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The No Cold War collective stands in firm opposition to the illegal embargo of Venezuela, the sanctions policy, and the military aggression already faced by Venezuela through the armada and the attack on small boats. We believe that this aggression in the Caribbean has nothing to do with human rights or democracy. The United States has tried to overthrow the government of Venezuela since the Bolivarian process passed the Hydrocarbons Law in 2001, which increased taxation on oil extraction for transnational companies and mandated a minimum state participation of 51% in ‘mixed companies’ for private partners. The first coup against the Bolivarian process was in 2002, not even a year after the Hydrocarbons Law was passed. This attack on Venezuela is about oil. It always was about oil. And it always will be about oil. The United States government is trying to use its financial and military instruments to overthrow the Venezuelan government not for the Venezuelan people but for the US oil companies.

In the US National Security Strategy 2025, the administration of President Donald Trump made it clear that his government would now focus attention on the Western Hemisphere so that the US can restore its dominance in the region. It has evoked the 1823 Monroe Doctrine with a Trump Corollary – namely to enforce the Doctrine with armed will – to suggest that the US has licence to do what it wants in this region. But, in fact, the Monroe Doctrine is not international law; international law, namely rooted in the United Nations Charter, prevents any attack without a UN Security Council resolution. If the US does attack Venezuela, then that is a violation of international law and would immediately constitute a war crime (in the same way as the US illegal war on Iraq in 2003 was a war crime).

The United States has been at war with Venezuela since 2002, when it participated in a failed coup against President Hugo Chávez. For almost a quarter of a century, the United States has been trying to overthrow not only the government in Venezuela but the Bolivarian process that seeks to enhance the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of the Venezuelan people.

We call upon the world’s people to stand with the Venezuelan people against this aggression by the United States and its allies in Latin America and the Caribbean as well as Europe. The world must not allow such aggression to continue.

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Declaración de No Cold War sobre la agresión de Estados Unidos contra Venezuela

El colectivo No Cold War se opone firmemente al embargo ilegal de Venezuela, a la política de sanciones y a la agresión militar que viene sufriendo Venezuela a través de la armada estadounidense y el ataque a pequeñas embarcaciones. Creemos que esta agresión en el Caribe no tiene nada que ver con los derechos humanos ni con la democracia. Estados Unidos ha intentado derrocar al Gobierno de Venezuela desde que el proceso bolivariano aprobó la Ley de Hidrocarburos en 2001, que aumentó los impuestos sobre la extracción de petróleo para las empresas transnacionales y estableció una participación estatal mínima del 51 % en las «empresas mixtas» para los socios privados. El primer golpe de Estado contra el proceso bolivariano se produjo en 2002, ni siquiera un año después de la aprobación de la Ley de Hidrocarburos. Este ataque a Venezuela tiene que ver con el petróleo. Siempre ha tenido que ver con el petróleo. Y siempre tendrá que ver con el petróleo. El Gobierno de Estados Unidos está tratando de utilizar sus instrumentos financieros y militares para derrocar al Gobierno venezolano, no por el pueblo venezolano, sino por las empresas petroleras estadounidenses.

En la Estrategia de Seguridad Nacional de Estados Unidos para 2025, la administración del presidente Donald Trump dejó claro que su Gobierno centraría ahora su atención en el hemisferio occidental para que Estados Unidos pudiera restaurar su dominio en la región. Ha evocado la Doctrina Monroe de 1823 con un corolario de Trump, es decir, hacer cumplir la Doctrina con la fuerza armada, para sugerir que Estados Unidos tiene licencia para hacer lo que quiera en esta región. Pero, de hecho, la Doctrina Monroe no es derecho internacional; el derecho internacional, basado en la Carta de las Naciones Unidas, impide cualquier ataque sin una resolución del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU. Si Estados Unidos ataca a Venezuela, eso constituiría una violación del derecho internacional y se consideraría inmediatamente un crimen de guerra (al igual que la guerra ilegal de Estados Unidos contra Irak en 2003 fue un crimen de guerra).

Estados Unidos está en guerra con Venezuela desde 2002, cuando participó en un golpe de Estado fallido contra el presidente Hugo Chávez. Durante casi un cuarto de siglo, Estados Unidos ha intentado derrocar no solo al Gobierno de Venezuela, sino también al proceso revolucionario bolivariano que busca defender la soberanía del país y la dignidad del pueblo venezolano.

Hacemos un llamamiento a los pueblos del mundo para que se unan al pueblo venezolano contra esta agresión de Estados Unidos y sus aliados en América Latina y el Caribe, así como en Europa. El mundo no debe permitir que continúe esta agresión.

Persian

By Tings Chak

On December 10, 2025, US forces seized the oil tanker Skipper off the coast of Venezuela, carrying over a million barrels of crude. “Well, we keep [the oil],” President Trump told reporters. Venezuela’s foreign ministry called it “blatant theft and an act of international piracy,” adding: “The true reasons for the prolonged aggression against Venezuela have finally been revealed. It has always been about our natural wealth, our oil.”

That same day, on the other side of the world, China released its third Policy Paper on Latin America and the Caribbean (the first since 2016) outlining a vision of partnership “without attaching any political conditions.” The timing captures the choice now facing Latin America. Two documents released within a week — Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) on December 5 and China’s policy paper five days later — lay bare fundamentally different approaches to the hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine returns

Trump’s NSS makes no pretense of diplomatic subtlety. It declares a ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine, asserting US opposition to “hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets” in the hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere is now America’s “highest priority”, with three threats requiring military response: migration, drugs, and China.

