The U.S. military assault on Venezuela today, and the kidnapping of the country’s president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, is naked imperialist aggression, and a blatant violation of international law and of Venezuela’s sovereignty. Working people in the United States and the world and anyone supporting democracy need to swiftly condemn this Yankee onslaught and turn to the streets to protest it.

In a blatant act of war, the U.S. government carried out multiple military strikes near Caracas, the country’s capital, and elsewhere in the country, violating the sovereign rights of the Venezuelan people and further escalating the danger of drawing the entire region into war.

This is not about whether or not Maduro is a “legitimate representative” of the Venezuelan people or a “vicious” person or a “drug kingpin.” This is about enabling U.S. corporations to take control of the country’s vast oil resources, maintaining U.S. hegemony in the western hemisphere, and allowing U.S. big business to challenge increasing competition from China in the Americas, all this at the expense of the working people of the Americas.

EDITORIAL

While U.S. officials, including Attorney General Pam Bondi, try to focus attention on the pretext for these actions — the alleged role of Maduro in leading drug cartels, U.S. president Donald Trump has laid bare the underlying objective of the assault on that country.

Venezuela is one of the major oil-producing nations in the world and Washington wants to get its hands on that oil. “We have the greatest oil companies in the world,” said Trump on Fox News the morning of the attack on Caracas, “… the biggest, the greatest. And we’re gonna be very strongly involved in [the Venezuelan oil industry].”

This assault is in Washington’s strategic interests as it aims to take over a huge energy resource, in its own right, and in order to better compete with China. “We are going to take an enormous wealth out of the ground in Venezuela, for the people of Venezuela, and to return all the oil they stole from us,” Trump just told reporters in today’s press conference.

Trump also made clear that if those who take the reins in Caracas in the wake Washington’s aggression don’t fall in line with U.S. demands, the prospect of further actions — including sending in U.S. troops to occupy the country — is not out of the question. “We can’t take a chance in letting somebody else run and just take over what he left,” Trump declared.

Given the course of the Maduro regime leading up to and since the 2024 elections in Venezuela, it is likely that many among the country’s working people are confused, and not in the best position to defend themselves and their country’s sovereignty from this sickening U.S. assault. The conditions are not the same as when a popular uprising defeated a coup against the country’s previous president, Hugo Chavez, in 2002.

Delcy Rodríguez, however, Venezuela’s vice president, called on Venezuela’s armed forces, the civilian reserve force, and the country’s grassroots organizations to take to the streets to defend Venezuela’s sovereignty. “The people must mobilize to defend their natural resources, the right to independence, peace, development, and the future; a free homeland, without any kind of external tutelage, we will never again be slaves!” she told Venezuelan news outlet VTV by phone. A welcome call, and one that lays bare Trump’s lie that Rodríguez had expressed willingness to cooperate with the U.S. aggressors.

We are witnessing the actions of an empire in decline, led by a maniacal autocrat who rules from a gilded throne by executive fiat. Only the veneer of democracy remains. Congress has relinquished its power to declare war (or not), and power is concentrated in the hands of a few.

And, like a wounded beast, the empire is prepared to use any means at its disposal to regain its hegemony, to implement the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine at whatever cost.

Working- and middle-class people in the United States have no interest in these actions carried out in our name. As recent events have shown, the self-proclaimed “President of Peace” is fully prepared to use the same military forces that took aim at Caracas today to quell dissent, protests, and labor strikes on U.S. soil.

By drawing a parallel between the U.S. assault in Venezuela and the deployment of the U.S. military in U.S. cities to crack down on immigrant workers or “combat crime,” Trump has made it easy for many to see that his war abroad is nothing but an extension of his war at home.

The danger to Cuba has not been as acute since the days of the 1961 U.S.-orchestrated Bay of Pigs invasion, which the Cuban people swiftly defeated.

Trump and Rubio explicitly threatened Cuba in the press conference the White House held today. In the Mar-a-Lago media event, Trump — flanked by U.S secretary of state Marco Rubio — was asked by a reporter if he had a message for Cuba. “Cuba is something I think we’ll end up talking about,” Trump responded. Rubio followed up, saying, “If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I would be concerned.”

The leader of a declining empire who believes it is actually ascending may convince himself that what he just did in Caracas can now be done in Havana. Even though the two situations are entirely different, does Trump see it that way? Will he pay any attention to those who may caution him that Cuba is different? Are there any such people among the staff at the Pentagon who know the quickest way to end their careers is to disagree with this president?

The people of Venezuela, Cuba, and the working people of all the Americas and the world stand on a precipice. The danger we face is acute and makes the stomach churn and the anger boil.

But we must turn these feelings into action against U.S. imperialism and the threat of more war.

On his X account, Cuban foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez Padilla wrote, ““The bombings and acts of war against Caracas and other locations in the country are cowardly acts against a nation that has not attacked the US or any other country.” Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel characterized the U.S. actions as “state terrorism” and called for an urgent reaction by the international community. As day broke in Havana today, masses of Cubans took to the streets to demand, “Down with imperialism!”

We need to respond to that call swiftly and vigorously with meetings, teach-ins, and demonstrations, demanding, “End U.S. imperialist aggression in Venezuela! Free Maduro and Flores! No Blood for Oil!”

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