US Imperialism Furthers Escalation Towards “Regime Change” In Venezuela

Ultra-reactionary US President Donald Trump, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth threatened new “lethal operations” against Venezuela on October 6 and recalled US diplomats from meetings with the Venezuelan government. This comes as the buildup of US military forces in Puerto Rico has increased, poised to aid in the regime change aggression against Venezuela.

Trump told monopoly media Wednesday (10/15) that he had authorized the CIA to conduct lethal operations inside Venezuela and was “looking at land now”, meaning considering air strikes on Venezuelan soil—after bombing five separate fishing vessels since September off the coast of the country.

This comes as CIA-sponsored Venezuelan “opposition” leader Maria Corina Machado received the Nobel Peace Prize on 10/10 as part of the US imperialist coup operation against the current government. The far-right Machado backed a military coup against former leader Hugo Chavez in 2002 and has continued to back those seeking to overthrow Maduro violently. Machado, who favors privatizing Venezuelan oil and selling it off to US oil companies, dedicated the prize to Trump as he orders bombings of her nation’s people.

More Ships Attacked

US aggression started ramping up in September with attacks on boats in international waters in the Caribbean Sea, based on the claim that they were smuggling drugs for “narcoterrorists,” and that such activity made the alleged smugglers “combatants,” all claims made without any supporting evidence.

The first strike on September 2 killed 11 people who Trump claimed were members of narco-mafia group “Tren de Aragua,” with no evidence provided. The second boat strike was claimed by the Trump administration to have killed “unlawful combatants” not tied to any supposed criminal enterprise. The third and forth boats attacked included attacks on Colombian citizens, with Colombian President Gustavo Petro indicating that they were not involved in the drug trade. On 10/14, the US imperialists attacked the fifth boat, bringing the total killed to 27.

The CIA And Banks, Not Venezuela, Are Behind Drug Trade

The US imperialists’ $50 million bounty on Nicolas Maduro’s head is based on the false premise that he is the “head” of “Tren de Aragua,” a claim that the USA’s own spies confirmed in a declassified memo last May as not factual, and of “Cartel de los Soles,” which many experts on Latin American crime have pointed out is not an actual group.

Venezuela was last known as a major producer and transporter of cocaine to the US in the 1970s to the 1990s, when the CIA worked closely with the comprador government of Carlos Andres Perez to bring cocaine from Venezuela to American streets to intoxicate and ruin the people here, as part of financing his presidential campaign and counteracting movements fighting for national liberation. Chase Manhattan and the Bank of Credit and Commerce International opened offices in Venezuela in large part to launder this money.

Today tens of billions of dollars from drug trafficking and other illicit activity are held by banks based in the United States, showing the complicity of US imperialism in facilitating the drug trade. This cartel is seldom mentioned in the monopoly press, as it doesn’t fit the narrative of interventionism.

Oil And Natural Resources, Not Drugs, Behind US Aggression

It was revealed on September 9 in a released National Security Agency document that US diplomatic negotiations with Maduro were focused on giving US oil monopolies, specifically Chevron, more ownership over Venezuelan oil as part of stopping US bombings and the crippling economic blockade. Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves, with over 300 million barrels, as well as large amounts of gold, coltan, bauxite, diamonds, as well as iron ore resources.

The election of Hugo Chavez and his replacement with Nicolas Maduro led to the nationalization of Venezuela’s oil industry, which while carried out as part of developing state capitalism and strengthening the bureaucratic bourgeoisie, has nonetheless also threatened US monopolies as well as the interests of some internal commercial, financial and industrial exploiters that work closely with the US. US imperialism seeks to reverse this process, transforming Venezuela from a semi-colony to a colony of the US, in the context of US imperialism’s advanced stage of decay and its developing crisis—as a result, it seeks to bully and pillage the oppressed nations, especially in Latin America, and thwart the actions of rival imperialists like Russia and China in the region.

As A Nova Democracia points out, even before the dispatch of American warships and soldiers to threaten Venezuela in the last month there has been a push towards increasing the American military blueprint under the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Latin America. This has been done to “counter radicalization and terrorist recruitment” as well as to dissuade “Chinese and Russian influence” in the region. This reveals the counterrevolutionary plans of the US imperialist aggressor, as it sets into motion its design of invasion and occupation of Latin America, with Venezuela first.

Maduro has mobilized and armed hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans into a militia, to a tune of 4.5 million people according to Maduro, for defense of the nation against US invasion and has deployed troops to the border with Colombia to counter potential US imperialist or lackey invasion. He has also offered concessions as part of navigating the situation, including sale of publicly owned oil assets, but these have been rejected and all diplomatic avenues shut by the US imperialists. It is becoming clearer that the growing contradiction between the Venezuelan Nation and US imperialism is imposing either conditions of capitulation or armed struggle.

Image: The Venezuelan militia mobilizes for a commemorative event in January 2025 in Caracas. Milicia Bolivariana.

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