On Wednesday, the Trump administration seized an oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela; it was reportedly carrying Venezuelan oil. “Well, we keep it, I guess,” President Trump told reporters at the White House — adding that “other things” involving Venezuela “are happening” as well.

On Thursday, the U.S. imposed new sanctions on Venezuela’s oil sector and members of President Nicolás Maduro’s family.

Before that, the Trump administration accused Venezuela’s authoritarian leader of running a “narcoterrorist” cartel and proceeded to launch at least 22 boat strikes in the Caribbean, killing at least 87 people. The president also ordered a huge buildup of U.S. forces in the region, with more than 15,000 troops and a dozen ships, including America’s most advanced aircraft carrier. Then he authorized covert action against Maduro’s government, while warning that the U.S. could strike targets inside the country “very soon.”

“We are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” Trump said in October.

All of which raises the question: Is Trump planning to launch a regime-change war against Venezuela? Here’s everything we know so far.

Who is Nicolás Maduro?

A former bus driver turned socialist union leader, Maduro succeeded President Hugo Chavez after his death in 2013. He previously served as Chavez’s vice president. Under Maduro, Venezuela has been plagued by electoral fraud, extrajudicial killings, corruption, economic hardship and hunger. Millions have fled poverty and persecution.

Maduro is widely considered a dictator. In Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election, tally sheets gathered and preserved by tens of thousands of volunteers across the country showed opposition candidate Edmundo González leading Maduro by almost 40 percentage points and winning every state. Independent analyses later validated these results. Yet Maduro clung to power anyway, cracking down on dissent.

What has Trump said about Maduro?

In an interview on Monday, Politico asked Trump “how far” he would go “to take Maduro out of office?”

“I don’t want to say that,” Trump responded.

“But you want to see him out?” Politico followed up.

“His days are numbered,” Trump said.

When asked about an “American ground invasion,” the president would not rule out the possibility. “I don’t want to talk to you about military strategy,” Trump told Politico, adding only that “I want the people of Venezuela to be treated well.”

This is not the first time Trump has been coy about his intentions regarding Venezuela. But his apparent openness to military action contrasts with his “America First” approach to foreign policy and his stated opposition to the “endless wars” and “nation building” misadventures of previous administrations.

What do drugs have to do with this?

The Trump administration has publicly framed its pressure campaign against Venezuela — and its boat strikes in particular — as an effort to stem the flow of illegal drugs. According to the administration, drug cartels are “nonstate armed groups” whose actions “constitute an armed attack against the United States” — forcing the U.S. to fight back in a formal “armed conflict.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, meanwhile, has described Maduro as one of the "world's most notorious narco-traffickers.”

Experts have questioned both the legality and the substance of this argument, noting that Venezuela does not send illicit fentanyl to the U.S. and remains a relatively minor player in the global narcotics trade. “The notion that the United States — and this is what the administration says is their justification — is involved in an armed conflict with any drug dealers, any Venezuelan drug dealers, is ludicrous,” Rep. Jim Himes, a Democrat from Connecticut and ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, told CBS. “It wouldn’t stand up in a single court of law.”

Instead, the administration appears to be emphasizing Maduro’s connections to Venezuela’s cartel network in order to argue that “removing him from power is ultimately a counternarcotics operation” meant to eliminate an “imminent threat” to the U.S., as the New York Times recently reported.

What do we know about the administration’s plans so far?

In September, the Times reported that top Trump aides — led by Secretary of State Marco Rubio — were pushing to launch a broader military campaign to remove Maduro from power.

The son of Cuban exiles, Rubio has long sought the ouster of anti-American leftist strongmen in Latin America.

To that end, the Pentagon has drawn up plans for potential military actions in Venezuela, including a Special Operations strike to kill or capture Maduro; opposition figures have spoken with Trump administration officials about what comes next; and María Corina Machado, Maduro’s leading opponent, said this week that the U.S. helped her leave the country to accept her Nobel Peace Prize in Norway.

Maduro himself is said to have tightened his personal security in response to Washington’s threats. Earlier this year, Maduro’s officials reportedly told the Trump administration that he might leave office in 2027; Maduro also “offered the United States a significant stake in the country’s oil fields, along with a host of other opportunities for American companies, in an effort to defuse tensions,” according to the Times. But the U.S. cut off those discussions.

Trump and Maduro reportedly spoke by phone in late November; the Times characterized the call as potentially “the beginning of an effort to create an off-ramp from an escalating use of force.”

But in response to a reporter earlier this month, Trump insisted his approach to Venezuela is “not a pressure campaign.”

“It’s much beyond that,” he said.

What about oil?

Crippled by years of sanctions, Venezuela currently produces little oil — less than 1% of what the world uses. But its proven reserves are vast: an estimated 303 billion barrels, more than any other country.

This has led some, including Maduro’s government, to speculate about Trump’s true motive.

“It is not migration. It is not drug trafficking. It is not democracy. It is not human rights,” the Venezuelan government said in a statement after the U.S. seized the oil tanker off Venezuela’s coast earlier this week. “It has always been about our natural wealth, our oil, our energy, the resources that belong exclusively to the Venezuelan people.”

Florida Rep. María Elvira Salazar, a Republican, recently told Fox News that Venezuela could be “a field day” for the “American oil companies.” (Only Chevron currently operates there, in a limited capacity.)

"American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with ... oil and the derivatives," Salazar said.

But analysts warn that “it would take tens of billions of dollars — and potentially a decade [of work] — to raise output … significantly,” according to the BBC. The more likely explanation is that Trump is trying to make it harder for Maduro to remain in power by squeezing him economically.

"I just have not seen the supporting evidence that oil is at the center of [the administration’s] ambitions," Clayton Seigle, a senior fellow for energy security at the think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the British outlet.