Inside Marco Rubio's Push for Regime Change in Venezuela

Little to no fentanyl is coming from Venezuela, according to U.S. intelligence.

Screenshot of a video posted by Donald Trump to Truth Social on September 15, 2025 announcing a U.S. strike on an alleged drug vessel.

U.S. intelligence has assessed that little to none of the fentanyl trafficked to the United States is being produced in Venezuela, despite recent claims from the Trump administration, a senior U.S. official directly familiar with the matter tells Drop Site.

The official noted that many of the boats targeted for strikes by the Trump administration do not even have the requisite gasoline or motor capacity to reach U.S. waters, dramatically undercutting claims by Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The claim is backed up by recent comments made by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who similarly noted that zero fentanyl is produced in Venezuela.

Despite the lack of intelligence linking Venezuela with fentanyl production, the Trump administration has made alleged Venezuelan drug trafficking the casus belli in its drive to overthrow the government of Nicolas Maduro. On Thursday, President Donald Trump referred to possible ground action, claiming at a press conference that the “sea drugs” coming in are “5% of what they were a year ago. So now they’re coming in by land.” “The land is going to be next,” he said, indicating he was willing to bypass congressional approval. On Friday, the U.S. announced it is sending an aircraft carrier to Latin America in a further escalation.

Two sources familiar with discussions at the White House note that Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a long time proponent of regime change in Venezuela, has been the driving force behind the aggressive military and rhetorical posture toward the Maduro regime.

Toward that end, Secretary Rubio—also in charge of the remnants of the U.S. Agency for International Development—has redirected millions of dollars in money previously allocated for “pro-democracy” measures in Venezuela and the surrounding countries, a thinly veiled effort to prep the region for war.

Rubio cycled through multiple arguments for regime change in Venezuela during the early months of the administration, largely based around human rights and election concerns, which were unconvincing to Trump. After assuming a position on the National Security Council in the spring, Rubio then presented a new argument to Trump: that Maduro was a narcoterrorist drug trafficker, based on a 2020 indictment by the Department of Justice under the first Trump administration over alleged cocaine trafficking.

The official noted Trump’s personal distaste for drugs and a campaign pledge to use the US military against Mexican drug cartels as an important impetus for Trump greenlighting recent strikes. With Trump unable so far to carry out attacks on Mexican cartels, strikes seen as political untenable, Rubio effectively steered his gaze to Maduro. The potential of access to Venezuela’s vast oil resources made the argument that much easier.

Rubio’s policy was most recently at a crossroads, after Maduro offered to turn over those oil resources to the U.S. in exchange for a cessation of hostilities. Trump acknowledged the offer in a recent appearance saying Maduro “offered everything. You know why? Because he doesn’t want to fuck around with the United States.”

Trump rejected the offer after being swayed by arguments from Rubio that the best way to secure Venezuela’s oil reserves was to facilitate regime change in Venezuela and make a better deal with a new government, the sources said. A recent U.S. government assessment of Venezuelan oil exports to China found nearly half a million barrels a day, a small fraction of the country’s total capacity which Trump is turning down in the immediate term.

The CIA did not respond to requests for comment. “President Trump promised to secure our border, combat narco-terrorists, and stop the flow of deadly drugs into our country,” said Tommy Pigott, principal deputy spokesperson for the State Department. “He is doing just that, and the Department continues to fund counternarcotics and law enforcement programs that support that goal. Maduro is not the legitimate leader of Venezuela; he’s a fugitive of American justice who undermines regional security and poisons Americans.”

Foreign policy under Trump has come to be dominated by a group known inside the administration as the Gang of Five, sources said, consisting of Rubio; Stephen Miller, the deputy chief of staff; Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff; Steve Witkoff, Trump’s all-around envoy; and Vice President J.D. Vance. War Secretary Pete Hegseth, in a bid for internal relevance, has eagerly executed Rubio’s strategy, regularly striking boats he claims without evidence are carrying drugs, burning the passengers alive. On Thursday, sitting beside Trump, Hegseth promised a forever war against drugs. “Our generation spent the better part of two decades hunting Al Qaeda, hunting ISIS. As the president said, this is the ISIS, this is the Al Qaeda of the Western Hemisphere... our message to these foreign terrorist organizations is that we will treat you like we treated Al Qaeda... We will kill you.”

Heavy Combat Boats to Colombia

How exactly Rubio is spending the “pro-democracy” funds from USAID, and from which buckets, is not made clear in federal disclosures. But a flurry of contracts in neighboring countries indicates a surge of military preparation in Colombia.

Much of the U.S.-backed resistance to Maduro—including the disastrous “Operation Gideon” coup attempt in May 2020—has been based out of Colombia and Guyana. In late September, the U.S. State Department’s international law enforcement arm signed a two-year, $4.8 million “Colombia virtual shooting range” contract with the Arizona-based VirTra, Inc. There were also two foreign military sales through the U.S. Coast Guard: $1.73 million for an undisclosed number of 21-foot boats, signed on September 12, and $3.8 million for eight 25-foot “heavy combat riverine boats,” signed four days later. The Arlington branch of the international consulting firm Deloitte also received a three-year, $3 million contract with the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Energy Resources for services in Colombia on September 30, following years of mineral advisory work in the region.