Countries seeking US assistance must demonstrate they are “winding down adversarial outside influence” — a demand that Latin American nations cut ties with Beijing. The strategy promises “targeted deployments” and “the use of lethal force” against cartels. It states that Washington will “reward and encourage the region’s governments … aligned with our principles and strategies.” Unsurprisingly, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio rushed to congratulate Chile’s Trump-inspired extreme right wing candidate José Antonio Kast, who won the presidency with 58% of the vote (the most right-wing leader since Pinochet).

The tanker seizure shows what this doctrine looks like in practice. Since September, US strikes on boats have killed 95 people. The USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group patrols the Caribbean. As Colombian President Gustavo Petro observed, Trump is “not thinking about the democratization of Venezuela, let alone the narco-trafficking” — only oil. After declaring that a new phase of attacks could include “land strikes on Venezuela”, Trump threatened the Colombian president that “he’ll be next” as well as invasion of Mexico.

China’s alternative

China’s policy paper operates from an entirely different premise. Opening by identifying China as “a developing country and member of the Global South,” it positions the relationship as South-South cooperation and solidarity rather than great power competition. The document proposes five programs: Solidarity, Development, Civilization, Peace, and People-to-People Connectivity.

What distinguishes this paper from its 2008 and 2016 predecessors is its explicit call for “local currency pricing and settlement’ in energy trade to “reduce the impact of external economic and financial risks” — new language directly addressing the weaponization of the dollar. This trend has been underway, as highlighted by the R$157 billion (USD 28 billion) currency swap agreement between Brazil and China, signed during Brazilian president Lula’s visit to the Asian country in May this year.

China’s policy paper supports the “Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace”— a pointed contrast to US twenty-first century gunboat diplomacy. And it contains a line clearly responding to Washington’s pressure: “The China-LAC relationship does not target or exclude any third party, nor is it subjugated by any third party.”

The historical pattern

Of course, the focus on the “China threat” to “US pre-eminence” in the region is not new. In August 1961, progressive Brazilian Vice President João Goulart visited China, the first high-ranking Latin American official to do so after the Chinese Revolution. At a mass rally in Beijing, he declared that China showed “how a people, looked down upon by others for past centuries, can emancipate themselves from the yoke of their exploiters.”

The US response was swift. American media constructed a narrative linking Brazilian agrarian reform movements to a “communist threat from China.” On April 1, 1964 (less than three years after Goulart’s visit) a US-backed military coup overthrew him. Twenty-one years of dictatorship followed.

The playbook remains the same. In the 1960s, the pretext was “communist threat”; today it’s “China threat.” And what’s at stake is Latin American sovereignty. What makes this moment different is economic weight. China-LAC trade reached a record US$518.47 billion in 2024, according to China’s Ministry of Commerce. China’s share of trade with Mercosur countries has grown from 2% to 24% since 2000. At the May 2025 CELAC-China Forum, Xi Jinping announced a USD 9 billion investment credit line. In 1964, Latin America had few alternatives. Today, China presents another option.

The question before the Latin American people

The right-wing surge across the continent is undeniable — Kast in Chile, Milei in Argentina, the end of MAS rule in Bolivia. These victories reflect the limitations of progressive governments when addressing crime, migration, and economic stagnation. But they also reflect how US-generated crises become the terrain on which the right wins.

The question is whether Latin American governments (including right-wing ones) want to be subordinates in what Trump’s strategy calls an “American-led world.” Even Western liberal analysts are alarmed. Brookings describes the NSS as “essentially assert[ing] a neo-imperialist presence in the region.” Chatham House notes that Trump uses “coercion instead of negotiation”, contrasted with China, “which has been providing investment and credit … without imposing conditions.”

That being said, China’s presence in Latin America is not without contradictions. The structure of trade remains imbalanced — Latin America exports raw materials and imports manufactured goods. Meanwhile, labor and environmental concerns linked to specific Chinese private enterprises cannot be ignored. Whether the relationship enables development or reproduces dependency depends on what Latin American governments demand: technology transfer, local production, industrial policy. This agenda for a sovereign national project must be pushed forward by the Latin American people and popular forces.

At present, the differences between the two visions being presented of the “US-led world” and a “community with a shared future” have never been starker.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and previously published here by Peoples Dispatch.

Tings Chak is the Asia Co-Coordinator of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and an editor of Wenhua Zongheng: A Journal of Contemporary Chinese Thought.

By Biljana Vankovska

Like every U.S. administration since the Cold War, the Trump administration has released a document titled the National Security Strategy (NSS). I use the word “titled” deliberately, for if this text were not stamped with the official seal of the United States, it would hardly merit the designation of “strategy.” It is a document that contains little that is strategic and even less that is new. Instead, it offers a repackaged and thinly veiled continuation of the deep-rooted impulses of U.S. imperialism: the unyielding quest for global domination, diplomatically sanitized as “foreign policy.” This core objective remains the one constant in Washington, regardless of the president’s party or personality. Only the rhetoric changes, a superficial gloss applied so that each president can claim a unique and historic legacy.

          The document’s poor quality, variously and accurately described by critics as a “buzzword salad” or less coherent than a text produced by ChatGPT, does not absolve us from the duty of analysis. While some intelligent voices in the foreign policy establishment argue for focusing on actions over words, this view is dangerously incomplete. From a constructivist perspective, where language and narratives shape reality, the pronouncements emanating from the world’s highest office produce tangible, real-world effects. The heated, almost panicked debate currently unfolding across Europe’s political and media circles is a case in point.

