The intelligence service CIA has been ordered to carry out secret operations in the South American country, US President Trump reported last week. After a series of deadly attacks at sea, he is also threatening to launch attacks on land.
Venezuela's President Nicolás Maduro has begun mobilizing civilians in a kind of defense force. In a televised speech, he reminded them of previous American interventions:
No to regime changes that remind us of the failed wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya. No to coups carried out by the CIA.
Small-scale smuggling
The US President is motivating the escalation by saying that criminals and drugs are pouring in from Venezuela to the US.
The attacks on boats in the Caribbean Sea in recent weeks have been said to be aimed at drug smugglers. Donald Trump says that in this way, they have stopped drugs that could have "killed tens of thousands of Americans", but all of this is difficult to verify.
Of the narcotics flowing towards the US, only a small part comes from Venezuela, reports The New York Times. Fentanyl, which causes many deaths in the US opioid crisis, is neither manufactured in nor smuggled through Venezuela.
Precedent for attack
Up to 30 people have been killed in American attacks on international waters. The attacks are likely to violate international law, but also stretch the boundaries of the President's powers.
Several drug cartels have been terrorist-listed and the Trump administration is talking in terms of an armed conflict, with reference to the law that enabled the US's cross-border war on terror. It is presented as if Nicolás Maduro personally controls or conspires with drug cartels, which can provide more room for interpretation.
You can't just call something a war and give yourself war powers, says Claire Finkelstein, professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania, to AP.
"Does not want to mess around"
The US has assembled military forces in the sea off Venezuela, on a much larger scale than would be required to stop smugglers.
From the opposition in the US, alarms are sounding that the President is on his way to drawing the country into a new war. Trump says he has a good negotiating position and claims that Nicolás Maduro has offered more of Venezuela's vast resources - oil and gold - to calm the situation down.
And you know why? Because he does not want to mess around with the US, Trump said over the weekend.
The US has carried out at least six military attacks in the Caribbean Sea since the first one took place on September 2. At least 29 people have been killed, according to American accounts.
The attacks have been said to be aimed at drug smugglers, but the US has not presented evidence for this and is accused of extrajudicially killing people on international waters.
The Trump administration describes the situation as an armed conflict against South American drug cartels, with the legal mandate that the Bush administration used to initiate the US "war on terror". This provides an American legal basis for capturing designated opponents and using deadly force against the enemy's leadership.
In the latest attack on October 16, two people were killed, but two survived and were taken prisoner, which raised questions about what legal status they would have in the US. It was later briefly announced that they would be sent to their home countries Colombia and Ecuador.
