Category: Uncategorized

By Dae-Han Song

In a flagrant disregard for international law and national sovereignty, the Trump administration invaded and kidnapped Venezuela’s President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores. Rather than being an isolated event, the increasing bravado of and remarks from President Donald Trump open the terrifying possibility that, if not opposed, Trump’s war machine will proliferate its aggressions, with next possible targets being Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia or Greenland. US hyperimperialism is dividing and unraveling the world at a time when we should be coming together to address our most existential crises.

Key in this strategy for military domination are ‘AI, quantum computing, and autonomous systems, plus the energy necessary to fuel’ them. South Korea’s pledge of $350 billion dollars in factories, manufacturing know-how, and technology in these sectors will strengthen Trump’s war machine. Opposing this memorandum of understanding is one front in resisting the Trump administration’s hyper-imperialism.

Robbing the Mouse

Since his “Liberation Day”, Trump’s tariff war has extorted pledges for trillions of dollars from the rest of the world, accusing it of taking advantage of the US and creating the US trade deficit. This narrative conveniently ignores the ultra-rich in the US whose trillion dollar companies were built on these global supply chains. More specifically, over 70 percent of the US S&P 500 companies rely on global supply chains (as noted by COVID 19’s impact on them). Most spectacularly, Apple grew into a $3.8 trillion company by selling products manufactured by the rest of the world. If it were a country, Apple would be the 7th largest. Amazon grew into a $2.6 trillion company (greater than Italy’s GDP, the 8th globally) by trading mostly (71 percent) goods manufactured in China. If countries, nonetheless, developed and industrialized by producing US goods, they did so despite earning pennies on the dollar. For instance, China earned 2 pennies for every dollar from the sale of an iPhone; Apple earned over 50 cents. The bulk of the US trade balance went not into the coffers of countries around the world but into those of the ultra-rich in the US, who took the lion’s share of the wealth. Now, Trump is gunning for the mouse’s share.

Much has been made of the fact that the EU’s $600 billion investment pledge lacks enforceability, with most investment happening on its own through the markets. Yet, the enforcement mechanism for Japan and South Korea’s investment pledges of $550 billion (42 percent of Japan’s foreign reserves) and $350 billion (83 percent of South Korea’s foreign reserves) is far more direct and brutal. Both countries must invest in Trump’s projects or risk reciprocal tariffs. More specifically, the Trump administration will propose investments in strategic sectors. If they refuse, Trump can simply impose the reciprocal tariffs and, despite South Korea’s bragging that it has gotten a better deal than Japan (through assurances that the US would consider the destabilizing effects of investments and would limit investments to $20 billion a year), it still has the same unequal profit sharing scheme: South Korean and Japanese investors would bring all their capital and manufacturing know-how into a project, but contrary to the principles of the market, they would still hand over 50 percent and, once the investment is recovered, 90 percent of the project’s profits to the US. In effect, the US gets 50 percent and then 90 percent of profits without putting a penny of its own money. Furthermore, it’s not yet clear what impact the funneling out of such massive investments from South Korea and Japan will have on their people. By building factories for and training future competitors, it’s hard not to rule out a hollowing out of each country’s industrial base and a dulling of their competitive advantages.

Upgrading the War Machine

Worst of all, these investments do not build a world centered on the needs and interests of people in the United States or of the world nor make the world safer or more sustainable. On the contrary, they help Trump preserve and advance ‘cutting-edge military use technology and dual-use technology’ to intimidate, bully, and invade other countries. More specifically, South Korea will be investing $150 billion to expand the US capacity (which is suffering from backlogged orders) to build warships and potentially nuclear powered submarines. Additionally, South Korea will invest up to $20 billion a year for 10 years on sectors Trump’s National Security Strategy has identified as deciding ‘the future of military power.’ Semiconductor factories would create the chips for the data centers that will allow the US to dominate AI, which is becoming central to waging war. To power these electricity-hungry data centers, South Korea will provide the nuclear power plants. Finally, South Korea will be providing smelting technology and know-how for refining critical minerals for defense.

Not Set in Stone

While Trump has managed to extract many concessions through his tariff war, the memorandum of understandings (MOUs) that are reached are not set in stone. Not only are the legality of Trump’s tariffs (the extortion mechanism) being deliberated upon by the Supreme Court, the MOUs are not legally binding. In other words, their enforceability will be determined by a struggle between Trump’s tariff pressure and a government—and more importantly, its people’s—willingness to resist Trump’s extortion and war machine.

South Korean progressive political parties and civil society created the Organizing Committee of the International People’s Action Against Trump’s 1st Year Anniversary to resist Trump’s aggressions. Jeong-eun Hwang of the Organizing Committee explains, ‘The US doesn’t need more submarines, warships, and AI to get better at intimidating, bullying, and destroying the world. Opposing South Korea’s $350 billion investment offers one specific way to resist Trump.’

