As President Donald Trump promises U.S. military action targeting cartel operations within Venezuela’s borders, a national security expert warned there could “absolutely” be reprisals against U.S. citizens on the home front.

The Trump administration has been unleashing deadly strikes on the cartel’s drug boats from Venezuela in the Caribbean for months. Now, the president is saying he will take the fight to Venezuela proper.

In an interview with Fox News Digital, former senior Trump National Security Advisor Victoria Coates said that, though she believes the president has sweeping authority to carry out these operations, there is a possibility the cartels will attempt to retaliate by targeting U.S. citizens for terror activities.

Coates, who serves as vice president of the Heritage Foundation’s Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for National Security and Foreign Policy, pointed to the deadly shooting by an Afghan national of two National Guard soldiers just blocks from the White House during Thanksgiving week.

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“We don’t know all of what has come into the country during the Biden administration and the open border policies they pursued, but certainly there’s been a lot of latitude for the cartels,” she said.

Coates added that the Trump administration is well aware of these threats and is on high alert for any possible reprisals from cartels or forces supporting Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

The U.S. government has repeatedly linked Maduro to cartel activity. In November, the State Department designated the Cartel de los Soles, allegedly headed by Maduro, a foreign terrorist organization. 

According to the administration, the Cartel de los Soles “provides material support” to other terrorist organizations known to be in the U.S., including Tren de Aragua and the Sinaloa Cartel, both of which have been behind several high-profile violent crimes across the country. In 2024, members of Tren de Aragua allegedly seized control of an apartment building in Aurora, Colorado, and were terrorizing and extorting the residents.

In late November, Trump delivered a stern ultimatum to Maduro to leave Venezuela immediately before announcing the country’s airspace should be closed, according to The Miami Herald. According to the outlet, Washington’s warning was delivered in a phone call with Caracas and offered guaranteed evacuation for Maduro, his wife Cilia Flores and their son, but only if the dictator agreed to resign on the spot. 

Maduro, in turn, framed the escalation as “imperialist” aggression from the U.S. and vowed that “if the empire attacks us, we will defend every inch of our territory.”

This resistance could also manifest within the U.S., according to Coates, especially with the known presence of Venezuelan organized crime groups in the country.

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“They obviously have cells in the United States, both for human trafficking and for drug trafficking. And, so, that is a very, very deep concern,” Coates explained.

Coates said she knows the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are closely monitoring these threats and “are being hyper vigilant about it.”

Regarding additional actions the administration should take to mitigate the threat, Coates said this is why Trump’s deportation agenda and cartel crackdown are so important.

“That’s what they’re actually doing,” she explained. “They’re trying to track and deport as many of these bad actors as they can. So, that work is ongoing.

“Identifying where the cartels are active, what their assets are in the United States and doing everything we can to disrupt that activity, that’s what our professionals in the FBI do. That’s their job. So, they are doing it.

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“This is a new kind of threat, a drug cartel that is associated with a foreign government,” she said. “That’s why the president is taking the actions that he has.

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“The administration [has] kind of [been] feeling their way a little bit to figure out how to get after this threat. But they’re the first ones who have actually confronted it, and I think it’s critically important,” she said.

“What I think is critical for the American people to realize is this has morphed internationally into something that’s more than a drug enforcement issue,” Coates added. “We’re losing 100,000 citizens a year to the drugs that are coming in. Everyone knows fentanyl; it’s also record amounts of cocaine that are coming out of Venezuela. And it’s gone from being a nuisance to being a major national security threat.”