In the afternoon of 10 December, a US military helicopter took control over an oil tanker travelling from Venezuela. Not content with this act of piracy, when asked what the US was going to do with the oil it was transporting, Trump casually said “Well, we keep it, I suppose”, like a man who has found a ten dollar bill on the floor. This represents a major escalation in the US campaign of imperialist aggression against Venezuela and Latin America.
In his statement to the media US president Trump said: “We’ve just seized a tanker off the coast of Venezuela – large tanker, very large, largest one ever seized, actually,” and added, ominously, “and other things are happening. So you’ll be seeing that later, and you’ll be talking about that later with some other people.”
This is clearly an act of piracy. The US Navy and Coast Guard have seized a third-country vessel in international waters. Not only has US imperialism declared an informal air embargo on Venezuela, now it is de facto moving towards a naval blockade.
The last time such a thing happened in Venezuela was the 1902-03 multinational imperialist blockade against the government of Cipriano Castro, which had refused to pay its foreign debt obligations. It was in the aftermath of that imperialist aggression against Venezuela that the US issued the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, abrogating for the US the right to intervene militarily in countries in the American continent, under the excuse of defending ‘civilisational norms’. Trump’s so-called Corollary, announced in his new National Security Strategy document, is just a cheap copy of that. He is not even original.
The US Coast Guard members who seized the tanker were taken to the ship by a helicopter from the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R Ford. This is the largest of its kind in the US Navy which arrived in the Caribbean a month ago, after being transferred from the Mediterranean to SouthCOM’s area of influence, as part of a military build up against Venezuela and other Latin American countries.
Trying to give a legal basis for this act of piracy, US Attorney General Pam Bondi said that the vessel had been “used to transport sanctioned oil from Venezuela and Iran”. She went on to say that the tanker “has been sanctioned by the United States due to its involvement in an illicit oil shipping network supporting foreign terrorist organizations”.
There you have it. The US decides to sanction a foreign sovereign country (in this case two: Venezuela and Iran) and some of its companies. Then, after having acted as prosecutor and judge, arrogates itself the right to act as executioner and seizes several tons of oil. Of course, all under the guise of ‘fighting terrorism’. A dictionary description of terrorism says: “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims.” That certainly applies to the US actions against Venezuela, and more generally to US imperialist aggression around the world for the last 200 years!
Incidentally, this act of piracy in the Caribbean took place near the small island of Grenada, invaded by US imperialism in 1983, when Reagan decided to overthrow the left-wing government in power.
According to sources quoted by both Politico and Axios, the seized tanker was transporting oil from Venezuela to Cuba. This was so that Cuba would be able to resell it, thus helping Venezuela circumvent unilateral US sanctions and also earn some much needed hard currency, or to refine locally.
Cuba, subject to a brutal US blockade since 1962 is in dire need of fuel for its electricity plants. The island’s economic crisis has led to prolonged blackouts and in the last few days there have been street protests in the capital Havana. A source told Axios: “This is a twofer: we’re going after Maduro’s bank account and the Cubans that keep him in power.” Clearly US imperialism is stepping up its aggression on the Cuban revolution as well.
But not only Cuba. In commenting on the seizure of the tanker, Trump went on to threaten Colombian president Petro as well: “He’s been fairly hostile to the United States. He’s gonna have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs … He better wise up, or he’ll be next … Colombia is a major manufacturer of drugs, meaning cocaine.”
As we have explained before, drug trafficking is just a fig leaf for naked military aggression the main aim of which is “to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere”, and to “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 is written in black and white in the Trump regime’s new National Security Strategy document released last week.
Strangled by US sanctions on Venezuela’s oil, most of the country’s exports now go to China. Trump is killing several birds with one tanker seizure: it cut off a much needed source of income for Venezuela, increases the economic strangulation of the Cuban revolution, reminds Iran who’s boss and, finally, sends a threatening message to China. A return to gunboat diplomacy.
International rules, which in the past provided a fig-leaf for US imperialist domination, are thrown overboard and the real predatory aims of Washington are spelled out clearly for everyone to see. The message is loud and clear: the United States is still the strongest imperialist power on the planet, the American continent is its backyard, and it intends to dominate it fully.
The Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize
This act of piracy coincided with the farce being played out in Norway, where Maria Corina Machado, the bloodthirsty reactionary leader of the pro-US opposition in Venezuela, was being given the Nobel Peace Prize. The Wall Street Journal tells us that she made a daring escape by small boat – luckily her masters did not blow it up – to Curaçao (which is part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) so that she could be present at the ceremony.
US F18 fighters made a very provocative incursion in Venezuelan airspace, in the Gulf of Venezuela, between Maracaibo and Punto Fijo, roughly at the same time of the reported departure of Machado. Alas, they hit bad weather and she arrived only late at night to greet her supporters from the balcony of an expensive hotel in the Norwegian capital, Oslo.
The story, worthy of a Netflix drama, may not be all it seems. There has been strong speculation in Caracas for the last few days that her departure from the country had been negotiated with Maduro’s government. Others claim that the reason for the visit to Oslo is so that she can be sworn as ‘vice-president’ of ‘president-elect’ Edmundo Gonzalez, in preparation for both to be swiftly brought to power on a US aircraft carrier. Certainly her intention is to agitate even more openly for a US invasion of her own country. It would not be the first time that a warmonger is given the Nobel ‘Peace’ Prize, so she is in good company.
In an interview with Politico on 8 December, Trump repeated his threats against Maduro: “his days are numbered”. And in a campaign rally in Pennsylvania on 10 December, he praised air strikes on speed boats which have killed over 80 people already: “The missile that knocks the crap out of them”, he said, as well as threatening: “And now we’re going to do land, because the land is much easier.” But at the same time, a US deportation flight carrying Venezuelans landed in Maiquetía airport on the same day.
One thing is clear. We are witnessing a dangerous unilateral escalation of military aggression by the world’s most powerful and reactionary imperialist power against a sovereign Latin American nation. This is part of a wider attempt by the United States to dominate the continent. It is the duty of revolutionary communists, in fact, it is the duty of all consistent democrats, to oppose it with all our might.
