The United States has mobilized an unprecedented military force in the Caribbean, using the pretext of “combating drug trafficking,” but whose true objective is to forcibly ensure that Latin America becomes a fascist bloc led by the United States, and has begun by pointing its gunboats at Venezuela. Since September 2025, the Trump fascist regime has bombed 22 vessels in the Pacific and the Caribbean, leaving at least 87 dead who have been presented as “narco-terrorists,” not only without evidence, but even against the evidence that at least some of them were fishermen, such as the Colombian Alejandro Carranza. The decrease in fish near the coasts has forced Caribbean fishermen, including those from San Andrés and Providencia, to fish in deeper waters and to need more powerful boats, but now, in addition to the economic uncertainty of an increasingly difficult activity, they have to face the fear of being bombed after being mistaken for drug trafficking boats.¹

The United States has turned the Caribbean into one of its main theaters of operations in the world today, deploying 20 percent of its entire naval force in Caribbean waters, including the most powerful and lethal aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald Ford, a nuclear submarine, several fighter and bomber planes, and more than 15,500 soldiers. Trump has arrogated for himself the right to “order” the closure of Venezuelan airspace and to threaten attacks against land targets in Venezuela, and even Colombia and Mexico.

This new offensive, supposedly to “combat drug trafficking,” is largely in line with the “war on drugs,” which has been used for decades by the United States as an excuse for military offensives and deployments throughout the region, but it is not just a continuation of “more of the same,” because a fascist regime is being consolidated in the United States, and this has serious implications not only for the people in the United States, but for the whole world. As Bob Avakian correctly points out: “Fascism is a qualitatively different way that this system enforces its rule over people.

“Trump fascism is a regime that openly and aggressively strips away basic rights and blatantly declares that there is no rule of law and due process of law other than what it dictates, and that raw destructive power is what must rule in the international arena, without even the pretense of adherence to international law or concern about the sovereignty, or even the right to exist, of less powerful peoples and countries.” [from Bob Avakian,REVOLUTION #114: “Defeating Trump/MAGA fascism: Looking to some future elections... or working now to mobilize millions around this powerful unifying demand: The Trump fascist regime must go!”]

That Trump pardoned his right-wing ally, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, sentenced to 45 years in prison for his proven links to drug trafficking, saying he was “unjustly persecuted” and in order to favor Nasry Asfura, a presidential candidate in Honduras who promises to be loyal to him, while simultaneously pointing without evidence to [Venezuelan president Nicolás] Maduro as the leader of a supposed “Cartel de los Soles,” should make it clear why Trump’s true objective is not to “combat drug trafficking” but to use this shameless excuse to attack those he considers enemies or who are not loyal to him, in order to advance his fascist strategy of consolidating a political, economic, and military bloc in this continent [South America], led by the United States.

On Friday, December 5, the Trump regime made public its new “National Security Strategy,” which places its main geopolitical focus on the Western Hemisphere, and which outlines its plans for the world order under the slogan “America First.” It explicitly advocates for re-establishing the U.S. military doctrine articulated by President James Monroe at the beginning of the 19th century: Latin America is a key part of the U.S. “sphere of influence,” therefore the U.S. would be justified in violently imposing its control. The expansion of U.S. imperialism with this justification led to two centuries of invasions, coups d’état, financing of death squads, and the extension of its parasitic tentacles into the economies of all Latin American countries. Today, the military campaign against Venezuela, the threats against Colombia and Mexico, and the open pressures on Argentina, Chile, Honduras, and other countries, are current expressions of this imperialist strategy.