Dae-Han Song is a part of the International Strategy Center and the No Cold War collective and is an associate at the Korea Policy Institute.
The above article was produced by Globetrotter.

Por Biljana Vankovska

El Año Nuevo no comenzó con esperanza ni alegría, excepto para los traficantes de armas. Más precisamente, para el complejo militar-industrial-mediático-académico-ONG que se alimenta de la guerra permanente. Los pedidos fluyen, las ganancias se disparan y la sangre se ha convertido una vez más en un sector en crecimiento. Para cualquier sociedad normal, los piratas pertenecen a las películas de aventuras, no al corredor del poder civil. Sin embargo, Venezuela, más precisamente su presidente legalmente elegido, Nicolás Maduro, se convirtió en el primer trofeo del Año Nuevo.

Una semana después del grotesco “espectáculo” del asalto y el secuestro, los analistas siguen confundidos. No es porque los hechos no estén claros, sino porque a menudo están presos de narrativas prefabricadas, muchas de las cuales ellos mismos fabrican. Tal es el caso de la “cuestión de Taiwán” desde hace bastante tiempo. Sobre Venezuela, ya se ha dicho mucho de una manera brillante y perspicaz. Pero centrémonos en el resto de la historia. Gran parte de ella fue contada por Trump personalmente, sin vergüenza y sin restricciones. En una grotesca parodia de Kant, se declaró abiertamente “por encima del derecho internacional”, limitado únicamente por la “ley moral” interior. Invocar la moralidad y a Trump en la misma frase, a la sombra de Epstein y los escuadrones de la muerte de la ICE, no es ironía, sino obscenidad.

Sin embargo, incluso cuando Venezuela se encuentra bajo una enorme presión, este Nerón moderno ya está preparando los próximos objetivos en lo que cada vez se parece más a una nota de suicidio imperial. Los nombres se suceden como apuestas: Cuba, Groenlandia (arrastrando a la OTAN y a la UE a la locura), Irán, Gaza, convenientemente borrada una vez más, permitiendo a Israel continuar su exterminio “pacífico” sin distracciones. En esta grotesca secuencia, destaca un territorio, ni siquiera un Estado, sino un peón: Taiwán.

En tiempos de engaño generalizado, hay que repetir incansablemente hechos bien conocidos: Taiwán es la provincia insular de la República Popular China. Así lo establecen las resoluciones de la ONU, el derecho internacional e incluso la propia política exterior de Washington. El principio de “una sola China” no se discute en el ámbito jurídico ni diplomático; solo lo cuestionan los halcones, los especuladores y los idiotas útiles. Y, sin embargo, Taiwán ha sido deliberadamente insertado en la narrativa imperial como la próxima “víctima”. Lo vimos claramente cuando un periodista del New York Times le preguntó a Trump si el asalto a Venezuela sentaba un precedente. Inmediatamente se invocó a Taiwán: ¿Y si China ataca a Taiwán porque se encuentra en su “hemisferio”? (Por cierto, China respondió de inmediato a esta idea de un mundo de hemisferios). El peligro no radica en la respuesta de Trump, sino en la pregunta en sí. Equipara a Venezuela con Taiwán, un crimen internacional contra un Estado soberano con los asuntos internos de otro Estado, sosteniendo así la ficción de una “pequeña y democrática Taiwán” amenazada por una China monstruosa.

Lo que el discurso occidental evita decir claramente es que Taiwán es histórica y legalmente parte de China. Las mismas personas viven a ambos lados del estrecho, separadas por una historia sin resolver, el residuo de una guerra civil inconclusa. No se trata de una cuestión de seguridad internacional. Es una cuestión interna de China.

Lo que convierte a Taiwán en una “crisis global” no es Pekín, sino Washington.

Durante décadas, y con una intensidad creciente en los últimos años, Estados Unidos ha convertido a Taiwán en un arma: política, ideológica y militarmente. Justo antes de Año Nuevo, Washington cerró el mayor acuerdo armamentístico de la historia de Taiwán, canalizando miles de millones a las empresas de defensa estadounidenses. China respondió como siempre lo ha hecho: con calma, legalidad y firmeza. Los ejercicios militares en su propio territorio (un hecho que los medios de comunicación occidentales ocultan sistemáticamente) enviaron un mensaje claro: China no permitirá el desmembramiento de su soberanía.

Como era de esperar, los expertos occidentales claman que China se está preparando para una solución militar. En realidad, son ciertos políticos taiwaneses los que están jugando a la ruleta rusa, alimentando la maquinaria bélica estadounidense y poniendo en peligro a su propio pueblo. Arman la isla contra su propio país, contra una superpotencia nuclear, mientras fingen que se trata de “autodefensa”. Es un teatro político que roza la locura.

