Trump meets with “interim president” of Venezuela Juan Guaidó in 2020. Credit: Flickr/Trump White House Archived
On Nov. 19, continuing a now time-honored tradition, the outgoing Biden administration recognized opposition leader Edmundo González as Venezuela’s “president-elect.” This came just months after the successful re-election of President Nicolás Maduro; at the time the United States tried to delegitimize the results by launching a coordinated misinformation campaign accusing the Maduro government of election fraud (even as nearly 1,000 international monitors from over 100 countries approved the results). More recently, on Nov. 27, the U.S. government sanctioned 21 Venezuelan officials aligned with Maduro — with the State Department taking steps to impose visa restrictions on 2,000 others — to further punish the elected government. Despite these efforts, the Venezuelan people defended their sovereignty and made clear their desire to continue building the Bolivarian Revolution.
One thousand miles away, the Cuban Revolution continues its own struggle against U.S. imperialism. The country has recently faced a barrage of natural disasters – back-to-back hurricanes, including one that left multiple people dead, and an earthquake – just as its people deal with the man-made disasters wrought by the U.S. blockade – including power outages brought by a lack of access to fuel, food shortages, and a crumbling infrastructure.
Now, with a second Trump presidency looming and the new year just around the corner, we should consider what another four years of Trump might mean for Cuba and Venezuela. To do so, we first have to look at the history of U.S.-Cuba-Venezuela relations. That history has been one of all-out hybrid war.
Hybrid war: A toolkit for regime change
Broadly speaking, hybrid warfare is a combination of ‘conventional and unconventional military tactics’ intended to destabilize a country and undermine its society. The ultimate goal of destabilization is to prepare the ground for regime change. One of the advantages of hybrid warfare is that it blurs the lines between war and peace. This allows for the actuality of war without the declaration of war. So, for example, the US can target a country for years, even decades – as in the case of Cuba and Venezuela – using a range of aggressive unilateral measures – economic, legal, diplomatic, and informational – without deploying a single soldier and without congressional approval.
The main tool of hybrid war is legal (also known as ‘lawfare’). As the world hegemon, the US is able to leverage the (now declining) supremacy of its currency and the global network of Western-controlled financial and credit institutions to impose unilateral coercive measures like sanctions on any country it deems a ‘threat’. But what could possibly threaten the mighty United States? If we look at the countries targeted with sanctions, we see that they are consistently countries that: a) wish nationalize their resources for their own development, thereby cutting out private foreign capital; b) seek to develop through a socialist path (this invariably incurs accusations of ‘authoritarianism’; or c) wish to engage in cooperation with countries the US already considers threats, like China or Russia. It also just so happens that they are almost always countries of the Global South. So, the US is constantly threatened by ‘developing’ countries in the Global South that want to exercise their sovereignty and wish to freely associate with other sovereign states.
Another tool of hybrid war is informational. By using its near monopoly on global media and communications, the US can the use propaganda and misinformation to smear any target country as an authoritarian dystopia – as when the media consistently refers to countries the US sanctions as ‘regimes’ (even if they have more participative forms of government and lower rates of voter abstention than liberal democracies, as in the case of Cuba and Venezuela). And propaganda works not only through misinformation but by omission – by keeping its working class in the dark about the reality of these countries, the US manufactures consent for the targeted immiseration of their populations (apparently the only way to be truly ‘free’ is on an empty stomach).
But, if these countries are really threats, why not engage with them militarily? The tactics of hybrid war are usually deployed when the target country has the support of its people, and when the political consequences of all out war (or an old-style coup) would be too costly for US credibility. The latter is particularly true in the case of Cuba and Venezuela. Hundreds of thousands of its citizens have migrated to the United States, most fleeing the effects of the very measures imposed by the US. But most immigrants still maintain ties back home. And even those Venezuelans and Cubans that don’t necessarily support their former governments would not take lightly to F-15s carpet bombing their childhood neighborhoods. There’s a reason the more unseemly forms of imperialism are only used on distant threats. Such bloodshed in its own backyard would quickly become a PR nightmare for the US. (And we’ve already seen the electoral consequences of not showing such restraint against a perceived enemy, as thousands of voters abandoned the Democrats these past elections and opted instead for anti-genocide third party candidates.)
