Oppose U.S. Imperialism in Venezuela

In the early morning of January 3, the U.S. military carried out major attacks on Venezuela. In complete violation of both U.S. and international law, the Trump administration ordered attacks against the capital Caracas, as well as in three other Venezuelan states, Miranda, Aragua, and La Guaira. The White House reported that they kidnapped the Venezuelan president, Nicolás Maduro, alongside his wife, Cilia Flores. Now they are in custody in New York City. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi says they will face criminal charges, and Secretary of State Marco Rubio has promised that Maduro will face repercussions for allegedly pushing drugs in the United States.

This is the culmination of months of escalation against the South American country. The Trump administration has been carrying out illegal attacks on small Venezuelan boats since September—which they have justified by claiming, without evidence, that boats were carrying drugs destined for the United States. Before the “extraction” of Maduro, the U.S. surrounded the country with a naval blockade, including a large aircraft carrier, at least seven other warships, and 15,000 U.S. troops.

Illustrating his administration’s total lack of interest in the truth, Trump has been calling Venezuela a nation of “narco-terrorists,” whose state is involved in smuggling fentanyl into the United States in order to destroy its people with the drug. This claim is made in spite of Venezuela’s not being a large-scale producer of fentanyl. Even the cocaine that is produced in the country mostly goes to Europe.

In a post on Truth Social, Trump said of the attack, “They took away our oil rights. We had a lot of oil there. They expelled our companies. And we want it back.” Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world, nearly a fifth of global supplies. The openness with which Trump speaks about plundering the resources of weaker nations without bothering to mask it in the old liberal cliches about freedom and democracy speaks volumes about the changing nature of imperialism in the current moment, which from Ukraine to Palestine, is increasingly being openly defined by the law of “might makes right.”

Trump and his cronies have long preached a return to the U.S. “isolationism” of the pre-World War II era, but the flip side of this supposed isolation has always been U.S. imperialism in the Western Hemisphere as exemplified by the Monroe Doctrine of 1823. This foreign policy document declared the hemisphere to be off-limits to European colonization, being instead the province for U.S. conquest and exploitation. It was expanded and its intentions made more explicit with the “Roosevelt Corollary” of 1904, which stated the U.S. would act as an “international police power” in the region, where “chronic wrongdoing” or a failure to pay debts would trigger U.S. intervention. Though this was officially renounced in 1934 with FDR’s “Good Neighbor Policy,” this was only ever a formal abandonment, as it has de facto been maintained up to the present day.

It would be easier to name the countries in Latin America where the U.S. has not used its imperial might to smash the people’s democratic aspirations. The history of the U.S. in Latin America is brutal and bloody. As is illustrated by today’s attack, it is a story that continues to this day. The U.S. has a long recent history of interfering with Venezuelan politics, implementing brutal sanctions on the country and trying to overthrow its elected leader in a coup in 2002 that was defeated by a popular uprising.

The White House formally updated the Monroe Doctrine in November when it published a new National Security Strategy. The document states, “After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore its pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere.” Reflecting the loss of its ability to unilaterally dominate global politics, the strategy document suggests U.S. withdrawal from the role of “world police,” instead shifting and sharpening its focus toward the complete domination of the western hemisphere.

With its attack on Venezuela, the U.S. is turning the country into a testing ground for the updated Monroe Doctrine. The intention is to shock the region into submission. Marco Rubio has made explicit attacks on the Colombian FARC and ELN, a prelude to undermining the center-left government there ahead of the May 2026 elections. Rubio has also stated: “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.” The entire region has been given notice that if they do not toe the line, their sovereignty is threatened by U.S. aggression.

While we must unconditionally support Venezuelans right to self-determination, we must do this without giving uncritical support to Maduro’s government. We must be clear that the policy choices of his government enabled this attack to succeed. The 2002 coup, against Maduro’s predecessor Hugo Chavez, failed precisely because the government enjoyed broad popular support. But as a result of the oppressive policies of the Maduro administration, that popular support has evaporated, making U.S. domination that much easier. We must oppose U.S. intervention in the region by calling for a socialism based on full democratic control of Venezuelan society.

At this point, it is quite unclear how all this will develop. Trump has declared his intention to “run the country” until a transition can be made to a new government. While the U.S. has removed the head of state, it appears that the rest of the state administration is intact, and it will not just kneel before U.S. power. This will likely be the beginning of a longer conflict which cannot but end in disaster for the people of the region.

The attacks Saturday morning have opened a new chapter in U.S. and world imperialism. The Trump administration intends to re-establish total hegemony over the western hemisphere, from Greenland in the north to Venezuela and Argentina in the south. As the global economy falters in long-term stagnation, the facade of bourgeois civility and legality becomes naked force and violent plunder. The great powers compete by tearing apart the weaker nations. We see this as much in the attack on Venezuela as we do in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, or the recent military escalation by China around Taiwan.

The vast majority of people in the U.S. oppose a war of aggression on Venezuela. We have to be clear that this war only serves the U.S. ruling class and is contrary to the interests of U.S. workers. The fight to liberate Latin America from the yoke of Yankee imperialism is also the struggle for the liberation of the U.S. working class. We must give unconditional solidarity to the Venezuelan resistance and oppose our government’s violent escalation in the region.

Featured Image credit: SWinxy; modified by Tempest.