Algunos comparan Taiwán con Ucrania, y tienen razón, aunque no en el sentido que pretenden. Ucrania fue militarizada, instrumentalizada y sacrificada. La situación de Taiwán es peor. Ucrania era al menos un Estado. Taiwán no lo es. No puede adherirse a la ONU. No puede adherirse a la OTAN. Y a pesar de las ilusiones cuidadosamente cultivadas en Taipéi, ningún soldado estadounidense morirá por Taiwán. Taiwán tampoco es capaz de disuadir el avance militar de China, si se toma una decisión de ese tipo en Pekín.

Entonces, ¿por qué Washington está agotando los recursos de la isla? ¿Por qué imponer un gasto militar del 5% del PIB a un territorio fuera de la OTAN? ¿Por qué fabricar histeria donde no había ninguna guerra inevitable? La respuesta es obvia: beneficios, contención y sabotaje geopolítico.

El resultado es una reacción política adversa. El líder del Partido Democrático Progresista, el “Zelensky” taiwanés, se enfrenta ahora a un proceso de destitución. El descontento público va en aumento. La gente común entiende la aritmética de la guerra: menos hospitales, menos escuelas, menos pensiones, más armas, más miedo, más dependencia.

La llamada cuestión de Taiwán es un asunto interno de China, y Pekín la ha abordado con una paciencia sin igual en la geopolítica moderna. Un proverbio chino dice: “Un chino no levanta la mano contra otro chino”. La guerra nunca ha sido el plan. La reunificación se ha perseguido a través del tiempo, el desarrollo y la moderación.

La verdadera imprudencia está en otra parte. Algunas élites taiwanesas creen en las promesas de los Estados Unidos, a pesar del largo cementerio de aliados abandonados. Desperdician recursos persiguiendo una independencia imposible. Y sabotean su propio futuro, que claramente reside en la reconciliación con una China en ascenso, una China que construye su poder a través de la economía, las infraestructuras, la educación y la tecnología, no a través de la ocupación y la destrucción.

La propia sociedad taiwanesa no quiere la guerra. A pesar de las divisiones políticas, existe una coexistencia interna y la capacidad de llegar a un compromiso pacífico sobre cuestiones delicadas. ¿A quién beneficia destruir este equilibrio? Por supuesto, se trata solo de una pregunta retórica.

Venezuela y Taiwán no tienen nada en común. Excepto por una cosa: ambos han sido colocados en la mira de Washington. El único peligro real proviene del centro hiperimperial que, como un drogadicto al borde de la sobredosis, corre el riesgo de arrastrar al mundo entero con él.

Biljana Vankovska es profesora de Ciencias Políticas y Relaciones Internacionales en la Universidad Ss. Cyril and Methodius de Skopje, miembro de la Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research (TFF) en Lund, Suecia, y la intelectual pública más influyente de Macedonia. Es miembro del colectivo No Cold War.

Este artículo ha sido elaborado por Globetrotter y No Cold War.

By Biljana Vankovska

The New Year did not begin with hope or joy, except for the arms dealers. More precisely, for the military-industrial-media-academic-NGO complex that feeds on permanent war. Orders are flowing, profits are booming, and blood has once again become a growth sector. For any normal society, pirates belong in adventure films, not in the civilian power corridor. Yet Venezuela, more precisely, its legally elected president Nicolás Maduro, became the first trophy of the New Year.

A week after the grotesque “spectacle” of assault and kidnapping, analysts remain confused. It is not because the facts are unclear, but because they are often imprisoned by prefabricated narratives, many of which they themselves manufacture. Such is the “Taiwan issue” for quite some time. About Venezuela, much has already been said in a brilliant and insightful way. But let’s focus on the rest of the story. Much of it was delivered by Trump personally, with no shame and no restraint. In a grotesque parody of Kant, he openly declared himself “above international law,” constrained only by the ‘moral law’ within. To invoke morality and Trump in the same sentence—under the shadow of Epstein and ICE death squads—is not irony but obscenity.

Yet even as Venezuela is under tremendous pressure, this modern Nero is already drafting the next targets in what increasingly resembles an imperial suicide note. Names roll out like betting odds: Cuba. Greenland (dragging NATO and the EU into the madness). Iran. Gaza, conveniently erased once more, allowing Israel to continue its “peaceful” extermination without distraction. In this grotesque sequence, one territory stands out—not even a state, but a pawn. Taiwan.

In times of general deception, one has to repeat well-known facts tirelessly: Taiwan is the island province of the People’s Republic of China. It is according to UN resolutions, international law, and even Washington’s own foreign policy. The “One China” principle is not contested in law or diplomacy; it is challenged only by hawks, profiteers, and useful idiots. And yet, Taiwan has been deliberately inserted into the imperial narrative as the next “victim.” We saw it clearly when a New York Times journalist asked Trump whether the assault on Venezuela sets a precedent. Taiwan was invoked immediately: What if China attacks Taiwan because it lies in its ‘hemisphere’? (By the way, China immediately responded to this idea about a world of hemispheres.) The danger lies not in Trump’s answer, but in the question itself. It equates Venezuela with Taiwan, international crime against a sovereign state with the internal affairs of another state, thus sustaining the fiction of a ‘small, democratic Taiwan’ threatened by a monstrous China.

