Nodutdol condemns the US imperialist war on Venezuela. From Iraq to Korea, US imperialism justifies its forever wars with fraudulent appeals to democracy, human rights, and national security. The escalating war on Venezuela is no different.
The war on Venezuela is not about drugs.
Since the democratic election of Hugo Chavez in 1998, the US has waged a protracted hybrid war to topple the socialist government of Venezuela.
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves in the world. In 2007, Venezuela nationalized the Orinoco Oil Belt, taking control of oil revenues to fund social programs for the working class instead of the profits of multinational corporations.
In response, the US unleashed punishing sanctions on Venezuela that have grown more extreme year after year. The UN estimates that US sanctions have killed as many as 100,000 people in Venezuela. From 2017 to 2024, Venezuela lost $226 billion in oil revenues to US sanctions.
Washington punishes Venezuela as a warning to Latin America and the Global South: that all nations aspiring to socialism and sovereignty will be crushed by blockades and bombardment.
But why Venezuela now? Trump’s shift to Latin America is an attempt to revive declining US power by exploiting the labor, markets, and resources of the Americas—as stated in the new National Security Strategy.
Washington is using the same playbook in Latin America that it uses in the Asia-Pacific.
In Korea, the US fought a genocidal war that killed millions of Korean people—to try to destroy the fledgling socialist government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). In the decades that followed, the US has used sanctions and constant military threats to isolate and punish the DPRK, using the conflict to justify the militarization of Asia and make an example of the Korean people.
The US war on the DPRK is maintained through a network of US military bases in the Republic of Korea (ROK), Japan, and throughout the Pacific. These bases destroy the local environment, foster dependent economies, inflict routine violence against occupied peoples, and secure the ongoing colonization of Pacific nations like Hawai’i and Guam. The war on the DPRK is a war on all the peoples of our region.
Similarly, the war on Venezuela is a war on all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. The current war could not be waged without US bases in Puerto Rico and throughout the Caribbean. Just like in Asia, US bases in Latin America devastate local communities and the environment.
Trump’s gunboat campaign has been indiscriminate. Since August, the US has killed more than 80 people, including Trinidadian and Colombian citizens in its flagrantly illegal strikes on fishing vessels it claimed to be drug boats. When Colombian President Gustavo Petro protested, the Trump administration sanctioned him and made military threats against his government.
US imperialism’s war on Venezuela fans the flames of fascism at home.
ICE has benefitted enormously from the Trump administration’s lies about Venezuela. Earlier this year, ICE deported hundreds of Venezuelan migrants without due process to El Salvador, claiming—without evidence—that they were members of the Tren de Aragua narcotrafficking gang. Trump has since connected this incident to his administration’s escalation against Venezuela by accusing President Nicolás Maduro of leading the Cartel de los Soles, which the US says is in league with Tren de Aragua.
Experts have rigorously debunked all of these claims. The UN and even the DEA admit Venezuela’s role in drug production and trafficking is marginal. Tren de Aragua has never been proven to have a transnational criminal network in the US, and the moniker Cartel de los Soles does not refer to a real organization. Trump’s lies serve a political purpose: they manufacture consent to fuel war on Venezuela, hand ICE a blank check to terrorize us, and destroy democratic rights at home in the name of counterterrorism and drug enforcement.
This strategy is not new. US imperialism used the Korean War in the 1950s to fuel domestic fascism. Senator McCarthy and his allies inflamed racist fears of communism in Korea and China to persecute, imprison, and deport leaders of labor organizations, communist parties, and Black liberation organizations. Imperialism overseas nurtures fascism at home, as the lawless violence used internationally becomes the norm in domestic politics as well.
We must answer the imperialist war on Venezuela with international solidarity and class struggle. We must defend Venezuela’s sovereignty, and the right of working peoples to determine their own future. This war reflects the interests of the ruling class, not the workers.
We know it is possible to defeat imperialism, because the history of imperialism is the history of its defeats. When the masses of people rise, imperialism trembles.
Defend Venezuela against US imperialist aggression!
US Out of Everywhere!