          Once again, we hear the familiar, anxious questions echoing from Berlin to Brussels: Is this the definitive end of the Euro-Atlantic alliance? Are the U.S. and Europe, long described by Robert Kagan as civilizational opposites from Mars and Venus, finally on the brink of a formal “divorce”? This internal fracturing of the West, a political and ideological schism, is perhaps a more compelling and immediate “clash of civilizations” than the one Samuel Huntington ever envisioned. However, to claim this NSS is a “geopolitical earthquake,” as some have, is a dramatic overstatement. The European Union’s strategic decline, its slow slide into geopolitical irrelevance, began long before Trump’s tenure and will, in all likelihood, continue long after. The more critical question is whether the U.S. truly benefits from a policy of radical antagonism that alienates its most loyal vassals and best customers, i.e. the very nations that sustain its bloated military-industrial complex by dutifully committing to NATO’s exorbitant spending targets.

          Ultimately, the NSS reads less like a strategic document and more like a tribute crafted for an audience of one. Its vocabulary is a signature blend of Trumpian superficiality, hubris, and a lecturing tone directed squarely at its allies. Much like the sycophantic tailors in Hans Christian Andersen’s The Emperor’s New Clothes, the authors have crafted a text designed to satisfy a profoundly narcissistic leader, reflecting his own grandiose self-image back to him. One can almost hear the guiding principle behind its drafting, a daily incantation before a magical mirror: “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the mightiest and richest of them all?” The answer is preordained, even if the emperor is naked. This is a document destined to be forgotten, a transient piece of political theater, perhaps even by its own mercurial subject, who is known to change his mind on strategic issues multiple times a day.

          The supposed primary target of this strategy, Europe, is framed as a civilization in need of “repair” (as if the United States today is a paradise of universal values). This is a laughable premise given its own internal crises. This crusade against “Bidenism,” woke culture, and liberal European elites is coupled with the imposition of an U.S.-style xenophobic, proto-fascist anti-migration policy intended to forge a “clean,” white, Christian Europe. Yet, this is largely a distraction, a sideshow. The quarrel with Europe is a dysfunctional marital spat, not a fundamental geostrategic realignment. Europe, trapped in a militarized logic and deluded by nostalgic fantasies of a reborn Fourth Reich, remains a threat only to itself. It will, in the end, remain submissive; the Empire will remain the master. If they fall, they will fall together.

          Far more significant is what the NSS projects for the regions beyond the collective West. The proclaimed return to Latin America under a “Donroe Doctrine”, a twisted homage to the Monroe Doctrine, is nothing new. The U.S. never truly left its “backyard”; look at Cuba, for instance. What is new, and deeply dangerous, is the signal of a much firmer, more aggressive hand, one that openly legitimizes war and covert action as tools of discipline and exploitation. Venezuela is the first and most immediate target, where acts of aggression and war crimes are already underway, met with a deafening international silence from the same Western voices so vocally concerned with sovereignty in Ukraine.

          Toward Russia and China, the rhetoric may have softened, but the old adage holds true: a wolf may change its fur, but not its nature. Believing the U.S. has genuinely accepted a multipolar world is, as my friend John Ross wittily remarked, like believing a tiger has decided to become a vegetarian. The softer tone is merely tactical. It is a calculated attempt to disrupt the deepening Beijing-Moscow partnership, to pursue new resource deals in the Arctic, and to cynically leave Europe to shoulder the immense burden of sustaining a collapsing Ukrainian state. The underlying containment strategy, evidenced by the reinforcement of the “First Island Chain” around China, remains firmly in place. This is not a strategy for peace, but a tactical timeout in a long-term confrontation.

          Stripped of its seductive noise and patriotic platitudes, the Strategy is painfully honest in its core intentions: deeper militarization of the globe, reinforcement of Cold War-era containment policies, and the pursuit of a “global NATO” to replace the faltering European original. The talk of the “Western Hemisphere” is simply a euphemism for a new colonial crusade, an effort to plunder the Americas for the resources needed to fuel its own desperate attempt at self-preservation. Russia, China, and Iran remain the primary targets, with the document’s only change being a slightly more subtle formulation: “avoiding domination by any other competitor.”

          Ultimately, this incoherent and contradictory document reveals not the strength, but the profound weakness of a declining empire. The United States has lost its compass and lacks strategists capable of navigating a new and complex era. It remains dangerous, not because of a grand strategic vision, but because of its immense military might, now wielded by a reckless administration long divorced from international law and the UN Charter. This amateurish NSS is a declaration of war, a blueprint for plunder, and a confession of weakness. The U.S. no longer has the power to reshape the world in its image, but as the ongoing aggression against Venezuela and the genocide in Gaza tragically prove, it still has enough power to harm the new world struggling to be born.

Perhaps we have wasted too much energy on the obvious: a document not worth the paper it’s printed on. Our real problem is the slow mobilization of the Global Majority to prevent the catastrophe that will accompany the Empire’s final days. Our task, for those of us from below, is to act as midwives to a new and better world, not merely as interpreters of a decaying one. This follows the wisdom of Marx himself, who taught that the point is not simply to interpret the world, but to change it.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Biljana Vankovska is a professor of political science and international relations at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje, a member of the Transnational Foundation of Peace and Future Research (TFF) in Lund, Sweden, and the most influential public intellectual in Macedonia. She is a member of the No Cold War collective.