What Western discourse avoids saying plainly is that Taiwan is historically and legally part of China. The same people live on both sides of the Strait, separated by unresolved history, the residue of an unfinished civil war. This is not a matter of international security. It is China’s internal question.

What turns Taiwan into a ‘global crisis’ is not Beijing, but Washington.

For decades, and with escalating intensity in recent years, the United States has weaponized Taiwan: politically, ideologically, and militarily. Just before the New Year, Washington concluded the largest arms deal in Taiwan’s history, funneling billions to U.S. defense corporations. China responded as it always has: calmly, legally, and firmly. Military exercises on its own territory (a fact Western media systematically suppresses) sent a clear message: China will not allow the dismemberment of its sovereignty.

Predictably, Western experts scream that China is preparing for a military solution. In truth, it is certain Taiwanese politicians who are playing Russian roulette, feeding the U.S. war machine while endangering their own people. They arm the island against its own country, against a nuclear superpower, while pretending this is “ self-defense.” It is political theater bordering on insanity.

Some compare Taiwan to Ukraine, and they are right, though not in the way they intend. Ukraine was militarized, instrumentalized, and sacrificed. Taiwan’s situation is worse. Ukraine was at least a state. Taiwan is not. It cannot join the UN. It cannot join NATO. And despite illusions carefully cultivated in Taipei, no U.S. soldier will die for Taiwan. Nor is Taiwan able to deter China’s military advancement, if a decision of that sort is made in Beijing.

So why is Washington draining the island’s resources? Why force military spending of 5 percent of GDP on a territory outside NATO? Why manufacture hysteria where no war was inevitable? The answer is obvious: profit, containment, and geopolitical sabotage.

The result is political backlash. The leader of the Democratic Progressive Party, the Taiwanese “Zelensky”, now faces impeachment. Public dissatisfaction is growing. Ordinary people understand the arithmetic of war: fewer hospitals, fewer schools, fewer pensions—more weapons, more fear, more dependency.

The so-called Taiwan question is China’s internal affair, and Beijing has approached it with patience unmatched in modern geopolitics. A Chinese proverb says: “A Chinese does not raise a hand against a Chinese.” War has never been the plan. Reunification has been pursued through time, development, and restraint.

The real recklessness lies elsewhere. Some Taiwanese elites believe U.S. promises—despite the long cemetery of abandoned allies. They waste resources chasing an impossible independence. And they sabotage their own future, which clearly lies in reconciliation with a rising China—one that builds power through economy, infrastructure, education, and technology, not through occupation and destruction.

Taiwanese society itself does not want war. Despite political divisions, there is internal coexistence and the skills to reach a compromise over sensitive issues peacefully. Who benefits from destroying this balance? This is just a rhetorical question, of course.

Venezuela and Taiwan have nothing in common. Except for one thing: both have been placed on Washington’s chopping block. The only real danger comes from the hyper-imperial center that, like a drug addict nearing overdose, risks dragging the entire world down with it.

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.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter and No Cold War.

By Llanisca Lugo González

In these early days of January, we have had to witness what we hoped never to see, though it comes as no surprise: the kidnapping of a legitimate sitting president through a criminal act of aggression by the United States.

The initial bewilderment that followed in the first hours after the US military operation has given way to actions of denunciation and expressions of solidarity worldwide. These actions are a result of serious assessment in the face of an overwhelming flow of information—some accurate, others misleading or entirely false—that circulated across social media and the formal media.

Venezuela’s state and government remain intact: the National Assembly convened on 5 January and Vice President Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as acting president.

However, dawn has not yet broken over the battlefield.

There is no room for naïve optimism. The fires still burn. The lessons are not yet learnt.

The US military assault on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and National Assembly Deputy Cilia Flores was no “surgical strike”. There is nothing surgical about deploying 150 aircraft, Delta Force units and then the entire ensemble of the US Southern Command—its electronic warfare systems capable of shutting down power and communications). This operation destroyed Venezuela’s military defence systems and other military installations across the country, as well as civilian structures (including warehouses holding medical equipment). Over a hundred Venezuelans were killed resisting the abduction, facing a military equipped with weapons systems funded by more than $1 trillion a year.

This is not only a display of power but also of desperation —the final resort after 25 years of failed operations to enact regime change in Venezuela. It is meant as a global warning: a message of force and issued by a power that has been unable to break Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution and seize control of the world’s largest oil reserves before time runs out. There is nothing new in this posture. It follows an all-to familiar script from a long history of US interventions: the coups against Jacobo Árbenz of Guatemala in 1954, João Goulart of Brazil in 1964, Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic in 1965, Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, and the broader coordinated terror campaign against the entire Left in Latin America through Operation Condor from 1975. Chávez knew this history. Maduro does as well. For a country with strategic resources, nothing is clearer than the need to defend sovereignty—a lesson that is well known across the Global South.