The Trump administration and the entire fascist sector of the U.S. ruling classes consider this strategy as the best way to combat the decline of the United States as the world’s most powerful nation, which today is being challenged by the rise of China, which, contrary to what many reformists believe and promote, is NOT a socialist country, but a capitalist imperialist power. China is currently South America’s main trading partner and a significant source of both foreign direct investment and loans for energy and infrastructure. In the face of the harsh U.S. sanctions against Venezuela, almost half of all Chinese loans to Latin America and the Caribbean have gone to Venezuela. Furthermore, China buys 90% of Venezuela’s (now greatly diminished) oil production. Despite the Venezuelan regime’s “anti-imperialist” rhetoric, Venezuela is heavily integrated into the global imperialist system, although in recent decades it has shifted from dependence on the United States to increasing dependence on China.

The Maduro regime represents nothing liberating or positive for the Venezuelan people, but this in no way legitimizes an imperialist attack by the United States, and the stance of many right-wingers, who can be considered similar to the “national subjugation” trend that Mao Zedong criticized more than half a century ago, is criminal; they are begging the United States to invade and “save Venezuela and, while they’re at it, Colombia.” The discontent of a broad section of the Venezuelan population, including many who were forced to emigrate, regarding the Maduro regime, is understandable, but their desires for change are being manipulated and used to justify regime change through the use of force and to install a regime loyal to Trump’s United States, with all the horror that this also entails for the vast majority of the people there.

Venezuela is currently the main target in the sights of the Trump regime, but its objectives go beyond that. The core of the Trump regime believes that forcing the Venezuelan president out of power is the first step to overthrowing Cuba and Nicaragua, the other two regimes which they consider obstacles to their strategy in the region. Trump has also threatened to “perhaps” attack targets in Colombia and Mexico, and it is a mistake to underestimate the possibility that such threats will become a reality and to underestimate the various methods of pressure that the fascist Trump regime will use in pursuit of its goal of a hemisphere loyal to “MAGA.” The words of U.S. Secretary “of War” Pete Hegseth² must be taken seriously: “President Trump can and will take decisive military action as he sees fit to defend our nation’s interests. Let no country on earth doubt that for a moment.”

However much some may repeat that anti-imperialism is something “outdated and obsolete,” as the U.S. Undersecretary of State said regarding the pro-Palestinian protests in Bogotá on October 7, reality reaffirms that the scientific analysis of imperialism continues to explain how the social system in which we live works, the danger it represents for humanity and the planet, and also the urgency and relevance of anti-imperialism, of fighting decisively with a view to building a world without imperialism (...and without capitalism of any kind, neither the —normal— inhumane kind nor the “human” kind).

There is no magic mechanism that allows us to “guess” how all this will unfold; there are many factors at play and the possible outcomes are diverse, but we can use a scientific approach to understand the contradictory dynamics of reality, the trends, and the basis that exists to reverse them. And in this sense, we can understand that the inaction and passivity of the people in the face of this escalation would cause immense harm.

It is necessary to organize the broadest, deepest, and most determined anti-imperialist struggle; it is urgent to TRANSFORM the people and the current state of the people, because reality has nothing to do with the idealistic fiction of those who blindly repeat, perhaps as a comforting but false consolation, that “today there is a surge in the revolutionary and resistance movements.” This is not the real current state of the people, but this does not mean that a true movement for revolution cannot be forged and (with this approach) resistance against this imperialist system cannot be built and developed. And it is in that direction that we need to work actively.

As part of this, we need to develop a movement that opposes any aggression by the United States against Venezuela, Colombia, or any other country, and to do this without taking sides with the imperialist interests of any of the contending imperialist powers, but rather by opposing the imperialist system as a whole. To forge such a movement, we must not “ignore what divides us”; we must grapple, using the right method and spirit, around the differences in viewpoints and programs, so that more and more people can become more conscious and identify programs that can only lead from one catastrophe to another, and instead embrace those programs that aim for a fundamentally different future. Now is the time to take on this inspiring challenge which enables us to unite in combating the ongoing crimes, and against the system that causes them, the capitalist imperialist system.

NO U.S. IMPERIALIST WAR AGAINST VENEZUELA!

ORGANIZE THE BROADEST, DEEPEST AND MOST DETERMINED ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE!