President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday classifying fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction, giving the U.S. government additional legal firepower in its efforts to combat illegal trafficking of the synthetic drug. The executive order cites the lethality of the drug, which kills tens of thousands of Americans every year, and the fact that transnational criminal groups the Trump administration has designated as foreign terrorist organizations use the sale of fentanyl to fund activities that undermine U.S. national security. Speaking in the Oval Office as he signed the order, the president said the amount of drugs coming into the U.S. by sea has decreased by 94 percent (most drugs, including fentanyl, enter the U.S. via land ports of entry). Trump added that drug flows are “a direct military threat to the United States of America.” The administration has focused considerable resources on combating fentanyl as part of its efforts to secure the U.S. border with Mexico. Top administration officials have argued that Trump’s strict immigration limits and border security measures have led to a drop in domestic consumption of fentanyl. “With a secure border, lives are being saved every day, sex trafficking has plummeted, fentanyl has plummeted,” White House border czar Tom Homan said Monday. While classifying a narcotic as a WMD is a nearly unprecedented presidential action, there has been public debate about characterizing fentanyl that way before. The Biden administration had previously faced pressure from a bipartisan contingent of attorneys general to classify fentanyl as a WMD. And fentanyl, even in tiny quantities, is potent enough to kill large numbers of people very quickly through overdoses. The synthetic drug, which has some limited legal pharmacological uses, mostly comes to the United States via Mexico, where drug cartels manufacture fentanyl using “precursor chemicals” imported from China. Fentanyl production is also booming in the Golden Triangle region of southeast Asia, which includes the countries of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand. Fentanyl can be easily made in makeshift labs, adding to the challenge authorities have faced in eradicating production within their borders. The administration, meanwhile, has accused cartels operating in Venezuela of trafficking fentanyl into the United States as a justification for the use of lethal force against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela, while seen as a hub for cocaine trafficking, is not viewed as a major contributor to global fentanyl trafficking. The timing of the designation is striking, as speculation mounts that the U.S. will carry out land strikes against alleged drug trafficking targets on Venezuelan soil as part of its pressure campaign against Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Declaring fentanyl a weapon of mass destruction would give the U.S. additional legal justification to use military force against Venezuela. Claims that Iraq still possessed WMDs were used as a legal justification for the invasion of the Middle Eastern country and the overthrow of its then-leader Saddam Hussein under the George W. Bush administration. The U.S. has also previously floated military strikes against Colombian and Mexican drug cartels, and it has been expected that the U.S. will eventually turn its focus away from Venezuela toward threats from groups in those countries.

President Donald Trump ratcheted up his threats against Colombia on Wednesday, telling reporters Colombian President Gustavo Petro is “next” in the White House’s regional campaign against drug trafficking. While initially, Trump told reporters “I haven’t really thought too much about” Petro, his comments quickly swerved into serious saber-rattling against the Colombian leader. “Colombia is producing a lot of drugs,” Trump said. “So he better wise up or he’ll be next. He’ll be next soon. I hope he’s listening, he’s going to be next.” Trump’s comments mark a sharp escalation of Trump’s threats against the Colombian leader. In a conversation with POLITICO earlier this week, the U.S. president floated expanding his anti-drug trafficking military operation — which have so far been focused on Venezuela — to Mexico and Colombia. Trump has overseen a slate of strikes against alleged drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean since September and launched a massive buildup of military power off the coast of Venezuela in an attempt to pressure the country’s president, Nicolas Maduro, to leave office. Tensions between Trump and Petro escalated this fall amid the U.S.’s aggressive campaign against drug trafficking in the region. The Trump administration decertified Colombia as a drug control partner and revoked Petro’s visa in September, slashing aid to the country and bashing its leader as an “illegal drug dealer” the following month. Though Trump has made clear he wants Petro out of office, he could get his wish without having to follow through on his threats. The Colombian leader is term-limited — and the country is set to head to the polls for its presidential election in May. The Colombian embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