While the contracts indicate millions being poured into Colombia, the wave of funding could now be undermined by President Gustav Petro’s recent condemnation of a lethal September 15 U.S. airstrike on a fishing boat in Colombian waters.

On October 3, Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, accused Exxon of funding a military assault in the region. The charge came less than two weeks after the Texas-based oil company announced a $6.8 billion expansion of its work in Guyana, which is engaged in a longstanding border dispute with Venezuela regarding the Essequibo region. “Guyana has opened the doors to the American, the U.S. invader, and the military aggression against our region,” stated Rodriguez, before adding that Exxon was “financing the Guyana government” for the action. (By contrast, the Maduro government has a longstanding, friendly relationship with Exxon’s fellow Houston-area competitor Chevron, which is responsible for nearly one quarter of the country’s oil production.)

The CIA has also sought a foot in the media. The CIA’s embattled former Paris chief of station, Dale Bendler, recently retroactively registered as a foreign agent for Armando Capriles, whom he described as the CEO of Cadena Capriles, which is the former name of the parent company of the popular Venezuelan newspaper Ultimas Noticias. According to Bendler’s foreign agent registration, he attempted to recruit Capriles as an asset of an “OGA”—“Other Government Agency” – in exchange for leniency against U.S. sanctions in 2019. (It’s not clear whether he succeeded in picking up Armando as an asset.)

Public contracting records further highlight long-running U.S. special operations activities in the region. The Texas-based information warfare contractor Madison Springfield, Inc. (MSI) engaged in a one-year, $458,915 “Guyana Ghost Men assessment” study for U.S. Army Special Operations Command beginning in September 2021. Prior to the completion of the study, MSI was covertly acquired by the San Francisco-based gig-work intelligence collection firm Premise Data, which itself received a $498,701 subcontract through USAID on information collection in Venezuela 35 days prior to the failed Operation Gideon coup attempt, according to public disclosures. Following Premise’s financial failure, both companies were acquired by the Alexandria-based special operations contractor Culmen International in August.

“Democracy Promotion”

The U.S. government has attempted to overthrow the socialist government of Venezuela for decades, including through USAID’s Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI), according to a widely noted leaked U.S. diplomatic cable from 2006. The cable detailed OTI’s five-point strategy to oppose Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, as: “1) Strengthening Democratic Institutions, 2) Penetrating Chavez’ Political Base, 3) Dividing Chavismo, 4) Protecting Vital US business, and 5) Isolating Chavez internationally.“

The U.S.’s quasi-overt international political action arm, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), has the challenging task of funding nonprofits and journalists in a manner which, on the one hand, advances U.S. foreign policy goals, and on the other, allows grantees to still claim independence. Even President Trump’s first administration reportedly expressed frustration with a covert “democracy promotion” campaign by the CIA against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro in 2019 being ‘indistinguishable’ from its overt counterparts.

Before hamhandedly attempting to overthrow Maduro, NED boasted support for both an award-winning “Petrofraude” investigation into Maduro from the Bogota-based Connectas and a social media campaign supporting Maduro’s opposition, #SetThemFree. (Founded in 2012 as an offshoot of a Harvard fellowship, Connectas has prominently disclosed its NED funding dating back to at least 2013 but is less transparent about having received at least $88,000 from the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, which works closely with international police agencies, including on activities such as wiretaps.)

NED again publicly noted its work with Connectas in the lead-up to Maduro’s third inauguration, highlighting the outlet’s “Operation Retweet” campaign to anonymously disseminate critical journalism through AI-powered avatars. The same press release noted that NED “swiftly deployed a three-pronged contingency plan: supporting political organizers to mobilize grassroots networks, providing emergency assistance—including relocation, safe houses, and medical and psychological services—for those at risk, and backing core civil society groups offering legal, technical, and humanitarian aid to political prisoners and their families.”

The U.S. State Department and the now-defunct USAID have for years redacted the names of political action fundees in sensitive regions from public contracting records, citing commitments to prevent harm. NED itself accelerated from retroactively deleting millions of dollars in Ukraine grants in 2022 to publicly ending its default disclosure of grant recipients through a new “duty of care” policy in April 2025.

The new Trump administration gutted the majority of USAID’s political action programs during its first months in office, with a few anti-communist programs in Cuba being partially preserved as a rare exception. A leaked list of AID program cuts published by POLITICO revealed that the “America First” cancellations included the end of a $6.2 million grant to Partners of the Americas, Inc. which promised to “Ensure a smooth transition from government-controlled food distribution system under the Maduro regime to a market-based food system under a new Venezuelan government.” Maduro’s food subsidization program, the Local Committees for Supply and Production, better known as CLAP, was aggressively targeted with U.S. sanctions during Trump’s first administration, and one of the program’s leaders was extradited to Miami.