A Brief History of US Imperialism in Venezuela

Read our editorial on the US imperialist war of aggression against Venezuela here.

Since the US imperialists kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife in early January, the Trump administration has abandoned any pretense of “ensuring free and fair elections” or “combating narco-terrorism.” President Trump has stated plainly that the goal of US monopolists is to control Venezuela’s oil, minerals, and labor, and to deepen US domination over Latin America as a whole. Previous administrations may have masked these intentions more effectively than the Trump administration, but the basic objectives of US policy toward Venezuela have overall remained constant. Below, we provide a brief review of the history of US aggression and interference in Venezuela.

Venezuela is a Semi-Colonial Country

Venezuela is an oppressed nation that has faced multiple colonial occupations and military interventions by the imperialist powers and superpowers, especially the US, over the previous centuries.

Beginning in the early 16th century, Venezuela was colonized by Spain. In 1811, Venezuela gained formal independence through the revolution led by Simón Bolívar, who fought for the independence of several South American countries from Spanish colonial rule. Following Bolivar’s exile, first British and Dutch, and then US imperialism came to dominate the country.

Since gaining independence from Spain, Venezuela has become oppressed by three mountains: 1) imperialism, mainly US imperialism; 2) bureaucratic capitalism, embodied by the corrupt and traitorous big bourgeoisie that works subordinate to foreign powers; and finally 3) the latifundio, the big feudal landowning class in the countryside that dominates vast tracts of land taken from poor peasants and indigenous peoples.

Venezuela’s economic development, like many other oppressed nations in the Third World today, is subjected mainly to the interests of US imperialism, which has focused on the development of its oil industry at the expense of other sectors. This sclerotic economy is integrated into a global division of labor at the behest of the colluding and contending interests of imperialist powers and superpowers, rendering it vulnerable to market fluctuations.

Venezuela has faced repeated invasions and jockeying by the imperialists to rip its oil and other resources out of its people’s hands since Simón Bolívar’s exile.

The Vultures Arrive: The So-Called “Venezuela Crisis” of 1902-1903

Trump’s piracy of Venezuelan boats carrying oil and mafia-style threats have been part of US imperialist policy for decades. Securing domination over Venezuela and its oil wealth was a key reason for the addition of the 1904 Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which sought to impose and justify US imperialism as the main imperialist power dominating Latin America. At the height of US monopoly Standard Oil’s domination of Venezuela, fully half of the profits Wall Street extracted from Latin America came from its investments there.

In 1902, Germany, Britain, and Italy sent warships to Venezuela and had their troops seize customs houses under the pretext that Venezuela’s government, headed by President Cipriano Castro, was not making debt payments. Then-President Theodore Roosevelt established what would be American policy in the region: “If any South American country misbehaves toward any European country, let the European country spank it, but the punishment should not take the form of acquisition of territory by any non-American power.” US warships would scare the European ships away, and Roosevelt established that if Latin American countries were to be “spanked,” their ports bombarded, their civilians massacred, the US would do the job—with the help of native politicians if need be.

In 1908, the US would fund its first “regime-change” operation there, overthrowing President Castro and putting his Vice President, Juan Vicente Gómez, in power. Under Gómez’s dictatorship, the government shut down universities for a decade to retaliate against student protests, and tortured and murdered those who opposed him. Gómez would also press thousands to work as slaves to construct highways and railways.

It was under Gómez that US oil monopolies were first “invited” into Venezuela and emerged as a dominant force in the Venezuelan economy, with the first well drilled in 1912 in the Maracaibo Basin. Gómez unilaterally handed out control of vast swaths of territory belonging to Venezuelan peasants and indigenous peoples to J. D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Through this pillage, Gómez would become Venezuela’s richest man. It is on the basis of this thievery that Trump today falsely claims US property was “stolen” by later governments.