BRUSSELS — The EU will start using high-resolution satellites and the latest drone technology to crack down on drugs smuggled through its borders, as cocaine and synthetic drugs swarm European capitals and the bloc grapples with growing drug trafficking violence. “When it comes to illegal drugs, Europe is reaching a crisis point,” said European Commissioner for Internal Affairs and Migration Magnus Brunner on Thursday, while presenting the new EU Drugs Strategy and action plan against drug trafficking. They lay out actions to boost international cooperation, stop the import of illicit drugs, dismantle production sites, curb recruitment of young people to criminal networks and tackle the growing drug-related violence that has taken capitals hostage. As gang networks evolve and drug traffickers constantly find new “loopholes” to bring their drugs into Europe, the EU and countries will work with customs, agencies and the private sector to better monitor and disrupt trafficking routes across land, sea or air. This includes using the latest technologies and artificial intelligence to find drugs sent via mail, monitoring aviation and publishing its upcoming EU Ports Strategy for port security. EU border security agency Frontex will get “state of the art resources,” said Brunner, including high-resolution satellites and drones. “Drug traffickers use the latest technologies, which means we need innovation to beat them,” Brunner said. To stay up to date, the European Commission is establishing a Security and Innovation Campus to boost research and test cutting-edge technologies in 2026. “We send the drug lords and their organizations a clear message: Europe is fighting back,” Brunner said. On top of the increased import of illegal drugs, Europe is grappling with the growing in-house production of synthetic drugs, with authorities dismantling up to 500 labs every year. To tackle this, the European Union Drugs Agency will develop a European database on drug production incidents and an EU-wide substance database to help countries identify synthetic drugs and precursor chemicals. The EU is also looking at its existing laws, evaluating the current rules against organized crime and the existing Framework Decision on drug trafficking by 2026. The EUDA’s new European drug alert system, launched a couple of weeks ago, will also help issue alerts on serious drug-related risks, such as highly potent synthetic drugs; while its EU early warning system will help identify new substances and quickly inform the capitals. Europe is grappling with a surge in the availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The quantity of drugs seized in the EU has increased dramatically between 2013 and 2023, the commissioner said, with authorities seizing 419 metric tons of cocaine in 2023 — six times more than the previous decade. But it’s not just the drugs — illicit drug trafficking comes with “bloodshed, violence, corruption, and social harm,” Brunner said. Criminal networks are increasingly recruiting young and vulnerable people, often using social media platforms. To fight this, the EU will launch an EU-wide platform to “stop young people being drawn into drug trafficking,” connecting experts across Europe. “I think that is key — to get engaged with the young people at an early stage, to prevent them getting into the use of drugs,” Brunner said. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. “Already too many have been lost to death, addiction and violence caused by traffickers. Now is the time for us to turn the tides,” he added.

Police have detained eight people and raided 18 homes in Brussels and Leuven in connection with death threats against a top prosecutor known for fighting organized crime and drug trafficking. Law enforcement in Brussels received information in July about a possible plot to attack Julien Moinil, the city’s public prosecutor, as reported by Belgian news outlets. The threat level against Moinil, who took office in January and is under police protection, was raised to four, the highest category, after police learned of the alleged plans. “The main suspects have criminal records for organized drug trafficking. They are active within the Albanian criminal underworld,” said the Belgian state prosecutor’s department on Tuesday. It remains unclear whether the suspects actually planned an attack on Moinil. Brussels has struggled with drug-related crime and violence for the last several years, with dozens of shootings. By the end of October, 78 shootings had been recorded in 2025. Amid a particularly violent week in August, Moinil lambasted politicians for their lenient stance on gun violence, warning that “anyone in Brussels can be hit a by a stray bullet.” In 2024, 92 shootings claimed the lives of nine people, according to official figures. In September, Belgian Security and Home Affairs Minister Bernard Quintin sparked debate when he suggested soldiers could be deployed on the streets of Brussels for their “shock effect” alongside police. In a recent anonymous open letter, a judge in Antwerp said drug trafficking is turning Belgium into a “narco-state” and that “extensive mafia-like structures have taken root.” The alleged plot against Moinil raises questions about the safety of other officials involved in combating drug violence. “This investigation once again shows the absolute necessity to better protect police officers and magistrates who fight tirelessly every day against organized crime and who, as a result, are targeted by these organizations,” Federal Prosecutor Ann Fransen told Belgian media on Tuesday.