By Vijay Prashad

Ever since Hugo Chávez came to power in 1998, the United States has attempted to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution. They have tried everything short of a full-scale military invasion: a military coup, selecting a substitute president, cutting off access to the global financial system, imposing layers of sanctions, sabotaging the electricity grid, sending in mercenaries, and attempting to assassinate its leaders. If you can think of a method to overthrow a government, the United States has likely tried it against Venezuela.

However, in 2025, the escalation became unmistakable. The US sent its warships to patrol Venezuela’s coast, began sinking small boats and killing those on board as they left the South American mainland, and seized an oil tanker bound for Cuba. The quantity of attacks on Venezuela has increased, suggesting the quality of the threats has now reached a different magnitude. It feels as if the United States is preparing for a full-blown invasion of the country.

Donald Trump came to office saying that he was opposed to military interventions that did not further US interests, which is why he called the illegal US war on Iraq a waste of “blood and treasure”. This does not mean Trump is against the use of the US military – he deployed it in Afghanistan (remember the “Mother of all Bombs”) and Yemen, and has fully backed the US/Israeli genocide against the Palestinians. His formula is not for or against war categorically, but about what the US would gain from it. With Iraq, he stated that the problem was not the war itself, but the failure to seize Iraqi oil. Had the US taken Iraq’s oil, Trump would likely have been in Baghdad, ready to build – with Iraqi treasure – a Trump hotel on one of the former presidential properties.

Naturally, the US military buildup in the Caribbean is about Venezuelan oil – the largest known reserves in the world. The US-backed politician, Maria Corina Machado, awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just this week after supporting the Israeli genocide and calling for a US invasion of her own country, is on record promising to open up her country’s resources to foreign capital. She would welcome the extraction of Venezuela’s wealth rather than allow its social wealth to better the lives of its own people, as is the goal of the Bolivarian Revolution started by Hugo Chávez. A hypothetical “President Machado” would immediately surrender any claim to the Essequibo region and grant ExxonMobil full command of Venezuela’s oil reserves. This is certainly the prize.

But it is not the immediate spur. A close reading of the 2025 National Security Strategy of the United States shows that there is a renewed emphasis on the Western Hemisphere. The Trump Corollary to the 1823 Monroe Doctrine is clear: the Western Hemisphere must be under US control, and the United States will do what it takes to ensure that only pro-US politicians hold power. It is worth reading that section of the National Security Strategy:

“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere. This ‘Trump Corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine is a common-sense and potent restoration of American power and priorities, consistent with American security interests.”

When Argentina faced local elections, Trump warned that the US would cut off external financing if candidates opposing pro-US President Javier Milei lost. In Honduras, Trump intervened directly to oppose the Libre Party, even offering to release a convicted drug trafficker (and former President). The United States is moving aggressively because it has accurately assessed the weakness of the Pink Tide and the strength of a new, far-right “Angry Tide”. The emergence of right-wing governments across South America, Central America, and the Caribbean has emboldened the US to squeeze Venezuela and thereby weaken Cuba – the two major poles of the Latin American left. Overturning these revolutionary processes would allow a full-scale Monroe Doctrine domination of Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since the 1990s, the United States began to speak of Latin America as a partner for shared prosperity, emphasizing globalization over direct control. Now, the language has changed. As the Trump Corollary asserts: “We want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets and that supports critical supply chains…We want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.” Latin America is seen as a battlefield for geopolitical competition against China and a source of threats like immigration and drug trafficking. The attack on Venezuela and Cuba is not merely an assault on these two countries; it is the opening salvo of direct US intervention on behalf of the Angry Tide. This will not deliver better lives for the population, but greater wealth for US corporations and the oligarchies of Latin America.

Trump is ready to revive the belief that any problem can be solved by military force, even when other tools exist. The Trump Corollary promises to use its “military system superior to any country in the world” to steal the hemisphere’s resources.

The aggression against Venezuela is not a war against Venezuela alone. It is a war against all of Latin America.

Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of LeftWord Books and the director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. He has written more than 20 books, including The Darker Nations and The Poorer Nations. His latest books are On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle (with Noam Chomsky), Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism, and (also with Noam Chomsky) The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power. Chelwa and Prashad will publish How the International Monetary Fund is Suffocating Africa later this year with Inkani Books.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter.

By Tim Young (Venezuela Solidarity Campaign – Britain)

For the past few weeks the Trump administration has intensified its long-standing aggression against Venezuela by deploying warships (including a nuclear submarine) in the Caribbean Sea in a purported anti-narcotics operation. US forces have carried out at least five incidents of strikes on boats in Venezuelan waters to date, killing 37 people. Trump’s latest move has been to authorise the CIA to conduct covert operations inside Venezuela.

President Nicolas Maduro, as Venezuela’s current leader, has been a focus of this ‘war on drugs’ narrative, justifying the US’s illegal actions by demonising him as a ‘narco-terrorist’ engaged in drug trafficking, despite UN evidence to the contrary. The US also portrays him as being an illegitimate leader, offering a bounty of $50 million for his capture.

But overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution has been a project of US imperialism ever since Huge Chávez became President in 1999 and set about transforming the country through a series of far-reaching measures including healthcare, education, land redistribution and anti-poverty programmes.