The Theft Continues, From Dictatorship to Oil And Narco “Democracy”

Although Venezuela adopted a fifty-fifty oil profit-sharing framework in 1943 under the Medina Angarita government, US oil monopolies and their comprador allies remained hostile to taxation. When the Democratic Action (DA) party elevated Rómulo Gallegos to the presidency in 1947 on a reformist platform, his civilian authority and nationalist orientation were short-lived: he was deposed by his own military in 1948, clearing the path for Marcos Pérez Jiménez and a regime more amenable to US monopoly capital.

Jiménez would impose a reign of terror, detaining thousands of political prisoners in concentration camps and massacring those protesting the impoverished conditions in the country. The immense profits made by the oil trade were repatriated to the oil and finance monopolists in the US while the population lived in misery. For the service of keeping Venezuela compliant, US President Eisenhower would give Jiménez the Legion of Merit award.

Eisenhower’s enthusiasm for Jiménez was not shared by the Venezuelan people, and he, too, would be deposed in a coup. During a visit by then-Vice President Nixon in 1958, popular demonstrations against imperialism led to the dispatch of warplanes and paratroopers to escort him out.

The fall of Jiménez led to the elevation of Romulo Betancourt to office. Betancourt, a DA candidate, championed reforms similar to those of his predecessors, including taxing the oil industry, even nationalizing it, and using some of the tax revenue to “help the poor.” Betancourt’s “democracy” was no less ruthless than previous military regimes, with the new secret police agency, DISIP, savagely disappearing or murdering around 900 Venezuelan civilians. Betancourt was succeeded by Raúl Leoni, who further repressed the masses in close cooperation with the US.

In 1974, Carlos Andrés Pérez became president, infamously working with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in profiting off the cocaine trade by facilitating its smuggling through the Caribbean. US media monopoly show 60 Minutes featured a segment on how the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) attempted to bring attention to the CIA’s facilitation of the drug trade, but was faced with silence. The growth of cocaine trafficking in the Caribbean became interconnected with US imperialism’s counterinsurgency and intelligence operations in the region.

Due to its geographic position, Venezuela was a strategic transit corridor for cocaine moving from Andean producers to US markets. The CIA generated enormous off-the-books revenue streams that increased its ability to fund anti-communist militias fighting against national liberation movements in the region. Pérez profited as a middleman, using the Venezuelan military and police to facilitate the movement of cocaine through his country into the Caribbean Sea.

Pérez was also the vice president of the revisionist, social-chauvinist Socialist Internationale. Under his administration, a formal nationalization of the oil industry took effect on January 1, 1976, though it was limited to comply with US imperialism. The Venezuelan state converted foreign concession-based operations into a state-owned enterprise, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A (PDVSA), while compensating major foreign firms such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, and ConocoPhillips at roughly one billion dollars each based on book-value assessments.

Contrary to Trump’s claims today that Venezuelan oil was “stolen,” neither the oil nor the land had ever been US property; monopolies had operated through concessions granted by Venezuelan governments that allowed them to extract and profit from resources that legally belonged to the Venezuelan nation. Moreover, nationalization did not end imperialist domination of the sector: PDVSA maintained technical, commercial, and later joint-venture relationships with US, British, and Dutch monopoly capital, thereby preserving foreign domination in production and exports. Thus, while ownership formally changed, the underlying integration of Venezuelan oil into a US-dominated international market remained intact.

While the Venezuelan state owned 40% of PDVSA’s capital, 60% remained with the Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), a US monopoly that controls PDVSA’s entire planning and intelligence sector. Possessing confidential company information and the command of strategic sectors of PDVSA, the CIA has historically been able to use this influence to engage in economic sabotage and “strikes” to bring the entire Venezuelan economy to ruin.

