United States President Donald Trump said the US carried out a land-based strike on Venezuela on Monday, marking a sharp escalation in Washington’s recent military activity against the South American nation.

Trump said the operation had targeted a docking facility being used to load boats carrying narcotics. Venezuelan authorities, however, have yet to confirm the incident.

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Tensions between Washington and Caracas have risen sharply since September, when the Trump administration began a series of strikes on Venezuelan vessels in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, which the US government claims are trafficking drugs.

However, despite aerial strikes on more than two dozen boats, which have killed at least 100 people, the US has presented no evidence of drug trafficking.

More recently, US forces have seized Venezuelan oil tankers, which it claims are carrying sanctioned oil and ordered a naval blockade on all sanctioned oil tankers near the coast.

Caracas has long accused Washington of using allegations of drug trafficking as a pretext for forcing regime change in Venezuela, raising renewed concerns about the legality of such actions and the risk of a broader conflict. Indeed, legal experts say the targeting of vessels in international waters likely violates US and international law and amounts to extrajudicial executions.

So, what do we know about these strikes so far, and could it lead to an imminent war between the US and Venezuela?

What happened?

During a news conference on Monday alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida, Trump took the opportunity to announce that US forces had struck a Venezuelan dock.

“There was a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs,” Trump said.

“They load the boats up with drugs, so we hit all the boats, and now, we hit the area. It’s the implementation area. That’s where they implement. And that is no longer around.”

Trump did not say who carried out the strike or where it occurred.

“I know exactly who it was, but I don’t want to say who it was. But, you know, it was along the shore,” the US president said.

US media cited sources familiar with the operation who claimed the strike had been carried out by the CIA.

Following Trump’s announcement, the US military also announced in a post on X that it had carried out another attack on a boat in the eastern Pacific, killing two more people. It did not specify where exactly the strike took place.

Venezuela’s government has yet to respond to Trump’s announcement.

Why is Trump conducting a campaign against Venezuela?

Relations between Washington and Caracas have been fraught for decades, shaped by a long history of US military intervention in Latin American countries.

Tensions deepened in the late 1990s under Venezuela’s left-wing president Hugo Chavez – mostly because of the nationalisation of foreign-owned oil assets which the US claimed its companies had invested in and built – and deteriorated further after his successor, Nicolas Maduro, took power in 2013.

Tensions have escalated in recent months as a result of a US military campaign targeting alleged Venezuelan drug smugglers. The Trump administration claims the trafficking of drugs to the US constitutes a national emergency, but multiple reports have shown that Venezuela is not a major source of drugs being transported across borders.

A satellite image shows the Skipper, a very large crude carrier and the first Venezuela-related vessel seized by the US [Satellite image: Vantor/Handout via Reuters]

Since September, Washington has carried out more than two dozen strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean, killing more than 100 people, accusing the Maduro government of being involved in flooding the US with drugs.

The Trump administration has offered no evidence of drug trafficking or legal justification for the operations, prompting claims that it is more interested in controlling oil in the region and forcing regime change in Venezuela.

The strikes have been accompanied by the largest US show of force in the region in decades, including the deployment of the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R Ford, F-35 jets and approximately 15,000 troops. Trump has previously also warned of possible attacks “on land”.

Caracas has rejected US accusations of drug trafficking, condemning its actions as “illegal” under international law and a violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty.

The Venezuelan government claims Washington is using drugs as a pretext for regime change and to seize the country’s oil wealth.

Moreover, United Nations human rights experts have condemned the partial naval blockade, finding it an illegal armed aggression against Venezuela, while urging the US Congress to intervene.

Will this attack lead to an imminent war with Venezuela?

Caracas-based analyst Elias Ferrer, of Orinoco Research, said if the US has in fact struck Venezuelan territory, it has “certainly violated international law” unless the attack was pre-approved by the Maduro government, which could be possible in light of recent conversations between the Venezuelan president and Trump in the past month.

