Americans Don’t Know What To Think Of Trump Attacking Venezuela

Almost a year into his second term as President of the United States, and Donald Trump’s promise to bring peace to an unstable world seems to have been almost completely forgotten by the administration. His progress on a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine has so far been mired with difficulties, with both nations refusing to agree on what they feel are unjust compromises and the absence of security guarantees. In the Middle East, the perceived success of Trump’s Gaza peace plan has also been called into question, as the number of civilians killed by Israeli forces since the ‘ceasefire’ began on the 9th of October rises to at least 370, including 140 children.

Besides struggling to end conflicts around the world, Donald Trump has further tarnished his purported title of ‘peacemaker’ by starting a foreign conflict of his own. The US’s attacks on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean and recent seizure of oil tanker ‘The Skipper’, have put the country directly at odds with Venezuela, contributing to their history of sour relations from Trump’s first term. This time, however, the escalation in tensions between both nations has moved beyond the economic, and spilled over into the militaristic; with Trump ordering a large naval deployment off the coast of Venezuela and threatening to take action against Venezuelan drug traffickers ‘by land’.

While Venezuela’s future looks uncertain, the American public is also unsure of what approach the US should take against Maduro’s regime, or whether it even poses a threat. According to a recent Ipsos poll among others, the majority of Americans agree that the risks of the US taking military action against drug cartels in Mexico and Venezuela outweigh the benefits, and oppose the proposition. When the question extends to directly invading Venezuela, respondents are more strongly opposed. While there are considerable partisan cleavages regarding public support for US military action against Venezuela, only 31% of Republicans agreed with the prompt compared to 79% of Democrats, Republicans show themselves to be much more ambivalent when pressed. Faced with the prospect of American civilian or military deaths during proposed military actions against Venezuela, support for military attacks among Republicans barely reached 50%.

Investigating the Republican base’s positions further, however, there is a considerable and expected divergence between MAGA supporters and other Republicans according to a similar CBS News Poll. According to the polls’ findings, only 47% of non-MAGA respondents supported U.S. military action in Venezuela compared to 66% of MAGA respondents. 

Despite criticisms of polling analysis for its subjectivity and potential margins of error, looking at polling from Ipsos, YouGov, and CBS News reveals a clear trend with regards to Americans’ attitudes towards Trump’s policies on Venezuela. Beyond the expected divergences in public opinion, with Republicans being generally more hawkish on foreign policy than Democrats, there is bi-partisan agreement that the Trump administration needs to be clearer in its intentions. In other words, Americans don't know what the president is thinking or what the endgame of his foreign policy is.

This is not surprising, given Trump himself does not seem to have a clear endgame in sight. When asked what the US would do with the oil on the tanker it seized, he responded: “We keep it, I guess… I assume we’re going to keep the oil.” In an interview with Politico this week, he also declined to discuss military strategy. 

The CBS News Poll conducted between the 19th and 21st of November found that 76% of respondents disagreed that ‘the Trump administration had clearly conveyed its position on military action against Venezuela’. Even across party lines, well over 50% of Republicans (67%), Independents (86%), and Democrats (97%) agreed that Trump needed to ‘explain his decisions’ on the matter further. While a slim majority (53%) of respondents to the CBS approved of ‘using military force to attack boats suspected of bringing drugs into the US’, 75% of respondents agreed that it must first release evidence that these boats are indeed carrying drugs, something the Trump administration has not done as of writing. 

Regarding Maduro specifically, Americans are similarly unsure what to think. Around half of Americans don’t have an opinion of Maduro, even if most of those that do view him unfavourably. Most tellingly, in contrast to the Trump administration’s dramatic rhetoric regarding the threat of Venezuelan drug-traffickers and Maduro himself, 61% of Americans don’t know if ‘the US would be better off if Maduro remains president or is overthrown.’

The lack of public support for a potential military campaign in Venezuela challenges some of the comparisons made to the invasion of Iraq in 2003 by then-president George W. Bush. Without the unifying trauma of a 9/11, it is unclear whether Americans can ever again stomach a full-scale invasion of a foreign nation. Since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the US public has grown weary of overextension and attempts at nation-building in foreign policy. US aggression and military strategy in foreign policy has followed this sentiment, too, maintaining a ‘no boots on the ground’ position in major direct military interventions during and since Obama’s presidency. To pass beyond threats and mobilise troops in an assault on Venezuelan soil without a persuasive narrative would be a dangerous gamble, even for the Trump administration.

While it is unclear how much influence public opinion, that ever-nebulous term, has on the direction of American foreign policy, Trump’s declining approval rates, important wins by Democrats across the country in November, and the upcoming 2026 midterm elections, make a potential popular backlash against Trump’s foreign policy in Venezuela significant. Currently, Trump’s approval rating on foreign policy is low at 36%, but it is his second highest across important issues behind immigration. A hit on this front could significantly weaken his popularity ahead of the 2026 midterms, where Democrats will aim to take back the congress they lost in November last year. Whatever the electoral impact Trump’s military strategy against Venezuela may have, it will certainly be remembered as one of the defining episodes of his mercurial second term in office.

Image: Flickr/Trump White House (Andrea Hanks)

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