However, although not waged using bombs and artillery the consequences of hybrid warfare are nonetheless highly destructive.
From Eisenhower to Trump: The threat of Cuban socialism
In 1960, under the Eisenhower administration, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs Lester D. Mallory wrote a State Department memorandum evaluating the situation in Cuba. In it he underscored the fact that Fidel Castro had the full support of the Cuban people — and that no effective opposition existed on the island. The Mallory Memorandum, as it came to be known, concluded that the “only foreseeable means of alienating internal support” for the Cuban Revolution would be by sowing “disenchantment” by creating the conditions for “economic dissatisfaction and hardship.” This would become the blueprint for hybrid warfare as a method to bring about regime change in countries that refuse to bend to the mandates of U.S. imperialism.
Sixty-four years later, the U.S. blockade on Cuba is still attempting to do just that. But despite decades of forced economic crisis, natural disasters and darkness, the flame of the Revolution burns on, fanned by the Cuban people and their steadfast commitment to Cuban socialism. And even though the U.S. is committed to its siege on Cuba — no matter the human costs — the rest of the international community has again and again called on it to end.
On Oct. 30, 187 of the 193-member UN General Assembly voted in favor of adopting their annual resolution to end “the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba.” As happens almost every year, the only countries to vote against the resolution were the United States and Israel, with one abstention from the Republic of Moldova. (It should come as no surprise that the two countries to vote against a resolution to end what Cuba’s Minister for Foreign Affairs called “a crime of genocide” would be the two countries actively carrying a genocide for all the world to see.) But such disastrous measures are not enough for a decadent U.S. intent on punishing any country that seeks self-determination, much less through a socialist path.
In 1982, Ronald Reagan – the man who first introduced the world to the now infamous slogan “Make America Great Again” – added Cuba to the State Department’s State Sponsors of Terrorism (SSOT) list for “alleged ties to international terrorism and support for terrorist groups in Latin America.” At the time what the U.S. deemed “support for terrorism” was Cuba’s support for national liberation struggles, from Nicaragua and Bolivia to Guinea-Bissau and Angola. Despite SSOT designees not requiring regular review, Cuba was kept on the list until President Obama removed it in May 2015. In 2021, again emulating his fellow entertainment industry president, Donald Trump redesignated Cuba as an SSOTThis time around, the grounds for the designation were Cuba’s role in peace negotiations between the Colombian government and Colombia’s National Liberation Army (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, ELN) and rejecting requests by that government to extradite members of the ELN. Cuba contended that complying with the extradition request would violate “established protocols as a guarantor of the peace talks” between both parties (something to which another party involved in the negotiations – the Norwegian foreign ministry – agreed).
Spurious grounds aside, the impacts of Cuba’s re-inclusion in the SSOT are wide ranging, including preventing humanitarian aid from reaching the country (even aid from faith-based groups); barring US universities from collaborating with Cuban artists, writers, academics, and journalists, thereby depriving both countries from engaging in intellectual and cultural exchange; preventing people from making money transfers to Cuba using online platforms like PayPal, many times having their accounts frozen if they attempt to do so; and creating a chilling effect that makes banks, financial institutions, and foreign companies avoid engaging in business with Cuba.
Together, the embargo and the SSOT work to fulfill the objectives laid out by the Mallory Memorandum in 1960: to “bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government” in Cuba. The conditions produced by the U.S.’s unilateral coercive economic measures are the same conditions that the monopoly media then spins as being the consequences of mismanagement by an “authoritarian” government. Even though these accusations are never presented with any proof, the media blackout surrounding the island allows the ruling class to shape U.S. and international opinion about the Cuban project.