Key to these revolutionary changes was, and still is, the massive wealth in oil reserves that Venezuela has – the largest in the world – and the revenues generated from them. Chávez’s massive programme of wealth redistribution redirected these oil revenues to collective social purposes rather than funding the opulent lifestyle of Venezuela’s elites.

Additionally, to help realise his vision that “another world is possible”, not just for Venezuela, Chávez also envisaged (and ultimately helped create) key regional organisations to unite Latin American voices and provide progressive economic alternatives to neo-liberalism.

Aghast at what this represented, both politically and economically, the US has ever since then, in concert with the extreme right-wing elites in Venezuela, sought to destabilise the country and effect ‘regime change’.

In 2002, a US-backed military coup temporarily ousted Chávez before a spontaneous popular uprising restored him to the presidency. Other US tactics to destabilise the country have included massive funding of opposition groups to try –unsuccessfully – to win elections, coupled with disinformation campaigns to isolate the country, campaigns of violence on the streets, further coup attempts and domestic sabotage.

But the most powerful US weapon against Venezuela has been an increasingly severe set of economic sanctions, illegal under international law, designed to destroy the economy and bring the country to its knees.

The US sanctions, first introduced by Obama in 2015 and ramped up by Trump in his first presidency into a crippling economic, trade and financial blockade, led to a 99% fall in oil revenues and well over a hundred thousand unnecessary deaths.

Complementing this, Trump has at various times threatened military action against Venezuela. He also backed minor politician Juan Guaidό’s attempt to bring about ‘regime change’ by declaring himself ’interim president’ in 2019. But despite lavish bankrolling of his activities, including insurrectionary adventures, with confiscated Venezuelan assets, this attempt at ‘regime change’ fizzled out when the right-wing Venezuelan opposition ditched Guaidó in December 2022.

Throughout and to this day, the British government has supported the US’s policy, even levying its own sanctions and withholding 31 tons of Venezuelan gold worth roughly $2 billion lodged in the Bank of England’s vaults.

Despite all this, the Venezuelan economy has survived – even growing by between 5 to 6% in 2024 – though at the cost of great hardship for millions of ordinary Venezuelans.

But the political and economic dynamics motivating this drive by US imperialism to secure ‘regime change’ have not lessened.

Politically, Venezuela’s commitment to Latin American independence and resistance to neo-liberalism are anathema to the US’s historic and continuing commitment to the Monroe Doctrine. Recent progressive left electoral successes in Mexico, Colombia, Honduras, Brazil and Uruguay, for example, are seen by the US government as a challenge to its dominance.

Economically, Venezuela is a rich country with vast mineral reserves, but the prize is its oil. In 2023 Trump himself publicly admitted that he wanted to overthrow Maduro to secure control over Venezuela’s oil, mirroring the way he boasted in 2020 that he was militarily occupying Syria’s crude oil-rich regions in order to “take the oil”.

The overthrow of the Bolivarian Revolution would enable the US to control Venezuela’s oil and help sustain the US’s faltering economy, as well as shore up the rhetoric of Trump’s ‘America First’ agenda.

But Trump is being challenged domestically, in the media and Congress. Although Congressional Democrats have long supported sanctions against Venezuela, their Senate resolution requiring Trump to seek Congressional authorisation before any further military strikes purportedly aimed at drug cartels was defeated 48-51 (with two Republicans in favour and one Democrat against).

Opposition in Latin America and the Caribbean is much more forthright. The region is clear about the enormous implications if the US were to be successful in securing ‘regime change’, especially for the future of blockaded Cuba, which has been in US Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s sights for longer than Venezuela, and for heavily-sanctioned Nicaragua. Trump has also been making very similar threats against President Petro’s government in Colombia, calling openly for ‘regime change’.

Encapsulating these concerns, the ALBA bloc of countries issued a statement strongly condemning the US’s actions: “These manoeuvres not only constitute a direct attack on the independence of Venezuela, but also a threat to the stability and self-determination of all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (…) We categorically reject the orders from the United States government to deploy military forces under false pretexts, with the clear intention of imposing illegal, interventionist policies that are contrary to the constitutional order of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean.”

The Venezuela Solidarity Campaign (VSC) has launched a petition urging governments and political actors internationally to join in opposing military intervention and all threats to peace in the region.

The British government has disgracefully failed to join the criticism being voiced in Latin America and the US of Trump’s illegal actions, committing only to “fighting the scourge of drugs…accordance with the fundamental principles of the UN Charter”.

A linked letter to Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper is therefore urging them to join the international effort against military intervention and in support of peace.

VSC will be joining with forces across the British labour, peace and solidarity movements to express maximum opposition to US military aggression in the weeks and months ahead.

The above article was originally published here by the British – Stop the War Coalition.

The Organizing Committee for the International People’s Response Against APEC 2025 (“Organizing Committee”) will convene an International People’s Summit (“Summit”) in opposition to APEC 2025 Korea and Trump’s predatory neoliberalism.

The APEC Summit has completely excluded public participation from all its meetings including the CEO Summit and Leaders’ Meeting. The agendas discussed in APEC meetings have profound implications for people across the globe. At this moment, we are facing interconnected crises—climate change, war, economic inequality, and violations of the rights of minorities and migrants. However, the APEC Summit has failed to address any of these challenges or take a stand against Trump’s unilateral economic aggression and predatory neoliberalism.

In response, the International People’s Summit will release a joint declaration from progressive political parties, civil society organizations, activists, and intellectuals from APEC member economies and beyond. It will also launch a collective effort to build people-centered alternatives through international solidarity.

