We have now entered month five of an unprecedented US military build up in the Caribbean aimed at bullying Venezuela, and also Colombia. Over 80 people have already been killed in criminal attacks against speedboats, which Washington claims are narcotraffickers. But so far, Trump’s aim – regime change in Venezuela – has not been achieved. What follows?
The first thing that needs to be said is that this campaign of aggression has nothing to do with drugs, as we have explained repeatedly. This was further demonstrated last week when Trump decided to pardon former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernandez, who was serving a 45 year jail sentence in the US for… drug and arms trafficking!
Some argue that the real reason for the US military build up against Venezuela is oil. That is clearly an important factor. Venezuela has the largest proven reserves in the world, most of it extra-heavy crude, perfectly suited for refineries on the Gulf Coast and much closer to America than any sources in the Middle East.
In trying to sell military aggression against Venezuela to a reluctant US public (where two thirds oppose it) congresswoman Maria Elvira Salazar, one of the three ‘crazy Cubans’, insisted that US oil companies would have a field day in Venezuela, underlining that it is the country possessing the largest proven oil reserves in the world.
In a deranged rant to the America Business Forum, Venezuelan Nobel Prize winner Maria Corina Machado talked of massive opportunities for US companies to get their hands on “$1.7 TRILLION of Venezuela’s oil, gas, gold, infrastructure”, which she said would be subject to “a massive privatisation programme”, “upstream, downstream, midstream”.
None of these factors fully explain the current military escalation. The New York Times already reported that Maduro was quite prepared to give US companies access to Venezuelan oil and other mineral resources. That was part of the negotiations with US envoy Grenell early this year. Even if one were to doubt such reports, the fact remains that it is US sanctions on Venezuela which has prevented US multinationals from exploiting resources in the Caribbean country, not Venezuelan government restrictions.
Others in the reactionary Cuban-American community in Miami, including Marco Rubio himself as well as old school cold war warriors like Elliot Abrahams, are motivated by blind hatred of any government they identify as ‘Communist’ (whether they are or not). Creatures like Stephen Miller think that removing Maduro will stem the flow of migrants from Venezuela, a flow created by an economic crisis which has been severely aggravated by US sanctions!
Of course, no one in their right mind thinks that this campaign of military bullying has anything to do with democracy. US imperialism could not care less about the norms of bourgeois democracy. Trump has actually said it explicitly: we will not go around the world imposing ‘democracy’. Not that US imperialism ever did, mind you. But in the past they did use ‘democracy’ and ‘human rights’ as a fig leaf for naked imperialist aggression. Now Trump is more transparent in describing their real aims: to defend the national interests of the US, that is, those of the US capitalist class.
While drugs, migrants, anti-Communism and oil are all among the reasons the United States wants full control over Venezuela, there is a deeper motive behind the current military escalation, one which goes beyond Venezuela itself.
Subjugation of Latin America: a US national security aim
US imperialism is fighting to regain control over the Western Hemisphere and wants to push its rivals (China and Russia) out of it. And Venezuela is the country in the whole of Latin America with the closest political ties with Russia and China. What better place is there to send a clear signal that US imperialism will not tolerate other powers in its backyard?
This has now become part of US imperialism’s national security strategy and has been written down in a Trump administration document released last week. It describes the first aim of such a strategy thus:
“We want to ensure that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels, and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to key strategic locations.” [our emphasis]
This is described as the assertion and enforcement of a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine. In other words, a return to the policy of gunboat diplomacy based on the principle of America for US imperialism and no one else.
“After years of neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere… 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.”
Speaking to military leaders at the Reagan Centre over the weekend Secretary of War Pete Hegseth reiterated these aims, giving them an even more threatening ring and putting a lot of emphasis on the ‘our’ part of ‘our hemisphere’. Quite who has decided that the whole of the American continent is the property of the United States, we do not know, but what is clear is that US imperialism has decided it is in its “national security interest” that it should be. And it is prepared to mobilise military assets to back it up. As Trump’s national security strategy document goes on to explain:
“The United States must reconsider our military presence in the Western Hemisphere… A readjustment of our global military presence to address urgent threats in our Hemisphere, especially the missions identified in this strategy… Targeted deployments to secure the border and defeat cartels, including where necessary the use of lethal force to replace the failed law enforcement-only strategy of the last several decades.”
We need to understand the current aggressive US military build up in the Caribbean, not just as a passing whim by the Trump administration, but rather, as part of a new strategy by US imperialism to reassert its domination over the whole continent. It is there, in black and white in Trump’s national security strategy document:
“Non-Hemispheric competitors have made major inroads into our Hemisphere, both to disadvantage us economically in the present, and in ways that may harm us strategically in the future. Allowing these incursions without serious pushback is another great American strategic mistake of recent decades. The United States must be preeminent in the Western Hemisphere as a condition of our security and prosperity—a condition that allows us to assert ourselves confidently where and when we need to in the region.” [our emphasis]
The policy aim of US imperialism is therefore to bring Venezuela back under control, as part of a wider effort aimed at the whole continent and involving measures taken against Panama, Colombia, Brazil, interference in Honduras, bailouts in Argentina, etc.
How to face up to US imperialism
For this reason, we have to say that the position taken by Colombian president Petro in the last few days is a mistake. While he has stood up to US imperialist bullying for months, in a message on 6 December in which he correctly rejected a US invasion of Venezuela, he offered as an alternative to the bloodshed: “there must be a transitional government in Venezuela, agreed upon by the Venezuelan people.” He seemed to be implying that in order to prevent a US military invasion… Venezuela needs to give in to US demands.
