How does Trump’s offensive in Venezuela compare to the 1989 invasion of Panama?

The United Nations estimates that about 500 Panamanian civilians died in the invasion. The US claims it was far less, while its critics claim it was far more.

The invasion of Panama was also the last time there was a major U.S. military operation in the Caribbean on the scale we are now seeing in the waters around Venezuela.

The parallels between the two moments are remarkable, but so are the differences.

First of all, the similarities. Although several decades separate them, in both cases a growing war of words between Washington and a Latin American strongman led to a major U.S. military operation in the region after years of hostility.

In both cases, Washington accused a Latin American ruler of being personally involved in the drug trade, increasing domestic pressure on the embattled president.

In the case of Noriega and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, the US government’s central argument is that they and their governments have engaged in drug trafficking.

Ultimately, the premise that the rival leader is essentially a drug trafficker has become the justification that Washington has offered the American public for any further moves.

Both nations also have enormous strategic importance – the Panama Canal and Venezuela’s vast oil reserves – which raises the stakes significantly.

However, the differences are also notable.

The Cold War and the 21st century are very different times, and George HW Bush, President of the United States in 1989, and Donald Trump are very different leaders.

Noriega had been a CIA agent for many years and was ultimately convicted on the basis of irrefutable evidence, ranging from financial records to the testimony of men who had operated drug flights for the Medellin cartel or laundered drug money in Panama. Even one of the cartel’s top leaders accused Noriega of being personally involved in the illegal trade.

In the Maduro case, the Trump administration is drawing a direct link between the speedboats hit in deadly airstrikes in the Caribbean and the Venezuelan president himself.

Washington accuses Maduro of leading the Sun Cartel, a group said to be made up of members and former members of Venezuela’s military leadership.

But many drug war analysts question whether the Suns cartel is a formal criminal group or more of a loose alliance of corrupt officials who have enriched themselves by smuggling drugs and natural resources through Venezuelan ports.

For their part, Maduro and his government deny the existence of such a cartel, calling it an unfounded “narrative” spread by Washington to oust them from power.

“Suddenly they dusted off something they call the Sun Cartel, which they could never, ever verify because it doesn’t exist,” said Venezuela’s powerful Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello. “It’s an imperialist invention,” Cabello said last month.

However, there is evidence of drug trafficking within the presidential family in Venezuela.

Two of Maduro’s nephews-in-law were arrested in Haiti in 2015 in a sting operation by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

Maduro’s wife’s sister’s children were caught trying to smuggle 800kg of cocaine into the US.

Known since then as “narco-nephews,” Francisco Flores de Freitas and Efraín Antonio Campo Flores spent several years in a U.S. prison before being returned to Venezuela in 2022 as part of a prisoner swap with the Biden administration.

The Trump administration has now imposed new sanctions against the two and a third nephew, Carlos Erik Malpica Flores.

In announcing the sanctions, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said: “Nicolas Maduro and his criminal associates in Venezuela are flooding the United States with drugs that are poisoning the American people.”

“The Treasury holds the regime and its circle of cronies and companies responsible for their continued crimes,” he added.

“Circle of cronies” sounds like the kind of language Washington used to describe the Noriega administration in the 1980s. A U.S. Senate subcommittee report at the time called it “the hemisphere’s first narco-kleptocracy.”

Thirty-six years later, the key pillar of the Trump administration’s strategy against Maduro relies on the use of the term “narcoterrorism.”

It is controversial due to the broad scope of its legal definition. Back in 1987, the U.S. Department of Justice defined narcoterrorism as “the involvement of terrorist organizations and insurgent groups in drug trafficking,” which, it noted, “has become a problem with international implications.”

In the Venezuelan context, it is about the legal basis under international law for Washington’s recent measures, which are supposedly aimed at combating “narcoterrorism” in America.

The Trump administration said it was now in a “non-international armed conflict” with drug cartels, justifying its attacks on suspected drug ships in the Caribbean.

The Pentagon maintains that the ships are valid targets under the rules of engagement. But serious doubts have been raised in recent days about a second attack on a suspected drug ship on September 2, which killed two survivors of a first attack.

The Trump administration has vigorously defended itself against allegations that the deaths in the second attack were extrajudicial killings. But the problem has not gone away, nor have calls to make public video footage of the attack, which was recently viewed by senior lawmakers during a closed news conference for members of Congress.

After Trump initially suggested he would have “no problem” with releasing video of the follow-up attack, he said the decision rested with Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth.

So far, the Pentagon has not released the video or legal notices about the second attack, but the White House insists it was carried out “in accordance with the law of armed conflict.”

Tensions between the US and Venezuela continue to escalate and worsen, particularly after US forces seized an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude oil.

Trump has suggested that after the US takes control of the airspace and seas around Venezuela, control of the country is all that remains. Many are clinging to the hope that some sort of negotiated settlement is still possible, although it is hard to imagine one that would satisfy both Maduro and the White House.

However, considering the lesson from Panama, one thing remains clear: Even if this modern conflict is less conventional than the Christmas invasion of 1989, the explosive situation in Venezuela has no less potential to explode at any moment, as was the case with the death of Lieutenant Robert Paz in Panama, and lead to something much bigger.

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