BRUSSELS — The European Commission is set to publish a package of measures in December to further clamp down on the flow and production of street drugs in the EU, as drug-related violence in countries like Belgium or the Netherlands surges. New rules on the precursor chemicals used to manufacture drugs, an EU Drugs Strategy, and a European action plan against drug trafficking are scheduled to land Dec. 3, according to the latest Commission agenda released Monday. “Both the new strategy on drugs and the new legislation on precursors are in preparation,” the EU Drugs Agency told POLITICO in a statement. The Commission’s home affairs department is leading the new drug strategy and trafficking plan, while its tax department is delivering the proposal on drug precursors, EUDA said. The current drugs strategy has guided the EU’s priorities in the area since 2021 but it will expire this year. The new strategy — and accompanying action plan — will define how Europe should tackle this escalating crisis from 2026 to 2030. Europe is grappling with a surge in availability of cocaine, synthetic stimulants and potent opioids, alongside increasingly complex trafficking networks and rising drug-related violence, particularly in Belgium and the Netherlands. The ports of Rotterdam and Antwerp serve as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Europe. Criminals within Europe are is increasingly manufacturing their own synthetic drugs using precursor chemicals, while seizures of trafficked drugs have also been soaring. The EU Drugs Agency reported that in 2023, EU member countries recorded a record-high amount of cocaine seized for the seventh year in a row. While seizures of precursor chemicals have more than tripled in the several years preceding 2023. In the wake of Europe’s cocaine market more than quadrupling between 2011 and 2021, the Commission in 2023 proposed a plan to combat drug trafficking, which includes strengthening cooperation with Latin American countries, establishing a network of specialized prosecutors and judges, and investing additional funds in upgrading customs equipment. Across the Atlantic, the U.S. has been struggling with fentanyl, a synthetic drug estimated to be 50 times stronger than heroin. The U.S. has imposed tariffs, especially on Chinese goods tied to fentanyl precursor chemicals, as a trade pressure tool to curb their flow into the country. Former U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned in 2023 that Europe will soon have to deal with the same problem. The European Commission did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Ivo Daalder, former U.S. ambassador to NATO, is a senior fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center and host of the weekly podcast “World Review with Ivo Daalder.” He writes POLITICO’s From Across the Pond column. U.S. President Donald Trump loves the 19th century. His heroes are former presidents William McKinley who “made our country very rich through tariffs,” Teddy Roosevelt who “did many great things” like the Panama Canal, and James Monroe who established the policy rejecting “the interference of foreign nations in this hemisphere and in our own affairs.” These aren’t just some throw-away lines from Trump’s speeches. They signify a much deeper and broader break from established modern national security thinking. Trump is now the first U.S. president since Franklin D. Roosevelt to believe the principal threats to the U.S. aren’t in far-away regions or stem from far-away powers — rather, they’re right here at home. For him, the biggest threats to America today are the immigrants flooding across the country’s borders and the drugs killing tens of thousands from overdoses. And to that end, his real goal is to dominate the entire Western hemisphere — from the North Pole to the South Pole — using America’s superior military and economic power to defeat all “enemies,” both foreign and domestic. Of course, at the top of Trump’s list of threats to the U.S. is immigration. He campaigned incessantly on the idea that his predecessors had failed to seal the southern border, and promised to deport every immigrant without legal status — some 11 million in all — from the U.S. Those efforts started on the first day, with the Trump administration deploying troops to the southern border to interdict anyone