ops., troop buildup

[Anti-Imperialist News]

english.almayadeen.net 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/trump-s-maduro-obsession-resurfaces-with-new-cia-ops---troop> 



  Trump’s Maduro obsession resurfaces with new CIA ops., troop buildup

Al Mayadeen English
October 29, 2025
------------------------------------------------------------------------

New revelations expose CIA cyberattacks and Trump’s growing frustration 
over failed efforts to oust Maduro, as US military buildup hints at a 
looming confrontation.

  * Trump’s cyberwar: The covert US campaign to oust Maduro
    <https://alpha-en-media.almayadeen.net/media/image/2025/10/29/bb89e5a1-bb2f-4ca6-aef8-a909967ae522.jpg?v=3&width=1000>
    Images of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro cover walls in
    downtown Caracas, Venezuela, Thursday, Oct 16, 2025 (/AP/)

In the closing year of US President Donald Trump’s first term, the CIA 
secretly launched 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/the-cia--a-covert-army-of-mayhem-across-the-world> 
a cyberattack that crippled Venezuela’s intelligence service, targeting 
the digital backbone of President Nicolas Maduro’s regime, /CNN 
/revealed, citing four individuals familiar with the covert operation.

The same sources told /CNN/ that the operation had achieved complete 
success, adding that it was a "throwaway"; the CIA’s way of appeasing 
the president’s desire to act on Venezuela while steering clear of more 
dangerous or direct measures against Caracas.

This little-known episode was part of a broader pattern of covert 
maneuvers 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/donroe-doctrine--trump-s-neocolonial-drive-in-latin-america> 
aimed at placating Trump’s insistence on removing Maduro, efforts that 
ultimately deepened his frustration as the Venezuelan leader stood 
strong 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/venezuela-launches-coastal-defense-drills-amid-us-military-b>.

Today, those earlier tensions are reflected in the president’s renewed 
determination to take a harder line in his second term. Since the 
summer, Washington has amassed roughly 10,000 troops in the region and 
dispatched an aircraft carrier from Europe. Trump has openly discussed 
the possibility of direct strikes on Venezuelan soil and has reportedly 
authorized new CIA operations there. Recent “attack demonstration” 
flights by US bombers off the Venezuelan coast underscored the 
administration’s readiness to project power.

While officials continue to describe the buildup as part of "an 
anti-narcotics campaign," the scale and scope of the deployment 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/venezuela-launches-coastal-defense-drills-amid-us-military-b> 
have fueled speculation of a looming regime-change mission, the report 
stressed.


    Frustration and the military option

Throughout his first term, Trump repeatedly demanded military plans to 
escalate pressure on Maduro. But both Pentagon and intelligence 
officials resisted such moves, wary of plunging the US into another 
costly regional conflict, /CNN /added, according to multiple accounts.

In one 2019 meeting, a senior Pentagon official reportedly struck the 
table in exasperation as White House aides pushed for more aggressive 
options. “In the first Trump administration, he said that all options 
are on the table,” recalled Jimmy Story, the former top US diplomat to 
Venezuela. “Many of the options are now at the front door.”

A former senior administration official summarized Trump’s current 
mindset bluntly: “I told these guys I wanted the military option in 2018 
and 2019, they didn’t give me one. I want a real one now.”


    'Get it done'

Trump’s fixation with toppling Maduro 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/trump-may-expand--us-actions--agaisnt-venezuela--colombia> 
dates back to 2017, when he first raised the prospect of military action 
during a meeting with his national security advisor H.R. McMaster at his 
Bedminster golf resort. “I’m not going to rule out a military option for 
Venezuela,” he told reporters afterward.

That demand resurfaced repeatedly. By 2019, Trump’s frustration had 
reached a boiling point. “Get it done,” he told national security 
advisor John Bolton, referring to Maduro’s ouster. “This is the fifth 
time I’ve asked for it,” Bolton later wrote in his memoir.

Inside the administration, it became increasingly clear that both the 
Pentagon and the CIA were uneasy about using force. CIA Director Gina 
Haspel, sources said, opposed direct agency involvement in operations 
against Maduro, resisting White House pressure for covert action.

Divisions between civilian and military leadership left US policy 
adrift. Officials debated how best to undermine Maduro without repeating 
Cold War-era failures that had tarnished the CIA’s legacy in Latin America.


    The Guaidó gamble

By 2019, Washington shifted toward a strategy of bolstering opposition 
leader Juan Guaidó, recognizing him as Venezuela’s legitimate president 
after a widely condemned election handed Maduro another term. More than 
50 nations followed suit.

“The regime was shaky, and we thought the opposition had a good chance,” 
one former senior official told /CNN/.

But optimism quickly faded. Guaidó never gained control of the military, 
protests fizzled, and a failed coup in spring 2019 left him a symbolic 
figure without real power.

Trump’s anger was palpable. He viewed both Guaidó and his own advisors 
as having let him down. “In his mind, Guaidó and the opposition failed 
him,” said a former White House official. “But so had his own 
government, they’d backed a losing horse.”


    Covert operations and cyberwarfare

After Guaidó’s collapse, Trump’s attention drifted, but his stance 
hardened. White House officials began exploring covert methods, 
cyberattacks, sabotage, and intelligence gathering to weaken the regime.

Plans for a dedicated Coast Guard cyber unit focused on targeting 
alleged Venezuelan-linked narcotics 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-launches-three-strikes-on-4-vessels-in-eastern-pacific--k> 
networks were floated but never implemented amid legal and bureaucratic 
constraints. Another idea,  a cyber strike against a hydroelectric dam, 
was quickly dismissed as impractical.

According to one former White House official, the hope was that enough 
disruption could trigger fractures within Venezuela’s armed forces, 
potentially prompting defections. But critics inside the administration 
derided the approach as directionless. “Opposition doesn’t have a plan. 
We don’t have a plan,” the official said. “Hope is not a plan.”


    Hawks ascendant

At one stage, some officials thought Trump might soften his stance. 
Special envoy Richard Grenell reportedly met Maduro multiple times to 
negotiate the release of detained US citizens. But those talks ended 
abruptly when Trump ordered Grenell to stand down, handing control of 
the Venezuela file to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a leading advocate 
of regime change. “Then the hawks took over,” said Story. “So now it’s 
‘maximum pressure’ to another level.”

As the US military presence has grown, the administration has conducted 
a series of lethal strikes on 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/un-experts-slam-us-strikes-on-venezuela-as--extrajudicial-ex> 
small boats leaving Venezuelan ports, which it claims were tied to 
narcotics trafficking. Yet the Pentagon has offered no evidence to 
support that assertion.

Story said he would be “very surprised” if US ships stationed in the 
Caribbean weren’t used “in some way” against the Maduro government. 
“It’s not a force capable of invading the country,” he explained, “but 
it could potentially be a force capable of doing a highly sophisticated 
rendition of senior leadership.”


    Political gamble

For all the saber-rattling, Trump remains sensitive to the optics of 
meddling, as per the report. Having long criticized US failures in Iraq 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/videos/trump-s-dni-pick-speaks-her-mind-on-the-us-invasion-of-iraq> 
and Afghanistan, he is acutely 
<https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/afghanistan-withdrawal-was-complete-failure-of-us-leadership> 
aware of the risks of alienating voters wary of another foreign conflict.

Ultimately, one former White House official told /CNN /that//the 
president could frame any outcome as a victory.

“This is wag the dog,” the official said. “This is anything you want it 
to be.”

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