Trump’s Looming “Forever War”

The present moment is exceptionally dangerous for the nations and peoples of Latin America and for communities across the United States. The actions of the U.S. government put us all at risk.

While the Trump regime’s murderous bombing of small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean are world-class crimes in their own right, they are not happening in isolation. They openly signal Trump’s and his administration’s intention to wage war on Venezuela in order to install a pro-U.S. puppet regime in that country or to compel the existing government to surrender Venezuela’s oil resources to U.S. corporate exploitation.

The pretext for the boat bombings is a transparent lie. Venezuela does not produce fentanyl, which is responsible for most U.S. drug-related deaths, and less than 10 percent of the illegal drugs that enter the U.S. go through Venezuela. These murders are not about “stopping narco-terrorism;” they’re about displaying imperial power to assassinate at will without even the appearance of arrest or trial.

They’re also intimately connected to the same contempt for judicial process or “rule of law” happening in U.S. cities and towns, where masked terrorist gangs called Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) snatch and disappear people off the streets, work sites, stores and day care centers in immigrant communities, treating their people as subhumans without rights or recourse.

The racism of this campaign is undisguised. At the same time that Trump is assaulting Venezuelan asylum seekers and eliminating refugee admissions in 2026, he’s making an exception to bring seven thousand white Afrikaners into the U.S. on the absurd pretense of “white genocide” in South Africa.

The big, beautiful resistance rising up against ICE raids in our communities needs to be joined by antiwar mobilizations to stop Trump’s assault on Venezuela and Latin America. Trump ran for president deceptively promising his MAGA base that he would end the United States’ “forever wars.”  In office, he’s not only continued support for a Israeli-U.S. genocide in Gaza, he’s now also pursuing a course that would produce continental chaos in Latin America.

The Trump gang’s goal is not only crushing whatever hopes remain from the early 2000s “Bolivarian Revolution.” It aims to isolate Colombia’s moderately progressive government, strengthen Trump’s alliance with the far-right regime of Argentina, and embolden the military forces hoping to restore neo-fascist rule in Brazil under Trump’s friend Jair Bolsonaro.

The Maduro government in Venezuela is repressive and unpopular. Despite its claims, it does not sustain a socialist economy. We are not supporters of this regime. Along with the crippling criminal sanctions imposed by U.S. imperialism on Venezuela, Maduro shares some responsibility for the catastrophic economic situation and social calamity which has driven millions of Venezuelans to leave the country.

Any regime change imposed by imperialism would only worsen this catastrophe. We demand “Hands Off Venezuela,” “End All U.S. Sanctions,” and we speak out in solidarity with the people of Venezuela and their right to national sovereignty and to organize for democratic rights in their country.

We understand that for the militarist-neocon wing of the Republican cult, notably Trump’s Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio, Venezuela is an initial target toward the longtime fantasy of regime change in Cuba to complete the restoration of U.S. capitalist hegemony in Latin America.

How far will any of this go? In essence, as far as Trump and the far right are allowed before popular resistance stops them. Only mass mobilization of antiwar action in the form of protests, strikes, and direct action can stop the imperial war machine and Trump’s illegal and unconstitutional ICE terror and monstrous deportations.

These are not separate struggles. Blowing up boats in Caribbean and Pacific waters is not a sideshow, but a display of imperial-presidential arrogance and impunity with appalling implications for the hemisphere and the world.  We call on all social movement and labor activists, unions, community and your organizations in the United States to oppose all U.S. aggressions against Venezuela, and be ready to take the streets in mass to defend the right of self-determination of the Venezuelan people.