The Trump administration has committed a historic and outrageous act of aggression with its assault on Venezuela to abduct the country’s head of state at gunpoint. In the process, the U.S. military bombarded civilian areas and massacred dozens of people. The PSL joins with the majority of people in this country in rejecting Trump’s war drive, and opposes the brazen, illegal kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. We demand an end to all U.S. aggression – the blockade, sanctions, interference in internal politics and missile strikes on small boats must end now.
As he gave a press conference to disgustingly brag about the kidnapping, Trump said, “American dominance in the Western hemisphere will never be questioned again”. In one arrogant sentence, he summed up the fundamental goal driving U.S. policy in this situation. Venezuela is an independent country that has dared to use its natural wealth for the benefit of its own people, not U.S.-based corporations. It worked with like-minded governments in the region to assert independence from Washington. This is unacceptable to the elites who run the U.S. empire, who demand that everyone in the western hemisphere acquiesce to “American dominance”.
This is part of a broader “national security” strategy that was recently made public by The White House. It puts primacy on the Western Hemisphere and sets the goal of unchallenged dominance of Latin America and the Caribbean. The U.S. imperial establishment desperately wants to prevent countries from trading with China or developing positive diplomatic relations so that U.S. corporations and handpicked U.S. puppet leaders can reign supreme. This naked act of imperial aggression – accompanied by assertions that the U.S. will “run Venezuela” – is meant to be a signal of the Pentagon war machine’s resolve to implement this strategy. It has already been followed up with threats against Cuba, Colombia, Mexico and Greenland.
Trump claims to speak in the name of the entire people of the United States, but he exclusively pursues the interests of the billionaire class. It is not ordinary Americans who will “dominate” Venezuela’s resources. It’s oil corporations like ExxonMobil. Executives at LockheedMartin or Boeing cash in on selling weapons, but the people who would be sent to kill and die in Venezuela are the children of working people. The working class of this country has nothing to gain from Trump’s dreams of hegemony over Latin America.
Trump has shown an obsession with Venezuela’s oil, which he outrageously asserts “belongs” to the United States. U.S. oil refineries are largely set up to handle the type of oil that’s produced in Venezuela – a result of U.S. corporations’ historic dominance of the country’s resources since before the election of Hugo Chávez as president. Reasserting that domination would be a major boost for the U.S. capitalist class.
The kidnapping of President Maduro is one of the most blatant violations of international law in history. The U.S. government has no right to declare a foreign head of state a criminal, and then invade their country to carry out a so-called “arrest”. And the accusation that Maduro or any other top Venezuelan official leads a drug trafficking cartel is ridiculous and completely baseless – a cheap imitation of the Bush administration’s “weapons of mass destruction” lie. He should be immediately released from custody instead of being subjected to a fraudulent and illegitimate “legal” process in the United States.
While the Trump administration hoped it could cause the government of Venezuela to collapse, it is still intact and asserting the country’s national sovereignty. It remains the target of ongoing war threats, with Trump openly threatening to assassinate its leadership.
Immediately after the latest attack, demonstrators in over 100 cities across the United States took to the streets. These protests reflect the fact that the people of this country do not want a war with Venezuela. In the coming days and weeks, it’s crucial that people in the United States continue to mobilize and act against the illegal aggressions of the Trump regime.