With this criminal operation—one that violates all the norms of what remains of so-called “international law”—the United States faces a crisis of legitimacy, even among its own allies. The face of imperialism is laid bare: the assertion of dominance over all others, in any hemisphere. Propelled by an overwhelming military force and the capacity to strike anywhere in the world, imperialism today goes beyond the Monroe Doctrine. Donald Trump and his ilk want everything and want to lose nothing. Here lies his fragility.

Trump has been forced to confront the absolute failure of the Venezuelan Right. He has withdrawn the fictitiousness of their right to rule and instead has had to accept the continuity of the Chavista leadership. Just as they failed to impose Juan Guaidó, they have now failed with Maria Corina Machado. To  place either of them in the Miraflores presidential palace, the US troops would have had to climb the hills around the city and fight street by street against the resistance of a population unified by its hatred of a return to the oligarchy.

Faced with such US aggression, one cannot believe in a path of diplomacy necessarily based on the recognition of sovereign and equal states. The United States interprets the willingness to dialogue of our nations as signs of weakness and pounces like a starving beast. We must never forget this. Nor should we forget that they lie.

The battlefield has a military component, in which the United States have carried out a mission successfully. But it has other components—economic, political, ethical, symbolic fronts—that are contested. The protagonist of these dimensions is the Venezuelan people, mobilizing their memory, their recent history, their dignity, their victories, and their protagonism—the people mobilized under Chávez’s enduring gaze.

The Role of Cuba

For Cuba, blockaded for more than 60 years and accused by the same empire of being a state sponsor of terrorism and a failed state, there is no other path than to deepen anti-imperialism.

The ties between Cuba and Venezuela were born from the admiration José Martí (1853-1895) for Simón Bolívar (1783-1830)—that traveller who wept before the statue of the Liberator—and were nourished by the love between Chávez and Fidel a century later. These are not mere commercial ties forged out of the need to survive amid a blockade, though sovereign cooperation would be entirely legitimate. They are bonds of fraternity, ties between siblings in the pursuit of a socialist path, nourished by faces of the people, by thousands of Cuban professionals who have served in Venezuela, and by stories of affection, loyalty and sacrifice born over decades.

Our countries have sustained economic relations based on trust and mutual commitment, on the exchange of oil for medical and educational services, on compensated trade relations with preferential agreements—exchanges that have diminished in recent years due to unilateral sanctions and the tightening of the blockade. A naval blockade on Venezuelan oil could mean new difficulties for that exchange, but what Cubans are talking about these days is not national economic interests, but imperialism, revolution, internationalism, commitment—words we must bring into our lives as a compass for everyday practice.

The Left is living through a moment of definition and must take its rightful place in history at this hour. We have failed to advance regional integration. We have failed to strengthen regional sovereignty by pooling our resources and strengths. We have failed to deepen our understanding of one another’s struggles and the differences in our national realities. And in the face of this, there has always been an empire—today more voracious and soulless, but the same as ever.

Cubans condemn the US military aggression against Venezuela and the threats against the countries of the region, and we firmly condemn the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores and demand their release. In defending the Proclamation approved at the II CELAC Summit that recognizes our region as a Zone of Peace, we defend peace with sincerity. Our anger today does not translate into hatred, but carries the history of the victory over mercenary troops at Girón, the October Crisis, resistance to acts of state terrorism and to a blockade that was already 40 years old when formal fraternal relations with Venezuela began.

Today, the Cuban people mourn 32 sons of a country that only wants to work to live better along the path it has chosen. They are so aware that no people can confront the threats now being launched against Mexico, Cuba, Colombia, and Greenland alone. Only united can we stop a powerful fascist who has no morality or ethics other than dispossession and unpunished criminality, who feels entitled to every part of the world that interests them and endowed with the right and the power to destroy the part of the world they can do without.

Llanisca Lugo González is a member of the No Cold War Collective, is a researcher and the Antonio Gramsci Chair at the Instituto Juan Marinello, Havana, Cuba. She is a Deputy in the National Assembly of Cuba.

The above article was produced by Globetrotter.

By Daniela Ortiz and Gisela Cernadas

Current developments in Venezuela may appear to be unfathomable—until one recalls the long history of imperialist interference in Latin America and the Caribbean. The events of the first week of January constitute an escalation of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution and resume control on the country with the largest known oil reserves in the world. The emerging world order and the strengthening of international organisations non-aligned with the interests of the United States (US) rush the US to increase the pressure on the Latin American region.

Latin America and the Caribbean are deeply marked by US imperialism. In the 200 years since the Monroe Doctrine (1823), the US military has carried out more than 100 interventions, invasions, and coups in Latin America and the Caribbean. In the 1970s, the CIA carried out a series of military coups throughout the region to overthrow left-wing and independent governments. In a secret program known as Operation Condor, the CIA worked closely with military dictators to suppress left-wing activists and prevent the rise of communism among the local populations.

