The Trump administration has quietly granted the Central Intelligence Agency new powers to conduct covert operations in Venezuela, a move that significantly escalates Washington’s campaign against the Nicolás Maduro regime, The New York Times reported Wednesday, citing current and former U.S. officials familiar with the decision.

The secret authorization, known as a presidential finding, allows the CIA to carry out lethal operations and a range of covert actions in Venezuela and across the Caribbean. It marks one of the most aggressive steps yet in President Donald Trump’s efforts to oust Maduro, whose socialist government U.S. officials have long accused of drug trafficking and corruption.

It is not known if the CIA has already initiated operations under the new authority, which was approved in recent weeks. It also remains unclear whether the measure is intended as a contingency plan or if missions are actively being planned.

The authorization coincides with a broader U.S. military buildup in the region. The Pentagon has deployed more than 4,500 troops, most of them based in Puerto Rico, along with a contingent of Marines aboard amphibious assault ships. The U.S. Navy has positioned eight warships and a submarine in the Caribbean as part of the expanded presence.

In recent weeks, U.S. forces have conducted a series of strikes against vessels off Venezuela’s coast that American officials said were transporting narcotics, killing at least 27 people. The attacks form part of the administration’s intensifying campaign to target what it describes as narcoterrorist operations along established smuggling routes.

Speaking from the White House on Wednesday, Trump confirmed the U.S. is now looking into targets inside Venezuela.

“I don’t want to tell you exactly, but we are certainly looking at land now, because we’ve got the sea very well under control,” he told reporters.

Trump has repeatedly said such networks pose a direct threat to U.S. national security and has characterized the strikes as lawful military actions under his executive authority. Administration officials have privately acknowledged that the ultimate goal of the campaign is to drive Maduro from power.

Venezuela’s government, meanwhile, has condemned the operations and accused Washington of manufacturing a pretext for intervention.

Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, speaking last week in a televised address to senior military officers, denounced the U.S. actions as “aggressive and illegal,” calling the drug-trafficking allegations “false” and politically motivated.

“We have to prepare ourselves because the irrationality with which the U.S. empire operates is not normal,” Padrino said. “It’s anti-political, anti-human, warmongering, rude, and vulgar.”

Padrino also rejected the Pentagon’s claim that the naval deployment was intended as a deterrent against transnational crime, describing it instead as “propaganda” and warning that it risked triggering a wider military escalation near Venezuelan waters.

The Times report said the CIA’s new powers represent a major expansion of its authority in Latin America, where the agency has historically limited its role to intelligence sharing and counter-narcotics coordination. The decision revives a Cold War-era dynamic of U.S. covert operations in the hemisphere—an approach that has often left deep political and social scars.

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McClatchy reporter Emily Goodin contributed to this story from Washington.

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