The declaration condemns the APEC summit, which only serves corporate and the geopolitical interests of the powerful countries, and denounces Trump’s predatory neoliberalism. It reaffirms our shared commitment to forge people-centered alternatives through international people’s action. Our solidarity extends beyond resistance to APEC 2025 Korea and Trump, but moves forward to a broader and stronger international solidarity.

We invite you to join us as a signatory to this declaration which envisions alternatives built by and for people everywhere. Individuals and organizations who share this vision are welcome to endorse it. The statement will be formally adopted at the People’s Summit on Nov. 1, announced at a press conference, and shared globally during the International People’s March that follows. We look forward to your active support and participation.

🗓️ Due: October 31 12:00 pm (KST) / October 31 3:00 am (UTC) / October 30 8:00 pm (PST)

The 2025 International People’s Declaration – “We oppose APEC – We oppose Trump – And, we want an economy for all”

The APEC Leaders Summit will convene in Gyeongju from Oct. 31 to Nov. 1st. In response, left and progressive activists and organizations from APEC member economies and from around the world will also be gathering. We will hold our International People’s Summit to carry the voices of the world’s people, who oppose APEC 2025 and Trump. So, we hereby adopt the following International People’s Declaration.

1. The peoples of the world oppose this anti-people APEC that only serves up a feast for Trump and the monopoly capital of global conglomerates. In contrast, we are launching the International People’s Action for an economy for the people.

2. Consisting only of closed-door meetings among heads of state, corporate leaders, and ministers, APEC is an assembly of power and capital representing only the interests of powerful countries and big business. Since January, nearly thirty high-level official meetings have been held on issues such as AI, aging societies, food security, and energy, but the people have had no access to them. Nowhere on the APEC agenda do we find the world’s peoples who struggle for the livelihoods of workers and farmers, for gender equality, for the rights of minorities and migrants, against climate crisis and war.

We oppose APEC and all international conferences that exclude the world’s working people and serve only the interests of powerful countries and corporate capital. Summits behind closed doors must be put to an end. All discussions must be immediately disclosed to the world’s peoples, and popular participation must be guaranteed.

3. Trump’s economic war will provide no escape from the dual decline of the rate of profit and productivity which plagues neoliberalism. His economic strategy is merely a shift from a neoliberalism of expropriation to a neoliberalism of predation. The core essence is unchanged, but the economic war has merely intensified the violence and savagery. Trump’s economic aggression serves only the interests of the great powers headed by the United States, the profit of fossil-fuel energy businesses and the military industrial complex, and the development of particular monopolies; it cannot solve the dilemmas of humanity: the crises of labor, climate, inequality, war, and discrimination against migrants. We will build an alternative to Trump’s neoliberalism: an economy of the people, by the people, for the people.   

4. One by one the world has been preyed upon by Trump’s ruthless tariff war. It has not mounted an effective response against it. Even in this situation, heads of states and governments everywhere praise their own diplomacy as successes, fawning over Trump in hopes of shaving a few percentage points off their tariffs. Meanwhile, the economy collapses beginning with small countries in Africa, spreading to Asia and Latin America, through Europe and eventually to the United States. The people will bear the brunt of this crisis, as their livelihoods collapse and inequality deepens.

Trump’s ambition to rescue neoliberalism from the global economic crisis will fail due to its own contradictions. However, nothing simply happens on its own. We must struggle to bring a swift end to Trump’s economic war that will surely sweep the world’s peoples into disaster. 

5. Trump’s economic war stands for the interests of carbon-emitting capital, further intensifying the climate crisis. Instead of solutions, we see a regression to a carbon-emitting economy. Capital crosses borders with ease, shattering the lives of workers, while migrants seeking better lives become targets of exclusion and hate. Discrimination and hostility toward women are wielded as political weapons, and hard-won values of gender equality are dismantled in an instant.

We stand against the politics of exclusion and hate. We demand a broader and deeper democracy for all. We will fight for climate justice, equal rights for migrants, and gender equality for the world. Carrying onward the value of democracy, one of the great achievements of humanity, we will keep continuing our International People’s Solidarity March. 

6. Trump’s economic war does not stop at the economy. It is escalating the threat of even more wars. Empty talks abound about stopping the Russia-Ukraine War and the genocide in Palestine, while negotiations serve only the interests of great powers. As Trump forces countries to spend 5% of the GDP on military, which only serves the profits of the military-industrial complex, the cornerstone of neoliberalism, thereby accelerating the global threat of war. Further, he pushes for the revival of regional military blocs that make offensive wars inevitable, such as through NATO, the JAKUS military alliance, and the Indo-Pacific military strategy.

We demand immediate peace, not empty rhetoric. We demand an immediate cessation of hostilities based on reparations, and non-aggression pledges by the aggressors. We stand against global military spending increases, the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction, regional military blocs, and wargames. We will not cease our international people’s solidarity struggle until we secure peace for all.

7. Gathered here today, we will open a forum on the dilemmas of humanity that those in the APEC Summit, with all their power and capital, have failed to address. We will seek solutions through the power of international solidarity. We will bring together voices of progressive intellectuals, organizations, and peoples worldwide who stand against Trump’s economic war and its turn toward predatory neoliberalism. We will forge an international solidarity action to seek out economic alternatives that serve everyone, not just the interests of capital and great powers.