The Rise of Chavismo and US Attacks on the “Bolivarian Revolution”

The Venezuelan people fought for the dream of Simón Bolívar as Venezuela’s immense oil deposits served as a source of their exploitation for foreign capitalists. The peasantry was expropriated and bankrupted by the landlords and bureaucratic capitalists as the country imported 80% of its food. The proletariat worked at a few industrial plants in addition to those linked to oil infrastructure. Unemployment was always a chronic issue, worsening in the 1970s and 1990s as oil booms and busts created cycles of crises that pushed joblessness to 10-15% in urban areas. By the end of the 20th century, the just rebellion of workers entered a new period as Venezuelan bureaucratic capitalism faced a profound crisis.

Pérez, who returned to office in 1989 for a second presidential term, oversaw rising national debt as falling oil prices strained Venezuela’s economy. This fiscal crisis paved the way for the International Monetary Fund to impose structural adjustment programs, including drastic cuts to social spending on healthcare, food, and education, as well as sharp increases in fuel prices for ordinary citizens. This led to a mass uprising in 1989 known as the Caracazo, which would spell the end of Pérez.

A young military officer named Hugo Chávez would attempt a military coup against Pérez in 1992; although it failed, Pérez would ultimately step down months later, and Chávez would be elected to office 6 years later. Chávez promised a rejection of “neoliberalism”—of the US, World Bank, and IMF enforcing their control—as part of a “Bolivarian revolution” that would free Venezuela from imperialism.

The bourgeois nationalist Chávez, despite frightening imperialism and its lackeys who cannot accept anything but the most unrestricted submission, started a “revolution” that would expropriate neither the bureaucratic bourgeoisie nor the latifundia, much less imperialist monopolies.

The Chávez government expanded state ownership of PDVSA, raised taxes on oil profits, increased public housing, and proposed a six-hour workday—though workers would still need to take on extra labor to meet their basic needs. At the same time, Chávez framed his confrontation with oil monopolies as a push to increase exports to US markets, enriching the Venezuelan bureaucratic bourgeoisie.

Under Chávez, exports to the US jumped from $15 billion in 2001 to $34 billion in 2005. Chávez worked to put the ruling class in a privileged position to negotiate and haggle over their oil, and, as the dynamics of the world market raised the price of this raw material, these economic measures of “anti-imperialism” initially served to enrich some.

Chávez would take no time to calm down capitalists, to search “outwards” for the reactivation of the economy. The Law for the Promotion and Protection of Foreign Investments, Telecommunications Law, Bidding Law, and Banking Mergers Law reassured foreign monopolies—in particular those from the US—that Venezuela was safe to invest in. In compliance with the IMF, Chávez privatized state industries and allowed foreign imperialists to take control of many strategic industrial properties. The electric monopoly for Caracas was owned by US investors, and Venezuela’s main banks were sold to Spanish investors.

Despite Chávez’s reassurances, the Chavista project for expanding bureaucrat capitalism’s control over the oil sector did cut into the profits US monopolies had long enjoyed, contributing to hostility from US oil capitalists and compradors. The hostility spurred George W. Bush’s administration to attempt a coup in 2002, when sections of the military moved to remove Chávez from office with CIA encouragement. The Bush administration recognized the coup government of Pedro Carmona almost immediately.

After 36 hours, under the pressure of a mass uprising, Carmona would resign, and Chávez would return to power. María Corina Machado, the winner of the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize who still today cheers for the US invasion of her home country, was one of the 2002 coup plotters.

This would not be the only attempt, with Chávez also facing the 2002-2003 oil strike, in which the CIA, comprador opposition, and the Catholic Church sparked the sabotage and shutdown of the oil industry. These efforts were met with Chávez nationalizing more of the oil sector and laying off managers and workers who participated in the strike. Chávez would pass away in 2013 while in office.

Chávez and his successor, Maduro, responded to this increased confrontation by signing hundreds of bilateral agreements with Russian imperialism and Chinese social-imperialism. Venezuela would become one of China’s largest recipients of imperialist investment, and also where China got most of its oil from.

