The military and sanctions strategy against Venezuela, developed by U.S. President Donald Trump, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, is as cynical as it is dangerous.
This driven ideological plan is part of a global strategy of US monopoly capitalism. It hides behind the childlike tantrums of Trump—a very thought-out tactic that has conditioned the world to his erratic spontaneity while US state monopoly capitalism doggedly pursues its global economic agenda.
Globally, monopoly capital is pushing for authoritarian states to crush dissent and for deregulation to squeeze profits and create investment bubbles. It demands the US act as sole global policeman, resolving conflicts on its terms. This includes the Congo, where the US attempts to force a settlement while simultaneously grabbing the country’s mineral wealth for US corporations.
The same strategy is applied to the Ukraine conflict at little cost for maximum return. It aims to counter and squeeze China’s Belt and Road Initiative. China was securing strategic access to global mineral assets while the US was busy bombing the world. Now, the US seeks to grab global resources for itself, trying to rebuild its industrial base under the leadership of the financial-industrial-military complex.
The Trump regime is now engaged in the largest military build-up in the Caribbean since its 1989 invasion of Panama. Then, the target was President Manuel Noriega, similarly accused by the US of drug smuggling. The charge of drug smuggling has long been a ruse to overthrow governments across Latin America.
It is clear that the US military and economic blockade is directed, in its first phase, primarily at overthrowing the Bolivarian process in Venezuela. This would end the progressive social and economic advances secured by working people, defeat the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, and—most critically—crush the Cuban revolution, which has resisted US aggression for over seven decades and inspired billions globally to struggle for socialism.
The strategy of US state monopoly capitalism is simple. Overthrowing the Venezuelan government is only the first step, to be followed by seizing the country’s natural resources, mainly the largest oil reserves in the world. It would also lead to dismantling Venezuela’s membership of ALBA and CELAC, among other regional organisations, in the belief that these progressive formations would cease to unify opposition to US imperialism.
Trump and the forces he represents are attempting to tear up the liberal rule book to enable a rampage of capitalist aggression, creating a new world order of psychological instability. US monopoly capital is attempting to re-establish its unquestioned global power. Trump is just the showman, not the real power.
US monopolies see the overthrow of the Bolivarian process as a stepping stone to securing its interests, particularly the long-held desire to crush the Cuban revolution. They do and will support every reactionary government and movement in Latin America to drive the people back and ensure US economic interests at the expense of the poor and workers.
It is critical that all progressive forces in Ireland and across the world mobilise to defend the Venezuelan government and the Bolivarian process. The defeat of Venezuela would open the door to driving the peoples of Latin America backwards, ushering in decades of mass repression, hunger, poverty, and the robbery of their wealth and natural resources.
The Trump regime has drawn a line in the sand. We must choose to stand on the right side of history, shoulder to shoulder with the working people of Venezuela and its progressive government, despite any criticisms one may have. The greater enemy is US monopoly capital and the corporate interests it protects and advances.