seeking to cross illegally. It also instituted a dragnet to sweep people off the streets — whether in churches, near schools, on farmlands, inside factories, at court houses or in hospitals. Even U.S. citizens have been caught up in this massive deportation effort. No one is safe. The resulting shift is also expectedly dramatic: Refugee admissions have halted, with those promised passage stuck in third countries. In the coming year, the only allotment for refugees will be white South Africans, who Trump has depicted as genocide victims. Illegal crossings are down to a trickle, while large numbers of immigrants — legal as well as illegal — are returning home. And 2025 will likely be the first time in nearly a century where net migration into the U.S. will be negative. For Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. That’s why on Feb. 1, the U.S. leader imposed tariffs on Canada, Mexico and China because of fentanyl shipments — though Canada is hardly a significant source of the deadly narcotic. Still, all these tariffs remain in place. Then, in August, he called in the military, signing a directive that authorizes it to take on drug cartels, which he designated as foreign terrorist organizations. “Latin America’s got a lot of cartels and they’ve got a lot of drugs flowing,” he later explained. “So, you know, we want to protect our country. We have to protect our country.” And that was just the beginning. Over the past two months, the Pentagon has deployed a massive array of naval and air power, and some 10,000 troops for drug interdiction. Over the past five weeks, the U.S. military has also been directed to attack small vessels crossing the Caribbean and the Pacific that were suspected to be running drugs. To date, 16 vessels have been attacked, killing over 60 people. For Donal Trump, immigrants aren’t the only threat to the homeland, though. Drugs are too. | oe Raedle/Getty Images When asked for the legal justification of targeting vessels in international waters that posed no imminent threat to the U.S., Trump dismissed the need: “I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. Okay? We’re going to kill them. You know, they’re going to be, like, dead.” But now the U.S. leader has set his sights on bigger fish. Late last month, the Pentagon ordered a carrier battle group, Gerald R. Ford, into the Caribbean. Once that carrier and its accompanying ships arrive at their destination later this week, the U.S. will have deployed one-seventh of its Navy — the largest such deployment in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. If the target is just drug-runners in open waters, clearly this is overkill — but they aren’t. The real reason for deploying such overwhelming firepower is for Trump to intimidate the leaders and regimes he doesn’t like, if not actually force them from office. Drugs are just the excuse to enable such action. The most obvious target is Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro, who blatantly stole an election to retain power last year. The White House has declared Maduro “an illegitimate leader heading an illegitimate regime,” and Trump has made clear that “there will be land action in Venezuela soon.” However, Maduro isn’t the only one Trump has his eye on. After Colombian President Gustavo Petro accused the U.S. of killing innocent fishermen, Trump cut off all aid to the country and accused Petro of being “an illegal drug leader,” which potentially sets the stage for the U.S. to go after another regime. All this firepower and rhetoric is meant to underscore one point: To Trump, the entire Western hemisphere is America’s. Leaders he doesn’t like, he will remove from power. Countries that take action he doesn’t approve of — whether jailing those convicted of trying to overthrow a government like in Brazil, or running ads against his tariffs as in Canada — will be punished economically. Greenland will be part of the U.S., as will the Panama Canal, and Canada will become the 51st state. Overall, Trump’s focus on dominating the Western hemisphere represents a profound shift from nearly a century’s-long focus on warding off overseas threats to protect Americans at home. And like it or not, for Trump, security in the second quarter of the 21st century lies in concepts and ideas first developed in the last quarter of the 19th century.

