Trump struggles with Venezuelan dilemma as Maduro digs in and storm builds at home over potential ‘war crime’

President Donald Trump’s Venezuela regime change adventure is in danger of degenerating into a strategic, political and legal morass.

Trump gathered top national security officials and aides at an Oval Office meeting Monday evening seeking to define next steps in a showdown now slipping out of his control, both inside the impoverished oil-rich nation and in Washington.

Before the talks, President Nicolás Maduro, the Venezuelan dictator, defiantly danced before a huge crowd of supporters in Caracas in a Trump-style open air rally, shattering previous rumors he’d bowed to US calls to leave the country. “We do not want peace of slaves, nor do we want peace of colonies,” Maduro said.

The thin domestic political underpinnings of Trump’s campaign are growing more fragile as the White House fails to quell a growing controversy over a follow-up US strike that reportedly killed surviving crew members of an alleged drugs trafficking boat in the Caribbean. Trump’s Democratic critics on Capitol Hill are warning of a potential war crime. And several powerful Republicans are shaken and are signaling a rare willingness to rigorously investigate the administration.

The US standoff with Venezuela is now beginning to consume Washington after more than four months of escalating political, economic and military pressure epitomized by the hulking presence of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald. R. Ford and an armada of US ships in the waters off Venezuela.

There is increasing scrutiny of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s role in the boat strikes. The former Fox News anchor was a controversial pick to run the Pentagon, and his lack of experience, abrasive manner and rejection of some the military’s ethical and legal safeguards is threatening to make him a political burden for the president as Democrats demand his resignation.

But more broadly, Maduro’s defiance is presenting Trump, Hegseth, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Dan Caine, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other top officials expected at the Oval Office meeting with a deepening strategic dilemma.

Trump is talking a big game.

On Thursday he threatened attacks on drug cartel targets on land in Venezuela would begin “very soon.” He declared on Saturday the country’s airspace should be considered closed. But Maduro went nowhere. The US president — who has been sensitive in the past to any suggestion he “chickens out” after making threats — must now consider whether his saber rattling is beginning to lack credibility without a demonstration of military force that would draw him into an overseas conflict.

Washington hopes that its military build-up so rattles Maduro that he accepts exile overseas or that inner circle generals topple him. Trump confirmed Sunday he spoke to Maduro by phone recently — but the Venezuelan strongman stayed put. Venezuelan opposition politician David Smolansky told Jim Sciutto on “The Brief” on CNN International Monday that Maduro had previously been given “options” by the United States to leave the country.

But the failure of the regime to crack so far will test Trump’s willingness to live up to his threat to do things the “hard way” as Maduro characteristically drags out negotiations and crises to weaken the will of his adversaries.

Maduro’s obduracy also raises the question of whether any level of US pressure short of military action would begin to fray his regime. One possibility is that the administration underestimated the staying power of the Maduro power base — a regular failing for US governments over the years that hoped to see the collapse of totalitarian rivals in enemy nations. Maduro will be hoping that Trump loses patience, starts looking for culprits in his inner circle and seeks his own way out.

If the president does pick military action, the idea of a full-scale invasion of Venezuela still seems unthinkable. So, does he have options that would so rattle Maduro’s security that it could change the political equation in Caracas? Or would attacks on alleged drugs trafficking sites or military bases embolden Maduro, unify public opinion around him, and make him believe he can tough it out?

The choices facing Trump are especially stark because a largely peaceful ouster of Maduro that delivered freedom to millions of Venezuelans after two decades of dictatorial rule and a restored democracy would be a foreign policy triumph. It would also send a message of US power and intent to other US foes in the region, including Cuba, and show China and Russia, which try to create regional influence and disruption, that Trump rules his geopolitical backyard. A successful Venezuela strategy could confound establishment foreign policy critics just as Trump did by bombing Iran’s nuclear plants earlier this year, a gamble that was more successful and triggered fewer dangerous consequences than many experts had feared.

But if Maduro survives the US troop buildup and intense pressure, he’d deliver a devastating statement of his own to Trump. The president’s authority would ebb. Autocrats in Beijing and Moscow, who he loves to impress, would take note. Presidents who recall aircraft carrier battlegroups from Europe and station them off Latin America amid belligerent rhetoric tend to create such credibility tests for themselves.

“This was really an effort, I think, to signal and to try to scare the Maduro government and Maduro himself into leaving or overthrowing him if he refused to go. That hasn’t happened,” Christopher Sabatini, Senior Fellow for Latin America at Chatham House in London, told CNN’s Isa Soares.