Neoliberal policies implemented through the coup regimes and after—and under the influence of the Washington Consensus in the 1990s—deeply affected economic development in the region. As a result, 50 million people in Latin America fell into poverty from 1970 to 1995, and the external debt tripled from $67.31 billion (1975) to $208.76 (1980), 60 percent of which was public debt, further stifling the possibility of economic development and pushing the countries into debt-traps. The effects of privatization and the destruction of the industrial structure continue to this day.

The popular leaders that emerged from people’s rebellions against the neoliberal regimes and led the Progressive Wave in the Latin American region during the beginning of the 21st century were targeted by the CIA. Venezuela constitutes one of such cases.

Following President Hugo Chávez’s inauguration in 1999, the United States systematically attacked Venezuela. After repeated refusals to submit to US leadership, in April 2002, supported by a sector of the Venezuelan military, the US carried out a coup d’état and kidnapped President Chávez. The Venezuelan people took to the streets en masse and halted the attack. The events of that April forced US imperialism to change its strategy and opt for a prolonged hybrid war aimed at weakening popular support for the Bolivarian Revolution.

The hybrid war on Venezuela consists primarily of economic sanctions and embargoes, and the persecution of popular leaders, along with the funding of anti-Chavista propaganda and organisations, and the development of paramilitary groups to create an atmosphere of internal destabilization. In addition to the multiple assassination attempts, in 2019, the US did not recognise the electoral results, and backed the opposition candidate Juan Guaidó as president of Venezuela. The bombing of Caracas and the subsequent kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and Cilia Flores on 3 January 2026 are the most recent blow in a series of systematic and increasing attacks spanning more than 20 years.

Trump openly declared that the US attack on Venezuela is about oil. Nonetheless, US officials, including Trump, have offered two other unconvincing reasons: the migration crisis and narco-terrorism.

Migrants and Drugs

Economic sanctions and the blockade against Venezuela caused a collapse in the population’s living conditions, generating shortages, accelerated impoverishment, and large-scale forced migration. The departure of more than seven million people over the past decade is due to the economic war.

Venezuelan migration has been used as a political instrument, presented as proof of the failure of socialism and the revolutionary project, while the sanctions responsible for the forced migration have been rendered invisible. Many Venezuelan migrants were initially classified as “political refugees” in the countries to which they migrated, reinforcing the narrative that they were fleeing a dictatorship and thereby legitimizing the imposition of further sanctions, creating a vicious dynamic. Venezuelan migration has also been used as a warning aimed at potential left-wing voters in Latin America.

Through hardline immigration enforcement policies promoted during the second Donald Trump administration, migrants have been criminalized: they are being rounded up, detained, and—some of them—forcibly transferred to the CECOT mega-prison in El Salvador.

The criminalization of the migrant as a narco-trafficker fuelled the construction of a narrative about Venezuelan cartels. This led to the accusation that Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro was a leader of gangs known as Tren de Aragua or the non-existent Cartel of the Suns. The idea of drug trafficking provided the justification to attack small boats, 36 of them sunk through 35 illegal bombings that killed 115 people. It was this idea of narco-terrorism that was used to justify the attack on Venezuela on 3 January.

Trump brought together the War on Terror (the 2001 Patriot Act) and the War on Drugs (stretching back to the 1970s) to create this idea of ‘narco-terrorism’ and build legitimacy in the US for the attack on Venezuela not as a military invasion but as a police action. Trump now wants to extend this logic to Cuba, Colombia, and Mexico.

The attack on Venezuela came at a time when the country was slowly emerging from the worst of the social impact of sanctions. Economic recovery in Venezuela amid those sanctions occurred in a context marked by the emergence of the BRICS and the tightening of commercial and political relations with China, Iran, and Russia, which made it possible to smoothen the consequences of the US sanctions. At the same time, the deep scarcity crisis, particularly harsh in a country historically structured under a rentier model dependent on food imports, drove a reorganization of national agricultural production and food supply chains oriented toward building food sovereignty. In this process, the communes, together with the emergence of new national companies dedicated to producing food and other essential goods, energized the Venezuelan economy and enabled a rapid recovery after the crisis induced by the sanctions.

An organised response to the interference

The collective response to economic coercion is in line with that of recent events. The people took to the streets: thousands of people in Caracas, in rural areas, and in other cities mobilized for the release of their president and in rejection of a US military intervention, backing the Bolivarian militias, the police, the Army, and the government. This resistance has been overlooked in international media.
Finally, the swearing-in of Vice President Delcy Rodríguez as the head of the government, together with the presence of the ambassadors of China, Iran, and Russia, as well as the installation of the National Assembly with the presence of Nicolás Maduro’s son, demonstrate that the Bolivarian Revolution is not defeated and that speculation about internal betrayals lacks concrete basis.