8. To resolve the dilemmas of humanity produced by neoliberal capitalism, to end the monopolization of power produced by “post-democracy”, and to secure democracy for all, we will form the International People’s Action Solidarity. We will forge international solidarity among individuals, political parties, and organizations fighting for labor, climate justice, feminism, migrants’ rights, and peace. Furthermore, we will continue on a regular basis our International People’s Action opposing the international gatherings and summits that represent only the interests of great powers and monopoly capital.

We oppose an APEC that stands for the 1%, for the powerful and for capital!

We oppose an APEC that brings inequality, not prosperity!

APEC Leaders, listen to the people of the world, not to Trump!

We oppose Trump and his unilateral, coercive, predatory neoliberalism!

We oppose Trump and his wars and hate!

While capital crosses borders, migrants are expelled! We oppose Trump!

Trump’s politics of hate threatens democracy!

An economy for all! We oppose corporate greed!

An economy for all! We oppose Trump’s robbery!

With our International People’s Action Solidarity, let’s march to a world of labor, climate justice, peace, gender equality, and human rights!

Enough is enough! With our International People’s Action Solidarity, let’s put an end to war!

With our International People’s Action Solidarity, let’s build an economy for all, not just for the few!

The International People’s Declaration “We oppose APEC – We oppose Trump – And, we want an economy for all” can be signed here: https://forms.gle/Qk8caSGJYaWg7Sq88 .

Organizer: The Organizing Committee for the International People’s Response Against APEC 2025

Hosts: Alliance of Human Rights Clubs of Universities in Seoul (Korea), Arts Collective Maru (Korea), AWC Korea (Korea), Beyond Seoul (Korea), Gathering for Equal Society (Korea), Green Party Korea (Korea), Human Rights Movement Network Baram (Korea), International Strategy Center (Korea), International People’s Assembly (International), Justice Party (Korea), Labor Party (Korea), Local Community in Action Dongseoul Citizen Power (Korea), May Moonlight Alliance (Korea), Multipolarization Forum (Korea), National Gathering of Left Activists (Korea), Organizing Committee for System Change Movement (Korea), Our Turn to Speak (Korea), People Opposing Space Militarization and Rocket Launches (Korea), People Power Direct Action (Korea), Platform C (Korea), Seodaemun & Eunpyeong Citizen Alliance (Korea), Seoul Women’s Association (Korea), Solidarity Against Disability Discrimination (Korea), Together Labor (Korea), Together Nowon (Korea), Together Seoul (Korea), Urgent Action by South Korean Civil Society in Solidarity with Palestine (Korea), Women Making Peace (Korea), Yongsan Citizen Alliance (Korea), Youngdeungpo Citizen Alliance People (Korea)

📞 Contact: International Strategy Center (iscenter2015@gmail.com)

No Cold War’s statement in support of the Global Sumud Gaza Flotilla is produced below in English, Arabic, Spanish, Portuguese, Persian, Sebian & Macedonian.

English

No Cold War supports the Global Sumud Gaza Flotilla.

As a global platform against war and genocide, we stand in full solidarity with the brave people who are aboard the Global Sumud Gaza Flotilla that is on the way to the shores of Gaza, and we stand in solidarity with all protest movements for Gaza.

We send all the people on the boats our love and support, and to our specific comrades – Dr. Hanne Bosselaers (Medicine for the People, MPLP-GVHV, Belgium) and Ayoub Habraoui (Workers Democratic Party of Morocco and the International Peoples Assembly Youth Group).

Apartheid Israel’s genocide against Gaza has now created a famine in Gaza: an absolute outrage.

We are clear that Israel will attack the Global Sumud Gaza Flotilla and that Israel will not cease its genocide.

Therefore, we call for all people around the world to:

1. Stand in full solidarity with the Global Sumud Gaza Flotilla.
2. Demand an immediate Israeli ceasefire.
3. Demand that the United Nations and other agencies be allowed to bring food, water, and medicine into Gaza immediately.
4. Demand an end to all arms supplies to Israel.
5. Demand a total energy blockade on Israel.
6. Demand that our countries break diplomatic ties with Israel.
7. Join the Palestinian and Global Civil Society Call for a Global Day of Action and Strike on 18 September 2025.
   
   

Arabic

Spanish

Basta de Guerra Fría apoya a la Flotilla Global Sumud Gaza.

Como plataforma global contra la guerra y el genocidio, nos solidarizamos plenamente con las valientes personas que se encuentran a bordo de la Flotilla Global Sumud, que se dirige a las costas de Gaza, y nos solidarizamos con todos los movimientos de protesta en favor de Gaza.

Enviamos nuestro amor y apoyo a todas las personas que se encuentran en los barcos, y en particular a nuestrxs compañerxs Dra. Hanne Bosselaers (Medicine for the People, MPLP-GVHV, Bélgica) y Ayoub Habraoui (Partido Democrático de los Trabajadores de Marruecos y Grupo Juvenil de la Asamblea Internacional de los Pueblos).

El genocidio del apartheid israelí contra Gaza ha provocado ahora una hambruna allí, una auténtica atrocidad.

Tenemos claro que Israel atacará la Flotilla Global Sumud a Gaza y que Israel no cesará en su genocidio.

Por lo tanto, hacemos un llamado a todas las personas del mundo para que:

1. Muestren su total solidaridad con la Flotilla Global Sumud Gaza.
2. Exijan un alto el fuego inmediato por parte de Israel.
3. Exijan que se permita a las Naciones Unidas y otras agencias llevar alimentos, agua y medicinas a Gaza de inmediato.
4. Exijan el fin de todos los suministros de armas a Israel.
5. Exijan un bloqueo energético total a Israel.
6. Exijan que nuestros países rompan relaciones diplomáticas con Israel.
7. Se unan al llamado de la sociedad civil palestina y mundial para celebrar una jornada de acción y huelga mundial el 18 de septiembre de 2025.

