The China angle in Trump’s Venezuela adventure

On September 2, a US Navy destroyer opened fire on a vessel in the southern Caribbean, sinking it and killing 11 people. Washington described the craft as a “narco-boat” linked to the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

Days later, two Venezuelan fighter jets buzzed the USS Jason Dunham in what the Pentagon called a “highly provocative” maneuver. Caracas denounced the strike as a prelude to regime change and mobilized tens of thousands of troops, with President Nicolás Maduro vowing to create a “republic in arms” if the United States invades.

The Trump administration insists the action was defensive. But the escalation – from maritime policing to the deployment of F-35 stealth fighters in Puerto Rico – suggests something more profound: Washington is turning its war on drugs into a geopolitical confrontation, one that risks colliding head-on with China’s growing role in Latin America.

From counternarcotics to great-power rivalry

For decades, US drug interdiction has relied on the Coast Guard and regional task forces. But the latest deployment – an armada including the USS Iwo Jima, guided-missile destroyers, and even a nuclear submarine – resembles preparations for regime change, not narcotics policing.

Why the shift? Because Venezuela is no longer just a fragile petrostate. It has become one of China’s most important partners in the Western Hemisphere, with Beijing providing tens of billions in loans and investment under the Belt and Road Initiative. By militarizing counternarcotics in Venezuelan waters, the US is signaling that it will not tolerate China consolidating influence in its backyard.

What Washington frames as a fight against gangs Beijing interprets as containment.

Trump’s domestic lens, Beijing’s strategic lens

Domestically, the escalation fits Trump’s political narrative: equating narcotics trafficking with illegal immigration and violent crime. The symbolism of Marines confronting “narco-terrorists” plays well with communities ravaged by opioids.

But Beijing sees the situation differently. Chinese firms have deep stakes in Venezuelan oil, power grids and infrastructure. An American carrier group off Caracas looks less like counternarcotics and more like an attempt to weaken a Chinese foothold.

Just as US naval patrols in the South China Sea are read in Beijing as encirclement, Venezuela risks becoming the mirror image: China’s influence tested in Washington’s near-abroad.

Maduro’s leverage

For Maduro, US escalation is both dangerous and politically useful. Venezuela remains economically fragile and diplomatically isolated. Yet Washington’s saber-rattling allows him to rally domestic support with Cold War-style rhetoric. His vow to mobilize a multi-million-strong militia casts the conflict as a patriotic defense against imperialism.

The more Washington escalates, the more Maduro can tie his regime’s survival to Beijing and Moscow. In effect, America’s strategy may be pushing Venezuela farther into China’s embrace.

Regional and global fallout

Latin American governments have responded with alarm. Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum warned against “unilateral militarization.” Brazil’s Celso Amorim reminded Washington that “Latin America has painful memories of outside intervention.” Even Colombia – long a US partner in drug enforcement – has signaled concern about being dragged into conflict.

China is watching closely. For years, Beijing has pitched itself as a non-interventionist partner, contrasting US military presence with infrastructure financing. If Washington doubles down on gunboat diplomacy, Beijing could use regional backlash to deepen its soft power appeal while quietly securing its energy and investment stakes.

Legal and moral faultlines

The legality of the strike is questionable. Congress has issued no authorization for force against Venezuela, and extrajudicial killings in international waters blur the line between policing and combat. By normalizing military action against suspected traffickers, Washington undermines its own credibility as a rule-of-law advocate – precisely the ground on which it criticizes China.

The real stakes

Blowing up boats will not solve America’s fentanyl crisis. Smuggling routes adapt; demand remains the driver. What is changing is the strategic landscape: Venezuela is becoming a proxy theater in US–China competition, one with risks of direct confrontation in the Western Hemisphere.

The smarter path is to:

•  scale counternarcotics operations to their actual scope, led by the Coast Guard and multilateral task forces;
•  separate counternarcotics policy from regime-change ambitions;
• engage regional partners rather than alienate them with unilateral military moves;
• address demand at home through prevention, treatment, and money-laundering crackdowns.

From Washington’s perspective, the Caribbean deployment is about protecting American families. From Caracas, it looks like regime change. From Beijing, it looks like containment.

To Latin America – and to China – it increasingly looks like a move in a larger geopolitical chess game.

By turning counternarcotics into a proxy front, especially treating Venezuela as a proxy front in its rivalry with Beijing, Washington risks destabilizing its neighborhood , alienating partners,and accelerating the very great-power competition it hopes to contain. What began as a drug interdiction mission may soon redraw the strategic map of the Americas – unless US policymakers recognize that the war on drugs is not the war they most need to fight.