This would be a fatal mistake. Any concession to US imperialism would be rightly seen as a sign of weakness and would embolden Washington to demand more. If a ‘transitional government’ is put in place in Venezuela, then the US will demand the removal of Petro in Colombia, the overthrow of the Cuban Revolution, etc.
The only effective way to face up to US imperialism is through the mass mobilisation of workers and peasants in the whole region: through the working people of the region taking matters into their own hands, expropriating the interests of foreign multinationals, seizing their assets, repudiating the foreign debt, and preparing to repel US military intervention, arms in hand if necessary.
Trump’s options
The policy ‘tool’ chosen by Trump seems to be to threaten Maduro into submission. To force him to step down through the threat of overwhelming military power. There have been reports of talks involving giving the Venezuelan president safe passage and immunity. Qatar, Russia and Turkey have been mentioned as possible destinations. These reports in the capitalist media should be taken with caution and they may just be part of the same psychological war the US is conducting.
Some capitalist media outlets have suggested that Maduro propose a two year transition, after which vice president Delcy Rodriguez would take over and organise new elections. That was apparently rejected by Trump. Again, this may or may not be true. However, it is significant that an analysis article in The New York Times from 5 December, titled Trump Wants Venezuela’s Leader to Go. Here’s Who Could Replace Him, in discussing possible successors to Maduro described Delcy Rodríguez in glowing terms:
“The Moderate: Delcy Rodríguez, Vice President” was the subheading. And this is how the Times presented her: “A relative moderate, Ms. Rodríguez is the architect of a market-friendly overhaul that has stabilized the Venezuelan economy after a prolonged collapse. Her privatization of state assets and conservative fiscal policy …. Partly educated in France, Ms. Rodríguez has cultivated ties with Venezuela’s economic elites and with foreign investors and diplomats, presenting herself as a cosmopolitan technocrat in a militaristic and male-dominated government.” [our emphasis]
There you are. The perfect fit for US imperialism and the interests of US multinationals! This, incidentally, confirms what we have been saying for some time: the Maduro government is the polar opposite of Chavez’s Bolivarian Revolution. And still, the US wants to remove him. Why? To make an example. As a clear indication to other Latin American countries that the United States means business and will not allow a regime which does not submit.
But, so far, Trump’s tactics have not worked. He has increased the military pressure, up to and including a virtual aerial and naval blockade: planes have been warned not to enter Venezuelan airspace, while Russian oil tankers have been prevented from reaching her shores. About 20 percent of the whole US Navy has been deployed to the Caribbean. There are regular provocative overflights by fighter jets and bomber planes, constant threats and deadlines…
But all of this is then combined with a phone call, described by sources as “cordial” and “devoid of ultimatums”. Trump declares Venezuelan airspace closed one day and then the US requests Venezuela to receive further migrant deportation flights the next.
Since Maduro has not given in to bullying – and why should he! – Trump is left with increasingly limited options. Either escalate, and that means some sort of military action – strikes inside Venezuela, a special ops operation to seize Maduro – or back down. The first option can get messy very quickly and there is no guarantee of quick results. The second will imply a massive loss of reputation for Trump and US imperialism at a time when it is attempting to project domination and deter rivals through strength.
Killing stranded survivors at sea and Democrat hypocrisy
At home, the campaign is coming under increasing scrutiny, with allegations that Secretary of War Pete Hegseth gave a ‘kill them all order’ which led to two survivors of the first attack on a speedboat in September being killed in a double-tap strike. Both Trump and Hegseth were quick to reject any responsibility for that decision, throwing Admiral Bradley under the bus. Killing stranded survivors at sea is against the US military code and could carry legal consequences which they want to avoid.
Details of the operation emerging from the video shown to US representatives are truly disturbing:
“We had video for 48 minutes of two guys hanging off the side of a boat. There was plenty of time to make a clear and sober analysis,” US representative Adam Smith told CNN on Thursday. “You had two shipwrecked people on the top of the tiny little bit of the boat that was left that was capsized. They weren’t signaling to anybody. And the idea that these two were going to be able to return to the fight — even if you accept all of the questionable legal premises around this mission, around these strikes — it’s still very hard to imagine how these two were returning to any sort of fight in that condition.”
As repulsive as this is, it is disgusting to see Democrat politicians concentrating on this legalistic question and using it as a stick to beat Hegseth and Trump with, when they, deep down, agree with the aim of regime change in Venezuela, which is equally illegal.
The hypocrisy of the Democrats knows no limits. They did not bat an eyelid when Biden was defending Netanyahu’s genocidal actions in Gaza. It is an Executive Order signed by Obama declaring Venezuela a “serious and extraordinary threat to US national security” which led to sanctions and underpins the whole bipartisan campaign of aggression on a sovereign country.
We should not forget that it was Clinton who authorised airstrikes on the Serbian TV station building in Belgrade in 1999, killing 16 journalists and technicians. It was Obama who carried out a missile strike on the al-Shifa pharmaceutical factory in Sudan. The crimes of US imperialism are bipartisan.
This is not, as the media sometimes likes to present it, ‘a conflict between the US and Venezuela’, or a ‘clash between Maduro and Trump’. No. This is an escalating campaign of US imperialist aggression against a sovereign country. The most powerful and reactionary imperialist power on earth is attempting to break a Latin American nation into submission. Regardless of what one may think about the Maduro government, and we are not supporters of it, there is only one position we can adopt as revolutionary communists: hands off Venezuela, hands off Colombia, yankees out of Latin America, down with US imperialism!
A victory for US imperialism would be a setback for the masses in the whole region and beyond. A defeat of US imperialism in this conflict would be a victory for the workers and peasants throughout the continent.