Depending on the answer to that question, Ferrer said the incident could either “escalate, or actually de-escalate” the situation.

“Trump needs a victory before he can de-escalate in Venezuela, and this could be it: destroying an alleged drug-related target,” he said, citing the US bombing of Iran in July as an example during the 12-day Iran-Israel war in June.

Iran responded by carrying out a pre-warned strike on a US base in Qatar, following which a ceasefire was announced between Iran and Israel within the next 24 hours.

If it was not pre-approved with Caracas, however, Alan McPherson, professor of Latin American studies at Temple University, said it represents a “serious escalation” by Washington as it is the first on Venezuelan territory.

“This has all the markings of a war of choice – militarily unnecessary – against a sovereign nation,” McPherson told Al Jazeera.

“Politically, the [US] administration wants to overthrow President Maduro – plain and simple,” he added.

In addition, McPherson said, while the US “may also want to damage the drug business” coming from Venezuela, Trump has been clear that he mostly wants to “reverse the nationalisation of petroleum to the benefit of American corporations”.

Is the US campaign really about oil?

Recent remarks by White House officials have raised questions about whether Venezuela’s large oil reserves are in fact the real source of tension with Caracas, rather than drug smuggling.

Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, and the US once partnered with the country to develop its oil fields. It was a founding member of OPEC in 1960 and became a major oil exporter, especially after PDVSA (Petroleos de Venezuela, SA) was created in 1976, and all foreign oil companies were brought under state control.

In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Venezuela supplied roughly 1.5 to 2 million barrels per day to the United States, making it one of the US’s largest foreign oil sources. However, exports began to decline sharply after Hugo Chavez was elected president in 1998, as he reshaped the country’s oil sector, nationalising assets, restructuring PDVSA, and prioritising domestic and political objectives over traditional export markets.

The situation worsened under President Nicolas Maduro, Hugo Chavez’s successor, when the Trump administration imposed oil sanctions in 2017 and then tightened them in 2019. These measures restricted Venezuela’s ability to sell crude to the US and limited access to international financial markets, further reducing the country’s oil exports.

Today, Chevron is the only US oil company that continues to operate in Venezuela under a special licence granted by former US President Joe Biden, which allows it to operate despite oil sanctions.

Stephen Miller, a top aide to President Donald Trump, said earlier this month that Venezuela’s oil belongs to Washington, calling the country’s nationalisation of its petroleum industry “theft” and arguing that “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela”.

While US and British firms did invest in early development of oil projects in Venezuela, international law clearly recognises Venezuela’s sovereignty over its own resources.

(Al Jazeera)

Can the US Congress intervene to prevent Trump from going to war?

Power over the military is divided in the United States. Congress is granted the power to declare war by the US Constitution, but the last time the US declared war was in World War II, in 1942. That means the longest wars the US has engaged in have been undeclared by Congress.

In addition to empowering the president to direct military actions during a declared war, the Constitution grants the president the authority to order the US military to respond to attacks and imminent threats. It is from these powers that the executive branch has been able to deploy military force against countries in the absence of a congressionally declared war.

The War Powers Resolution of 1974 was intended to limit the ability of the president to deploy the military in these non-war actions, imposing time limits on deployments without congressional authorisation, and imposing other requirements. However, enforcement has been spotty and broad executive interpretations of what does and does not require authorisation, as well as what is permitted by existing Authorizations for the Use of Military Force (AUMFs) have left the president with a relatively free hand.

Members of Congress have tried repeatedly to prevent Trump from taking military action against Venezuela.

Earlier this month, a group of Democratic and Republican US Congress representatives forced a vote that would have blocked US military action against Venezuela without congressional approval.

But the resolution was narrowly defeated in the Republican-controlled Congress by a vote of 216-210.

Academic McPherson said Congress can certainly refuse to declare war or to give the president “any authorisation to use force”.

“It can even cut off funds for specific military purposes. But the executive would likely defy any such restrictions, and this Republican Congress is unlikely to do any of the above.”