“It’s a do-or-die moment for Donald Trump — does he try to deescalate?” Sabatini went on, “He’s got himself in a box, does he continue to double down? Or does he try to find some sort of negotiated exit, not only for Maduro but also for himself — declaring victory and moving on.”

We don’t yet know what Trump is willing to risk to reach his goals in Venezuela, in the hope of installing a US-friendly government that could accept the mass return of migrants from his crackdown and that might be willing to play in the lucrative oil and minerals deals that underpin his foreign policy.

Vast US firepower in the Caribbean could inflict catastrophic damage to Venezuelan infrastructure or what the administration describes as drugs operations — even if most fentanyl that the US has used as justification for its tactics enters the US through Mexico. Cruise missiles or carrier-launched airstrikes or land-based aircraft in the region could shatter Maduro’s forces.

But any US losses or inadvertent civilian casualties could backfire on Trump and cause a political disaster at a time when polls show overwhelming numbers of Americans oppose military action in Venezuela.

And history shows that even in extreme circumstances, dictatorial regimes constructed over decades are often more durable than outsiders believe. The Venezuelan government is often compared to a many layered criminal operation — with key members having huge financial stakes in perpetuating their own power. And while many outsiders hope that Trump’s pressure will lead to the rise of the country’s rightful democratic rulers, some analysts fear a government fracturing could cause chaos and bloodshed and prolonged political uncertainty.

Thus, none of the options that the Trump inner circle was contemplating on Monday come with zero costs.

As it grappled for a clearer military strategy, the administration struggled to repel growing criticism over the September 2 boat strike in the Caribbean that has raised alarms over possible infringements of US and international law.

The White House’s emerging narrative on the incident is only adding to the political heat.

The possibility of a “double-tap” attack on the boat is so problematic because it raises the possibility that action was taken to kill survivors of the initial assault when they were injured or could pose no danger to the US. This could infringe the laws of war or the Geneva Conventions. Hegseth initially blasted such reports as “fabricated, inflammatory and derogatory” and designed to discredit US “warriors.” On Sunday, Trump reacted to a Washington Post report that Hegseth gave an order to “kill everybody,” saying his Defense Secretary said he “did not say that.” But he also said that he personally would not have wanted a second strike.

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt then confirmed on Monday that there was a second strike. She said that Adm. Frank M. “Mitch” Bradley, commander of the US Special Operations Command, was responsible for ordering it, and was “well within his authority.” But Leavitt declined to describe the threat posed to US service personnel before the second strike.

Later in the day, Hegseth — who has faced questions about his competence and suitability for such a critical job as defense secretary ever since Trump chose him, also emphasized that Bradley ordered the strike in question. “Let’s make one thing crystal clear: Admiral Mitch Bradley is an American hero, a true professional, and has my 100% support. I stand by him and the combat decisions he has made — on the September 2 mission and all others since,” Hegseth said. If his comment, couched in a pledge to have the back of America’s “warriors,” is interpreted by service members as implying the opposite, it could have a corrosive impact on the chain of command and the confidence of senior officers in interpreting orders.

Politically, the administration’s strategy seems to be to constantly repeat that Trump and Hegseth had themselves declared that they had legal authority for attacks on boats carrying “narco-terrorists.” But this approach ignores profound legal critiques of their action and authority. And the White House has refused publicly to lay out the legal justification and evidence for such attacks that is contained in a classified Office of Legal Counsel finding. Democratic senators who’ve seen the document have described it as “sloppy” and problematic.

In a sign of administration anxiety over the mounting furor, Leavitt said Hegseth spoke to lawmakers who expressed concern about the attack over the weekend. But Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna told CNN’s Kasie Hunt several of his GOP colleagues were “mortified” over reports about the double-tap strike. He called on Hegseth and Bradley to appear before the Armed Services Committee to explain orders they gave. “It could be that they both violated the law,” Khanna said. “The American people deserve answers.”

On Sunday, Rep Mike Rogers, the Republican chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, told CBS that if the double tap strike occurred as it has been described it would be an “illegal act.” He told CNN’s Erin Burnett on Monday that the report “diverges significantly from … the legal opinion we were provided and it of course plays into the very significant concerns that members have — the fact that these strikes are occurring at all.”

Hegseth and Bradley aside, overall responsibility for this mission lies with the commander in chief. Trump is being pulled deeper into a Venezuela morass that he created, and he seems to have few good options — in Washington or Caracas — to get out of it.