Hands off Venezuela, US, or more than your fingers will get burnt
The US imperialist big bully is in a rage. Its economy is in crisis. China is overtaking it on the industrial front. It is losing its proxy war against Russia in Ukraine despite spending tens of billions of dollars on the project. Its protégé Israel has brought it into worldwide disrepute as a facilitator of genocide. BRICS countries are working to undermine the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, which, when they succeed, will leave the US drowning under its national debt that currently amounts to 124% of GDP.
Well, desperate imperialists pursue desperate measures. This means war.
War has not gone too well for the US. It lost in Korea, it lost in Vietnam, it lost in Afghanistan, and its proxy wars in Iraq and Ukraine haven’t fared well either. But still, military intervention worked all right in Grenada in 1983 and in Panama in 1989 – maybe western hemisphere countries are more of a pushover, and an invasion of Venezuela could provide a shot in the arm for the ailing US economy through the seizure of that country’s oil reserves – the largest in the world!!!
US imperialism has been trying to secure control of Venezuela ever since Hugo Chávez mobilised to redirect profits of the Venezuelan oil industry away from imperialism into creating a better life for Venezuelan people, which, from an imperialist point of view, is a shocking waste of resources. The main tactic it has used is economic sanctions to strangle the Venezuelan economy, in the hope that this would stimulate the masses to overthrow their government in favour of a new one, approved by the US, and run largely by former, highly responsible, bankers. Yet although sanctions produced all the hardship for the Venezuelan population that imperialism could have wished for, still the anti-imperialist government of Nicolás Maduro remains in place and gets re-elected time after time. So, if economic sanctions don’t work, is it time to resort to war?
It seems that President Trump is certainly contemplating it:
He has plenty of relatively sane advisers around him to warn him it would not be a good idea to go any further in waging war against Venezuela. Forbes Magazine, hostile though it is to the Venezuelan government, has certainly on behalf of the US business interests to which it caters put forward, in an article largely dedicated to slandering the Venezuelan government and army, very strong arguments against it:
“Even though Venezuela’s military is no match for US forces, as it lacks operational capacity and has aging equipment, it has a much bigger military than Panama did—with a reported 123,000 active personnel compared to the 12,800 Panamanian Defense Forces that were in place at the time. Though Noriega [the then Panamanian president] received some support from countries such as Cuba and the Soviet Union, Venezuela has an even closer relationship with Havana and Moscow. Russia is building a Venezuelan factory to manufacture Kalashnikov assault rifles and ammunition and sending over S-300 surface to air missiles to defend Venezuelan military bases…
“Maduro also claims he can mobilize 4.5 million militia personnel, which are part of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces (FANB) created by former president Hugo Chávez in 2005. Fearing a possible US invasion, supposedly millions of civilians are also being trained in combat in more than 300 barracks across the country…
“While the US military might be able to overpower Maduro, Venezuela has no shortage of armed groups that are ready to fill the vacuum and wreak havoc in any transition period…
“Brazil’s leadership has warned that upheaval in Venezuela could transform the region into a Vietnam-style ’war zone.’ If the US invades Venezuela, the conditions are ripe for protracted, low-intensity conflict that will be highly destabilizing for the region” (Natasha Lindstaedt, ‘Why pursuing regime change in Venezuela will be a disaster’, 24 December 2025).
While Trump may yet reluctantly accept this wise counsel, for the moment he is beating the war drums in a truly frenzied manner. Francisco Domínguez of the UK Venezuela Solidarity Campaign, has succinctly summed up the present situation:
“In deploying the largest naval armada seen in the Caribbean Sea for decades, the Trump administration has spent recent months ramping up long-standing US aggression against Venezuela. Predicated upon the falsehood that Venezuela is a narco-state run by the non-existent Cartel de los Soles, the fleet comprises at least thirteen warships, including three guided-missile destroyers, five support vessels, a nuclear submarine and the USS Gerald Ford.
“The latter, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, is capable of carrying over 75 military aircraft and a range of military assets. Overall, the US has deployed at least 16,000 military personnel to the flotilla. The Pentagon is also docking warships and moving in war materiel through Puerto Rico and Trinidad and Tobago, and likely through Guyana and other Caribbean islands” (‘Lies, false flags and extrajudicial murders: resisting US attacks on Venezuela’, Red Pepper Media, 5 December 2025).
Starting on 2 September this year, the US has been attacking fishing boats, blowing them up and killing their crew, all on the basis of unproven allegations that they are engaged in ‘narco-trafficking’, which the Venezuelan government is accused, without the slightest evidence, of controlling. If there were any truth in these absurd allegations, why would the boats not have been towed to port, their cargoes exposed there to inspection and their crew members put on public trial? Since when is it permissible just to murder drug peddlers without trial? The very fact that they were mercilessly murdered is in fact the best proof of their innocence – particularly in view of the fact that their small boats would have been incapable of even reaching the United States which was their supposed destination. Up to 23 December there were attacks on 29 boats in which 105 people have been killed. Even the British government has baulked at these acts of piracy, albeit in a typically pusillanimous way, by suspending some (not all) intelligence sharing in order to avoid being complicit in actions it considers ‘potentially’ illegal under international law.
Trump then upped the ante by ordering the US Coastguard to arrest oil tankers that are engaged in transporting Venezuela’s oil exports. A vessel called Skipper and another called Centuries were caught with large cargoes of Venezuelan oil worth many millions of dollars. Since the Gulf war the US has arrogated to itself the right to sanction vessels that transport sanctioned countries’ oil, which forces these vessels to disguise themselves and their courses in ways that are technically forbidden, e.g., flying the flag of a country in which they are not registered; turning off their transponder through which they can be tracked while at sea. It is on this basis that the US claims the right to arrest the vessels concerned, confiscate their cargoes, and punish their crews. The Skipper was arrested on 10 December, and the Centuries on 20 December. On 20 December also the US also tried to arrest an empty sanctioned oil tanker heading for Venezuela, the Bella One, which, however, turned and fled, avoiding arrest.
The oil that has been seized was destined for China, which has naturally joined Venezuela in condemning the US’s acts of piracy.
Trump is no doubt hoping that preventing Venezuela from selling any oil at all (other than what the US buys!), will force the Venezuelan government and people to surrender. It is unlikely to do so, but in the meantime Trump’s provocations are making war only too likely – a war that could inflame not only Latin America, as Forbes magazine has warned, but even segue into world war involving Russia and China and their allies, with European countries dragged in to support their wayward American ally. It’s not only America that will get burnt.