Portuguese

A campanha No Cold War  (Não à guerra fria) apoia a Flotilha de Solidariedade Global Sumud para Gaza.

Como uma plataforma global contra a guerra e o genocídio, nós damos toda nossa solidariedade às pessoas corajosas que estão a bordo da Flotilha de Solidariedade Global Sumud para Gaza, que está a caminho do litoral de Gaza. E nós damos nossa solidariedade a todos os movimentos de protesto por Gaza.

Enviamos todo nosso amor e apoio a todas as pessoas nos barcos, e em especial aos nossos companheiros e companheiras – Dra. Hanne Bosselaers (Medicina para o Povo, MPLP-GVHV, Bélgica) e Ayoub Habraoui (Partido Democrático dos Trabalhadores do Marrocos e da Juventude da Assembleia Internacional dos Povos).

O genocídio do Estado de apartheid de Israel contra Gaza já causou uma fome catastrófica no território: isso é um absurdo total.

Nós temos clareza de que Israel vai atacar a Flotilha de Solidariedade Global Sumud para Gaza e de que Israel não vai parar seu genocídio.

Por isso, nós convocamos todas as pessoas ao redor do mundo para:

1. Dar total solidariedade à Flotilha de Solidariedade Global Sumud para Gaza.
2. Exigir um cessar-fogo imediato de Israel.
3. Exigir que as Nações Unidas e outros órgãos possam levar comida, água e remédios para Gaza imediatamente.
4. Exigir o fim de todo fornecimento de armas para Israel.
5. Exigir um bloqueio total de energia em Israel.
6. Exigir que nossos países cortem relações diplomáticas com Israel.
7. Participar do Chamado da Sociedade Civil Palestina e Global para um Dia Global de Ação e Greve em 18 de setembro de 2025.

Persian

Serbian

Kolektiv „Ne za Hladni rat“ izražava svoju podršku Globalnoj Samud Gaza flotili.

Kao globalna platforma protiv rata i genocida, stojimo u punoj solidarnosti sa hrabrim ljudima koji su deo Globalne Samud Gaza flotile koja je na putu ka obalama Gaze, podržavajući istovremeno i sve druge protestne pokrete za Gazu.

Svim ljudima koji plove na brodovima šaljemo našu ljubav i podršku, a posebno našim drugovima, dr Hane Boselars (iz Medicine za sve ljude, MPLP-GVHV, Belgija) i Ajubu Habraouiju (iz Radničke demokratske partije Maroka i iz Omladinske grupe Međunarodne narodne skupštine).

Genocid aparthejdske države Izrael nad Gazom sada se pretvorio u izgladnjivanje, što je apsolutno užasavajuće i neprihvatljivo.

Nama je jasno da će Izrael napasti Globalnu Samud Gaza flotilu i da Izrael neće tek tako prekinuti genocid.

Zato pozivamo sve ljude širom sveta da:

1. Stanu u punu solidarnost sa Globalnom Samud Gaza Flotilom.
2. Zahtevaju hitan prekid vatre od strane Izraela.
3. Zahtevaju da Ujedinjene nacije i druge agencije odmah dobiju dozvolu da unesu hranu, vodu i lekove u Gazu.
4. Zahtevaju prekid celokupnog snabdevanja oružjem za Izrael.
5. Zahtevaju potpunu energetsku blokadu Izraela.
6. Pridruže se Palestinskom i Globalnom pozivu građanskog društva za Globalni dan akcije i štrajka 18. septembra 2025. godine.

Macedonian

Колективот „Не за Студена војна“ ја изразува својата поддршка за Глобалната Самуд Газа флотила.

Како глобална платформа против војната и геноцидот, стоиме во целосна солидарност со храбрите луѓе кои дел на Глобалната Самуд Газа флотила која е на пат кон бреговите на Газа, поддржувајќи ги истовремено сите други протесни движења за Газа.

На сите луѓе кои пловат на бротчињатата им ја испраќаме нашата љубов и поддршка, а посебно на нашите другари, д-р Хане Боселерс (од Медицина за сите луѓе, MPLP-GVHV, Белигија) и Ајоуб Хахраоуи (од Работничката демократска партија на Мароко и од Младинската група на Меѓународното собрание на народите).

Геноцидот кој го врши апартхејд државата Израел врз Газа сега се претвори во изгладнување, што е апсолутно ужаснувачко и неприфатливо.

Нам ни е јасно дека Израел ќе ја нападне Глобалната Самуд Газа флотила и дека Израел нема туку така да го прекине геноцидот.

Затоа, ги повикуваме сите луѓе низ целиот свет да:

1. Застанат во целосна солидарност со Глобалната Самуд Газа Флотила.
2. Побараат итен прекин на огнот од страна на Израел.
3. Побараат Обединетите нации и другите агенции веднаш да добијат дозвола да внесат храна, вода и лекови во Газа.
4. Побараат прекин на целото снабдување со оружје за Израел.
5. Побараат целосна енергетска блокада врз Израел.
6. Се приклучат на Палестинскиот и Глобалниот повик на граѓанското општество за Глобален ден на акција и штрајк на 18 септември 2025 година.