At the same time, similar tactics are deployed against the Bolivarian Revolution.
From Juan Guaidó to Edmundo Gonzáles: The Bolivarian Revolution under siege
After Comandante Hugo Chávez’s death on March 5, 2013, the U.S. unleashed a series of coercive economic measures designed to hamstring the incoming Maduro government and ultimately overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution. The first such measure was enacted by President Barack Obama in 2015. Executive Order 13692 declared Venezuela an “unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States,” citing — again, without any proof — the “erosion of human rights guarantees, persecution of political opponents, curtailment of press freedoms, use of violence and human rights violations and abuses” by the Venezuelan government. Lack of proof aside, the narrative of Venezuela as a “threat” served as the foundation for what would become a unilateral and illegal declaration of war. Obama’s order provided the “legal” framework for the implementation of a comprehensive sanctions regime targeting the country, its economy, and its people. And since it has no expiration date, this economic war can continue indefinitely.
In 2016, following a risk management review, Citibank became the first financial institution to act on the order by closing the accounts of Venezuela’s Central Bank and the Bank of Venezuela. The next year President Donald Trump announced that his administration would be launching a “maximum pressure” campaign against the country, starting with its oil industry. The U.S. Treasury imposed sanctions against state-owned oil company PDVSA in August of that year; in January 2019 it imposed an embargo on oil exports as well. Aside from severe fuel shortages, the combined result of these measures was a drop in Venezuela’s GDP of more than 65% between 2014 and 2019, as well as hyperinflation.
The next target of the sanctions was the mining sector, with sanctions levied against Venezuela’s state-owned mining company Minerven in March 2019; a major blow for a country that holds the world’s second-largest certified gold reserves. And since Venezuela was using gold reserves to pay for essential goods like food, fuel, medicine and other imports, this led to severe shortages in those areas.
Up next were the country’s finances, with embargoes against Venezuela’s public banking system. In April 2019, the U.S. Treasury blacklisted Venezuela’s Central Bank, limiting transactions and banning access to U.S. dollars. With additional sanctions, several Venezuelan bank accounts in international financial institutions were closed, while the country also lost access to credit. Since then, more than $8 billion in Venezuelan assets remain frozen in accounts controlled by banks in the U.S., Portugal, Spain, Britain, France and Belgium, including almost $2 billion in gold.
In January 2019, just as they did recently with Edmundo González, the Trump administration recognized Juan Guaidó as Venezuela’s “interim president”. That time around, however, this blatant violation of another country’s sovereignty was not merely symbolic. Guaidó was given control of bank accounts and assets belonging to the country, including CITGO, a Houston-based oil company that is majority owned by the Venezuelan government and worth around $10 billion. Guaidó would use these stolen funds to finance a failed coup attempt.
With the encouragement of the Trump administration, in 2020 the “interim president” hired former Green Beret Jordan Goudreau to “plan and execute an operation to capture/detain/remove Nicolás Maduro,” as a leaked copy of the contract between both parties revealed. On May 4, 2020, in what became known as Operation Gideon, a group of 60 mercenaries – including deserters of the Venezuelan army and two other Green Berets – attempted to sneak into Venezuela on speedboats. The operation was thwarted by the country’s military, leaving six of the mercenaries dead. Though Goudreau was not in Venezuela at the time, he posted videos on social media boasting about his involvement. He was later arrested on charges of arms trafficking. It later came to light that Goudreau had sued Guaidó for breach of contract, as the latter failed to pay the full amount he agreed to (in what must be the first ever recorded contract dispute between coup plotters).
During his time in office President Joe Biden left the sanctions regime against Venezuela – first started under Obama and then continued and intensified under Trump – completely intact. Hybrid war is clearly a bipartisan issue, and a continuation of the 200-year-old Monroe Doctrine that arrogantly declared Latin America “America’s backyard.”
