President Donald Trump wants to speak directly with Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro as the United States continues to strike drug boats off the Latin American country’s coast.
Trump, who has designated Maduro as a leader of the Cartel de Los Soles, told advisors that he hopes to speak with the Socialist leader, signaling that he could be taking a more diplomatic route rather than escalating military action, Axios reported. The president’s desire to speak with Maduro comes as the State Department designated the cartel a foreign terrorist organization, according to a notice published in the Federal Register on Monday.
“Nobody is planning to go in and shoot him or snatch him — at this point. I wouldn’t say never, but that’s not the plan right now,” one official familiar with the discussions told Axios.
“In the meantime, we’re going to blow up boats shipping drugs. We’re going to stop the drug trafficking,” the official said.
The 21 U.S. strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean have killed at least 83 people, according to Axios.
The U.S. military action in the region, dubbed “Operation Southern Spear,” is aimed at destroying drug trafficking routes, but is quietly aimed at pressuring regime change in Venezuela, the outlet reported.
“We have covert operations, but it’s not designed to kill Maduro. It’s designed to stop narcotrafficking,” a White House official told Axios, saying, “if Maduro leaves, we would not shed a tear.”
Today, at the direction of President Trump, the Department of War carried out yet another lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by a Designated Terrorist Organization (DTO). Yet again, the now-deceased terrorists were engaged in narco-trafficking in the Eastern Pacific.
The… pic.twitter.com/PEaKmakivD
— Secretary of War Pete Hegseth (@SecWar) October 23, 2025
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For now, Trump’s call with Maduro is still “in the planning stages,” and potential topics of discussion have yet to be revealed, a U.S. official told Axios.
“Maduro is a narcoterrorist. Always lead with that word if you want to represent the president’s thinking,” the official said.
“The diplomats tell us that Maduro is going to say, ‘Trust me. I’ll have new elections in three years. You can come and have all the oil. I’ll stop sending it to Russia.’ He has said many things like that over many years and he never keeps his promise. So the diplomats tell us we should be suspicious,” they added.
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