This article was produced by Globetrotter. Daniela Ortiz and Gisela Cernadas are members of the No Cold War Collective. Daniela is an artist from Peru. Gisela is an economist at the Centre of Economic Development Studies, National University of San Martin, Argentina.

The Trump Administration has started an illegal war against Venezuela. This is a nakedly imperialist war to install a US puppet government that will give Venezuela’s oil resources over to US corporations and to force US hegemony over Latin America — the new “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. This war is illegal both under international law and the laws governing the declaration of war within the United States.

Trump’s war has nothing to do with drug trafficking. There is no substantiated evidence that high-level members of the Venezuelan government are “narco-terrorists.” Yet, the Trump administration is using this claim as the pretext for this illegal war. This is another regime-change war to steal another country’s oil, just like the failed war against Iraq, and to crush any resistance to US imperialism. Trump’s war will only impoverish the people of Latin America.

DSA demands:

• a return of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores to Venezuela
• an immediate end to the war and an end to all US military violence against Venezuela
• a total withdrawal of all US warships, fighter jets, and military assets from the Caribbean and an end to any operations with intervention purposes driven by SOUTHCOM
• an end to the illegal unilateral sanctions against Venezuela, and the end to the use of unilateral sanctions anywhere in the world, which kill an estimated half a million people every year worldwide
• an end to the failed “war on drugs” framework that has already led to massive human and environmental tragedies in countries such as Colombia and Mexico
• the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, including the reopening of the embassy and consular offices in US territory
• a US foreign policy centered on peace, multilateralism, and respect for national sovereignty and self-determination

Democratic Socialists of America calls on the people of the United States to protest and resist this illegal war and to stand in solidarity with the sovereign people of Venezuela, including participating in the anti-war actions called for January 3.

Additionally, DSA calls on the public to contact their representatives in Congress to demand the passing of a War Powers Resolution blocking Trump’s military aggression.

DSA also encourages members to:

• • join our “Hands Off Venezuela” mass call on Tuesday, January 6 at 9pm ET/6pm PT
  • organize within their chapters against this war and in the International Committee’s Venezuela Working Group

---

DSA condena la guerra ilegal de Trump contra Venezuela

La administración de Trump ha iniciado una guerra ilegal contra Venezuela. Es una guerra abiertamente imperialista para instalar un gobierno títere estadounidense que entregue los recursos petroleros de Venezuela a las empresas estadounidenses e impone la hegemonía de Estados Unidos sobre América Latina, el nuevo “Corolario Trump” a la Doctrina Monroe. Esta guerra es ilegal tanto según el derecho internacional como según las leyes que rigen la declaración de guerra en Estados Unidos.

La guerra de Trump no tiene nada que ver con el narcotráfico. No existe ninguna prueba contundente de que altos miembros del gobierno venezolano sean “narcoterroristas.” Sin embargo, la administración de Trump utiliza esta afirmación como pretexto para esta guerra ilegal. Se trata de otra guerra para derrocar un gobierno y robar el petróleo de otro país, igual que la fallida guerra contra Irak, y para aplastar cualquier resistencia al imperialismo estadounidense. La guerra de Trump solo empobrecerá a los pueblos de América Latina.

DSA exige:

• El regreso del presidente Nicolás Maduro y la primera dama Cilia Flores a Venezuela.
• El cese inmediato de la guerra y el fin de toda la violencia militar estadounidense contra Venezuela.
• La retirada total de todos los buques de guerra, aviones de combate y activos militares estadounidenses del Caribe y un alto a cualquier operación con fines de intervención impulsada por el Comando Sur (SOUTHCOM).
• El fin de las sanciones unilaterales ilegales contra Venezuela y el fin del uso de sanciones unilaterales en cualquier parte del mundo, que causan la muerte de aproximadamente medio millón de personas cada año a nivel mundial.
• El fin de la “guerra contra las drogas” fallida que ya ha provocado enormes tragedias humanas y ambientales en países como Colombia y México.
• El restablecimiento de las relaciones diplomáticas con la República Bolivariana de Venezuela, incluida la reapertura de la embajada y las oficinas consulares en territorio estadounidense.
• Una política exterior estadounidense centrada en la paz, el multilateralismo y el respeto a la soberanía nacional y la autodeterminación.

Socialistas Democráticos de Estados Unidos  (DSA) hace un llamado al pueblo de Estados Unidos a protestar y resistir esta guerra ilegal y a solidarizarse con el pueblo soberano de Venezuela, participando en las acciones contra la guerra convocadas para el 3 de enero. Además, DSA exhorta a la ciudadanía a contactar a sus representantes en el Congreso para exigir la aprobación de una Resolución sobre los Poderes de Guerra para bloquear la agresión militar de Trump. DSA también anima a sus miembros a organizarse en sus capítulos contra esta guerra y en el Grupo de Trabajo sobre Venezuela del Comité Internacional. Puede encontrar más información sobre Venezuela aquí, en nuestro kit de herramientas sobre Venezuela.

