On Monday, President Trump announced the U.S. bombed a boat in international waters, killing three people. The attack was the second to target what the Trump administration claims are drug smugglers from Venezuela. A previous strike on another boat killed 11 people. In a third incident, the U.S. Navy raided a fishing boat in Venezuelan waters, detaining nine fishermen for eight hours. This escalating U.S. military action follows a secret directive that Trump signed approving the use of military force in Latin America and an ongoing buildup of U.S. military presence in the Caribbean.

“We have a very clear example of political theater, an attempt at provocation, an ongoing effort at regime change, and the strategy of trying to use the military to interdict drug trafficking, which has failed incredibly in Mexico, Colombia, everywhere else the U.S. has applied it,” says Venezuelan historian Miguel Tinker Salas, who adds the Trump administration is “misleading the public in indicating that these were drug traffickers with no evidence whatsoever.” He says its attempt to manufacture a crisis in Venezuela is reminiscent of the lead-up to the U.S. war on Iraq.