ANTWERP — Prime Minister Bart De Wever needs to get serious about the fraying rule of law in Belgium, a top judge said Tuesday. Bart Willocx, whose role is first president of the Antwerp Court of Appeal, told POLITICO in an interview that the Belgian justice system must be funded properly — after “decades” of under-financing — to fight a rising tide of drug-fueled violence and corruption. “Help us to secure the functioning of justice … We need budget, otherwise there are problems for normal citizens and functioning and it won’t end in a good way,” Willocx said, when asked what message he had for the Belgian government, which is currently locked in intractable budget talks. Willocx said that the rule of law in Belgium, like elsewhere in Europe and the U.S., is under pressure. “A very simple way to suppress the courts is when you don’t give them enough budget, because then they are not working well, they can’t do what they should do,” he said. His blunt intervention comes the day after another Antwerp judge published an anonymous letter decrying that Belgium was on the verge of becoming a “narco-state.” De Wever, prime minister since February this year, spent more than a decade as mayor of Antwerp demanding more federal money to address narcotics-related issues, but Willocx notes action hasn’t been forthcoming since he ascended to the Belgian premiership. “He was the mayor and now he is the prime minister. I’m sure that safety and security and these kind of things are very important to him, but we ask his government to invest more, to stop this,” said Willocx. “As a mayor he said we need money from the federal government, but now he is the prime minister … We are waiting and he refers to the minister of justice, and the minister of justice refers to the government, but we are waiting for more support,” he added, exasperatedly. De Wever’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the judge’s criticism. The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics — particularly cocaine coming from Latin America — to enter Europe, and turf wars have spilled onto streets across Belgium, with shootings and bombings taking place both in Antwerp and Brussels. Complicating the quest to solve the problem, De Wever is embroiled in tense negotiations with coalition partners to hammer out a new budget to balance Belgium’s strained finances. He has given the parties until Nov. 6 to resolve the budget crisis and threatened to quit if there is no agreement. Belgium is one of four eurozone countries that failed to deliver its draft budget by the European Commission’s Oct. 15 deadline. In Willocx’s opinion, gangs have been successful in corrupting officials like port workers, police and customs agents, and in order to tackle the society-wide problem, money must be invested in overcrowded prisons and social rehabilitation. Employees of the courts and the public prosecution service have been leading a campaign to highlight the issues for months now, and recently published a list of 100 proposals to be addressed. “We have a certain power and responsibility and we want to do it in a way that is serving our society and in this moment we see important risks. If this doesn’t change, we won’t be able to do what we should do,” Willocx warned. “We don’t do this only for ourselves. When you become a magistrate, it’s not to become rich or get power, but to push things in a better direction. We want to secure normal citizens so they are not afraid,” Willocx said.

Drug-trafficking is turning Belgium into a narco-state and the rule of law is under threat, an Antwerp judge wrote in an anonymous letter published Monday asking the federal government for urgent help. “What is happening today in our district and beyond is no longer a classic crime issue. We are facing an organized threat that undermines our institutions,” the investigating judge wrote in the missive published on the official website of the Belgian court system. “Extensive mafia-like structures have taken root, becoming a parallel power that challenges not only the police but also the judiciary. The consequences are serious: are we evolving into a narco-state? No way, you think? Exaggerated? According to our drug commissioner, this evolution is already underway. My colleagues and I share that concern,” the judge added. The massive Port of Antwerp acts as a gateway for illegal narcotics to enter Belgium — and Europe more widely. Brussels, the country’s capital, has been plagued by a spate of drug-related shootings, with more than 60 incidents this year alone, 20 of them occurring just this summer. In response to the bloodbath, Belgium’s Interior Minister Bernard Quintin said he wants to deploy soldiers on the streets of Brussels. Earlier this year, the Belgian government approved a merger of Brussels’ six police zones into a single unit, set to take effect in early 2027, to tackle the scourge of violence. In the anonymous letter, the judge goes on to note that a narco-state is characterized by an illegal economy, corruption and violence — conditions that Belgium fulfills, in the judge’s opinion. The judge notes that money-laundering networks drive up real-estate costs, the corruption penetrates state institutions and kidnappings can be ordered on Snapchat. “This bribery seeps into our institutions. The cases I have led in recent years — and I am just one of 17 investigative judges in Antwerp — have resulted in arrests of employees in key port positions, customs officers, police officers, municipal clerks, and, regrettably, even justice system staff, both inside prisons and right here in this building,” the judge’s letter reads. “A home attack with a bomb or weapons of war, a home invasion, or a kidnapping are all easily ordered online. You don’t even need to go to the dark web; a Snapchat account is all it takes,” the judge added.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s war on drugs threatens to result in even more illegal narcotics flooding into Europe, according to a top German expert. The American administration has, in recent weeks, launched airstrikes against what it says are South American drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean. “A tougher U.S. crackdown on drug cartels in Colombia and Venezuela is unlikely to ease the situation in Europe or Germany — on the contrary: Experience shows that criminal networks respond with detours, new transit countries, and often even more potent ‘substitute substances,’” German Drug and Addiction Commissioner and virologist Hendrik Streeck told German tabloid BILD late Thursday. “For Germany, that would mean possible shifts along sea and land routes, as well as in digital distribution. We already have highly dynamic structures of organized crime — especially online. The U.S. administration’s announced ‘war on drugs’ could further intensify this,” he added. Streeck, who is pushing for a partial rollback of Germany’s cannabis legalization, described the narcotics situation in Germany as an “impending” crisis. He warned that cocaine prices are falling, that consumers are getting younger and drug-related deaths among people under 30 would rise dramatically. According to the EU Drugs Agency, cocaine availability continues to increase across Europe. In 2023, for the seventh consecutive year, EU member countries reported a record amount of cocaine seized.  The U.S. government expanded its campaign against drug traffickers this week. On Tuesday, American forces launched an attack on a suspected smuggling vessel off Colombia’s western coast, killing two people. The strike fueled tensions between the two countries. U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth confirmed the lethal strike in a social media post, saying such operations would continue “day after day.”