It must be noted that the costs of the sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela are not just economic, but all too human. These measures are designed to create hunger, desperation and general underdevelopment. This is the weaponization of the economy to achieve political ends — namely, the delegitimization of socialism in the Global South.
Red stars over Nuestra América
But why would the most powerful military power in the world go to such lengths to discipline countries that pose no real threat to it? Firstly, as in the case of Venezuela, the reason is capitalistic. Venezuela has 18% of the world’s total oil reserves and the most of any country. It also has reserves of gold, lithium, and other precious minerals that are essential for emerging industries, representing billions in potential revenue. This gives Venezuela everything necessary for its full development. But by taking away its ability to make use of these resources, the U.S. fabricates the conditions for its underdevelopment.
Cuba, on the other hand, is not nearly as resource rich as Venezuela. So why sanction it as well? The answer in the case of both countries is ultimately ideological – both Cuba and Venezuela launched successful socialist revolutions in “America’s backyard.” To allow their full, joint development, would set a dangerous precedent for the peoples of Bolívar’s Nuestra América. And the example of successful socialist projects in Latin America would be a powerful inspiration for the former colonies and neo-colonies of the rest of the Global South. So the U.S. must do everything in its power to halt their development.
Four more years of Trump
In January 2025 Donald Trump is set to take office as the 47th president of the United States. As the head of a declining empire, his second presidency is poised to be as unpredictable as the first (and no less dangerous). But what will it mean for Cuba and Venezuela? Recently, President Maduro said that the incoming Trump administration would represent a “new start,” opening up the possibility for talks between the two countries. But Trump, who Maduro once called a “racist cowboy” (an accurate assessment save for the cowboy part), has already announced he will appoint rabid anti-Venezuela and Cuba hawk Marco Rubio as Secretary of State. His appointment does not bode well for relations between the three countries.
Rubio has made a career out of his virulent opposition to the Bolivarian Revolution. In 2019, during the first Trump administration, Senator Rubio introduced the Venezuelan Contracting Restriction Act. The bill, aimed at preventing “federal agencies from doing business with anyone that supports the oppressive Maduro [government],” was another form of lawfare deployed to economically isolate the already besieged Venezuelan government. The bill was co-signed by Representative Michael Waltz, who Trump recently announced as his national security adviser. At the time, Waltz celebrated the bill as “a clear message that the United States stands with the people of Venezuela” — a peculiar way to describe a policy designed to immiserate those same people.
Five years later, Waltz continues to “stand with the people of Venezuela.” This November the House of Representatives passed the bipartisan Banning Operations and Leases with the Illegitimate Venezuelan Authoritarian Regime (BOLIVAR) Act. The bill, introduced by Waltz and Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz, will prevent anyone in the U.S. government from doing business with the Maduro government, as it “is not recognized as the legitimate Government of Venezuela by the United States.” The people of Venezuela, which Waltz claims to support, are apparently in no position to determine the legitimacy of their government.
If history is to be believed, the duo of Rubio and Waltz in Trump’s incoming government will certainly mean more hybrid war against Venezuela and Cuba. Further, Rubio’s hardline on China at the very least signals a continuation of Trump’s anti-China policies, which will already have a robust infrastructure in place (the Biden administration recently laid out plans to ramp-up militarization in the Indo-Pacific).
These developments, along with the recent decision of the House of Representatives to pass a bill that will allow the U.S. Treasury to target nonprofits that support Palestine as supporters of terrorism would suggest that a second Trump presidency will at the very least continue the country’s hostility to anyone – both at home and abroad – that challenges its dwindling role as world hegemon. Trump’s presidency has been called by some “a morbid symptom of the U.S.’s imperial decline.” And empires in decline do not tend to go out with a whimper.
As dangerous as it is, however, this decline is also an opportunity, and the peoples of the world must take advantage of it. We must recognize the importance of this moment and fight – just as the people of Venezuela and Cuba. Their struggle, like the struggle of the people of Palestine, is the struggle of all humanity.
¡Venceremos!