The above statement from the Democratic Socialists of America was originally published here.

No Cold War condemns US Attack on Venezuela – Korean

2026년 1월 3일 현지 시각 새벽 2시, 미국은 카라카스와 그 인접 주인 미란다, 아라과, 라과이라 등에 위치한 여러 군사 기지와 민간 지역을 공격했다. 이는 유엔 헌장 제2조를 위반한 것이며, 이로써 미국이 베네수엘라를 상대로 벌인 이 전쟁의 이유가 석유밖에 없다는 사실이 자명해졌다.

도널드 트럼프 미국 대통령은 이제 아프리카, 아시아, 라틴아메리카 등 글로벌 사우스의 세 대륙 모두에 공격을 개시했다. 이로써 트럼프도, 20세기부터 21세기까지의 역대 미국 대통령(시어도어 루스벨트, 우드로 윌슨, 해리 트루먼, 드와이트 아이젠하워, 린든 존슨, 리처드 닉슨, 로널드 레이건, 조지 H.W. 부시, 빌 클린턴, 조지 W. 부시, 버락 오바마)도 다 똑같다는 것이 드러났다. 이 공격은 트럼프가 1월 4일 미국 의회에서 할 예정이던 국정연설에 필요한 마초주의를 제공해 주기만 할 뿐이다.

미국은 베네수엘라에서 승리하지 못할 것이다. 미국은 베네수엘라 민중뿐만 아니라 전 세계 민중의 거센 저항에 직면할 것이다.

유엔 헌장 위반 반대!

전쟁 반대!

평화를 위하여!

No Cold War condemns US Attack on Venezuela – Urdu

(No Cold War condemns US Attack on Venezuela – Serbian)

U 2 sata posle ponoći, po lokalnom vremenu, 3. januara 2026. godine, Sjedinjene Američke Države napale su više lokacija u i oko Karakasa, kao i u saveznih državama Miranda, Aragua i La Guaira, uključujući vojne baze i civilne ciljeve. Ovaj napad predstavlja direktno kršenje Člana 2 Povelje Ujedinjenih nacija. Sjedinjene Države su odavno jasno stavile do znanja da je ovaj rat, koji nameću Venecueli, rat za naftu i ni za šta drugo.

Američki predsednik Donald Tramp sada je započeo napade na sva tri kontinenta Globalnog Juga – Afriku, Aziju i Latinsku Ameriku. Time se svrstao u društvo Teodora Ruzvelta, Vudroa Vilsona, Harija Trumana, Dvajta Ajzenhauera, Lindona Džonsona, Ričarda Niksona, Ronalda Regana, Džordža H. V. Buša, Bila Klintona, Džordža Buša Mlađeg i Baraka Obame – odnosno većine američkih predsednika koji su sprovodili agresije tokom 20. i 21. veka. Ovaj napad će Trampu obezbediti potreban mačo-imidž uoči njegovog obraćanja o stanju nacije 4. januara pred američkim Kongresom, ali ništa više od toga.

Sjedinjene Američke Države neće pobediti u Venecueli. Suočiće se sa ozbiljnim otporom ne samo venecuelanskog naroda, već i naroda širom sveta.

Ne kršenju Povelje UN.

Ne ratu.

Da miru.

(No Cold War condemns US Attack on Venezuela – Macedonian)

Во 2 часот по полноќ, по локално време, на 3 јануари 2026 година, Соединетите Американски Држави нападнаа повеќе локации во и околу Каракас, како и во сојузните држави Миранада, Арагва и Ла Гваира, вклучително и воени бази и цивилни цели. Овој напад е директна повреда на Членот 2 од Повелбата на Обединетите нации. Соединетите Држави одамна јасно ставија до знаење дека оваа војна, која ѝ ја наметнуваат на Венецуела, е за нафта и за ништо друго.

Американскиот претседател Доналд Трамп сега започна напади на сите три континенти на Глобалниот Југ – Африка, Азија и Латинска Америка. Така тој застана во друштвото на Теодор Рузвелт, Вудроу Вилсон, Хари Труман, Двајт Ајзенхауер, Линдон Џонсон, Ричард Никсон, Роналд Реган, Џорџ Х. В. Буш, Бил Клинтон, Џорџ Буш Помладиот и Барак Обама; односно со поголемиот дел од американските претседатели кои извришија агресии од 20 и 21 век. Овој напад ќе му го обезбеди на Трамп потребниот мачо-имиџ токму пред неговото обраќање за состојбата на нацијата на 4 јануари пред американскиот Конгрес, но ништо повеќе од тоа.

Соединетите Американски Држави нема да победат во Венецуела. Ќе се соочат со сериозен отпор не само од венецуелскиот народ, туку и од народите ширум светот.

Не на кршењето на Повелбата на ОН.

Не на војната.

Да за мирот.