Nahal Toosi is POLITICO’s senior foreign affairs correspondent. She has reported on war, genocide and political chaos in a career that has taken her around the world. Her reported column, Compass, delves into the decision-making of the global national security and foreign policy establishment — and the fallout that comes from it. The first time President Donald Trump tried to push Nicolas Maduro out of power, he wasn’t coy about it. He accused the Venezuelan dictator of stealing an election, stripped U.S. recognition from Maduro’s government, imposed sanctions on Caracas and rallied other countries to pressure Maduro to quit. It didn’t work. In his second term, Trump is targeting Maduro differently, and his message is, uncharacteristically for Trump, less direct. Even though Trump continues to say Maduro is an illegitimate leader, he has said “we’re not talking about” regime change in Caracas. Instead, he’s emphasizing the long-standing accusations that the strongman is a drug lord and a dangerous criminal. The plan, people familiar with the situation tell me, is to force Maduro out as part of Trump’s ongoing fight against drug cartels. The effort has included labeling such groups as terrorist organizations, carrying out military strikes against alleged drug-carrying boats from Venezuela, raising the U.S. bounty on Maduro’s head to $50 million and cutting off diplomatic talks with Caracas. The campaign may not formally be about regime change, but if the pressure from the anti-cartel moves happens to topple Maduro, well, the president and his team will be delighted. While Trump admires many of the world’s autocrats, he has long appeared to genuinely dislike Maduro. The South American has socialist roots, not far-right tendencies the way Trump favorites such as Hungary’s Viktor Orban and Russia’s Vladimir Putin do. And — I’ve heard this from multiple U.S. officials over the years — Trump is truly aghast at how Maduro savaged the economy of a once-vibrant Venezuela. “Would everyone like Maduro to go? Yes,” a Trump administration official said of the U.S. president and his aides. “We’re going to put a tremendous amount of pressure on him. He’s weak. It’s quite possible that he’ll fall from this pressure alone without us having to do anything” more direct. But is Trump willing to eventually “do anything”? Send an invasion force to Venezuela or launch a missile with Maduro’s name on it, maybe? Trump’s team doesn’t seem to be ruling anything out. Trump has many plans available to him, including ones calling for airstrikes against drug targets on Venezuelan soil, but he has issued no order to directly take out Maduro, the official said. Still, one person familiar with the discussions suggested that if Maduro is considered a drug lord and a terrorist, he could become a fair target. “Don’t we go after indicted narco traffickers and terrorists all the time?” the person said. I granted both people anonymity to talk about sensitive internal deliberations. The White House didn’t respond to a request for comment. I’m not sure if there’s some special term for this approach. Regime change on the side? Whatever you call it, it may prove harder to pull off than the steps Trump has taken so far. The U.S. has tried an array of pressure campaigns against authoritarians in the past. Some have gone heavy on economic sanctions (Iran, Cuba). Some have armed rebels (Afghanistan). Some have used the U.S. military in ways that technically were not about ousting a regime (Libya) — or were (Iraq). These efforts can weaken autocrats and sometimes hasten their fall. But they also can take many years, and it’s often not clear whether U.S. pressure or another factor forced them out. The U.S. takedown of Manuel Noriega, the military ruler of Panama and troublesome longtime CIA asset, provides an interesting comparison to the face-off with Maduro. The U.S. imposed sanctions on Panama in the 1980s, indicted Noriega on drug trafficking charges and refused to diplomatically engage the puppet regime he oversaw. But Noriega didn’t lose power until the U.S. invaded Panama with more than 20,000 troops in late 1989 and detained him. The invasion was spurred in part