Why Venezuelan F-16s Buzzing U.S. Warships Prove Trump Right
Contrary to his detractors, Donald Trump's seeming ambiguity is his strategy. And he's told you so for decades, beginning with The Art of the Deal. Odd that so few have bothered to do the homework.
by Juan P. Villasmil
September 8, 2025
First the boat, then the buzz.
Last week, an American strike in the Caribbean shredded a vessel ferrying narcotics out of Venezuela, killing eleven alleged members of the Tren de Aragua gang — which Caracas, strategically, dismissed as an AI hallucination.
Two days later, Nicolás Maduro tried his own spectacle, dispatching a pair of F-16s to roar over the USS Jason Dunham, one of the U.S. destroyers recently sent on a counter-narcotics patrol off Venezuela’s coast.
The maneuvers — and the steady drumbeat of pressure that preceded them — have regime-changers daydreaming about intervention and restrainers losing sleep. But before mistaking the noise for reality, it’s worth asking: what is Washington trying to achieve?
Those who prefer tidy binaries — including many of the journalists covering this beat — often misread what President Donald Trump’s administration is doing. One week, the president is cast as Liz Cheney’s hawk; the next, he is said to have sent Special Envoy Richard Grenell on a mission to befriend Marxists. The trick is not taking the headlines at face value, but tracing the pattern of moves rather than the noise of actions.
Though often caricatured as a schizophrenic strategy, the picture — despite all the buzz — is entirely coherent. Here’s why.