The Attacks Continue

Following Chávez’s death, Nicolás Maduro would assume the office of President, but would be entering at a time when global oil prices were falling in the aftermath of the 2008 economic crisis. Additionally, US President Barack Obama would impose heavy sanctions on the country, which persist to this day. This led to an explosion of refugees from Venezuela, forced into unemployment by the imperialist economic war.

The first Trump administration marked a leap in the uptick of US forces in the region and preparations for war. In August 2018, there was an attempted assassination on Maduro during a military parade by two drones loaded with C4 and gunpowder. They missed their target and failed.

There would be several coup attempts against Maduro that were thwarted. In 2019, US puppet Juan Guaidó proclaimed himself president. Supported mainly by the US and sections of the military, an uprising was attempted in April of that year that was quickly put down.

In 2020, a CIA mercenary-style plot known as Operation Gideon attempted to overthrow Maduro by infiltrating Venezuela from Colombia with a small force organized by Jordan Goudreau’s mercenary firm Silvercorp USA, and supported by a member of the Venezuelan military, Cliver Alcalá Cordones. Based in Colombia near the Venezuelan border, the plan was to invade as a precursor to a coup against Maduro that would put Guaidó in power. The force, which included US mercenaries, landed by sea near Macuto but was quickly intercepted by Venezuelan authorities. Embarrassed by this defeat, shortly afterward the US had Cordones extradited by Colombian authorities to face drug trafficking and “narco-terrorism” charges. Today, Cordones is assisting US imperialism in building its phony legal case against the kidnapped President Maduro.

Venezuela Today

With the backdrop of the imperialist economic crisis of overproduction and intensifying competition between imperialist powers, the US launched its latest war of aggression against Venezuela intent on preserving its position as the sole hegemonic imperialist superpower by increasing its domination of the region.

Following US imperialism’s January 3 kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores, Interim President Delcy Rodriguez’s administration has deepened Venezuela’s capitulation to US imperialism.

Threatened with assassination by the Trump administration, which continues to bomb fishermen off of Venezuela’s coast, Rodríguez has so far chosen to concede to US imperialism for her own personal survival rather than resist.

Rodríguez replaced the military’s senior commanders and has been removing officials aligned with Maduro. She signed an amnesty law for political prisoners and political crimes dating back to 1999, when Chávez came to power.

Just weeks into assuming her position, Rodríguez oversaw the hydrocarbon reform, giving US oil monopolies greater domination over Venezuelan oil. The legislation effectively dismantles the state monopoly on oil by granting the US government the ability to oversee the sale of Venezuelan oil, requiring revenue from the sale of its oil to be placed in US banks, and allowing Washington to dictate the cutting of ties with China and Russia in exchange for lifting the US economic and military siege.

In March, Rodríguez announced mining reform legislation, opening Venezuela’s mineral reserves to private and foreign domination for the first time since 1999.

Rodríguez’s government, just as Maduro’s and Chávez’s before it, rests on class interests that seek stability to realize profits from oil sales under the domination of imperialism. Rodríguez’s administration has increased its collusion with US imperialism in particular, a great betrayal of the people.

Revolutionaries and progressives must first and foremost denounce imperialist aggression, especially US imperialism, which is attempting to subordinate the senior leadership of the Venezuelan state while isolating the militias and “collectivos” that oppose imperialist domination and wish to fight for national sovereignty and self-determination.

The Peru People’s Movement (MPP), the organization established by the Communist Party of Peru for its work abroad, wrote in a statement on January 3: “The proletariat of Venezuela is presented with a great opportunity to reconstitute its Communist Party, because it is a necessity, the proletariat of this country represented by its vanguard has to fight to lead the armed struggle to oppose military intervention of Yankee imperialism, to denounce, fight and confront the tendency of capitulation and national betrayal of the representatives and parties of the big bourgeoisie (of both factions) and the land owners.”

National liberation will only be won through national resistance, never through accepting the blackmail of imperialist “peace” and a survival based on servitude to imperialism.

Image: Venezuelan people attack then-Vice President Nixon’s car in Caracas, Venezuela in 1958.

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