by Noriega forces’ attacks on Americans in Panama as well as concerns about control over the Panama Canal, but then-President George H.W. Bush made sure to mention the drug charges in explaining his decisions. Venezuela is a bigger, more complicated country, making the Trump team’s approach even more unpredictable. Maduro has survived for a long time with the support of the country’s security forces, even if there is strong evidence that the country’s citizens keep voting against him. I believe Trump is willing to escalate his anti-cartel campaign, but I’m not convinced he’d ever send a full-on invasion force to topple Maduro. That’s partly because it could trigger alarm bells in the MAGA base, which has a strong isolationist streak. But a smaller force that goes after just Maduro, the drug kingpin? Maybe. The MAGA base is much more supportive of battling the cartels. Sticking to an anti-Maduro campaign without officially labeling it “regime change” has other benefits, former U.S. officials told me. Trump would look weak if he loudly proclaimed he was trying to oust Maduro but it doesn’t work (It wasn’t a great look last time). The U.S. also would be less responsible for the potentially costly fallout in Venezuela if it avoids an all-out invasion and sticks to what it insists is a law enforcement mission. “The Trump administration’s calculation could be that doing regime change on the cheap will help them avoid the penalties of the ‘Pottery Barn rule,’” said Peter Feaver, a former national security hand in the George W. Bush administration. That was former Secretary of State Colin Powell’s “famous aphorism that if you break Iraq, you have bought Iraq and are responsible for security stabilization in the aftermath.” Venezuela has a steady opposition that has various plans for what to do if the regime falls. The main opposition figure, María Corina Machado, was on Friday awarded the Nobel Peace Prize — an honor Trump himself covets. Machado dedicated her Nobel in part to Trump “for his decisive support of our cause.” The person familiar with the discussions told me that the Trump administration is not coordinating its actions with the Venezuelan opposition, though U.S. officials are in touch with them. David Smolansky, a representative of Machado, declined to say if the opposition is coordinating with the Trump team on its moves against the cartels. But Smolansky said Machado’s office is in constant communication with the administration and Congress, including providing information about drug activity emanating from Venezuela. Leopoldo López, an opposition activist who spent years as a political prisoner in Venezuela, said the U.S. administration is simply now in sync with what he and others have said for years: that Maduro should be approached as the head of a criminal enterprise, not a head of state. López compared Maduro with a more famous narco. “If you had Pablo Escobar as the president of Colombia, going after Pablo will be the same thing as making political change possible,” López said. The U.S. steps against Maduro — elements of which were previously reported by The New York Times — also dovetails with the individual goals of some Trump aides. Secretary of State and acting national security adviser Marco Rubio — a Floridian of Cuban descent — has long wanted to eliminate the Venezuelan regime in part because it could damage the regime in Cuba, a Caracas ally. Trump adviser Stephen Miller, a hard-core anti-immigration voice, hopes a new government in Caracas will make it easier to deport Venezuelans in the U.S., especially if post-regime chaos is limited. Trump aides also hope their crackdown on Maduro unnerves other leftist Latin American leaders, and reduces the flow of drugs. While the people I talked to weren’t willing to predict how and whether Trump would escalate his anti-drug-cartel-but-not-technically-regime-change operation, they did indicate that he wouldn’t de-escalate anytime soon. For one thing, the president is quite enjoying green-lighting airstrikes against boats alleged to be ferrying drugs. “He can blow boats out of the water every week for quite a long time,” the Trump administration official said.