The US Empire’s drums of war are once again beating loud and hard in Latin America.
Three US destroyers equipped with the Aegis system, a defence technology designed to track multiple targets and neutralise air or sea threats simultaneously, will be arriving off the coast of Venezuela in the next couple of days, according to reports by Reuters. They will be accompanied by 4,000 troops, surveillance planes and a submarine in what is by far the largest ever show of force the US has mustered against Venezuela’s Chavista government.
The ostensible casus belli of this military operation is to take down drug trafficking organisations in Latin America, now classified by the White House as narco-terroristas. They include Venezuela’s Tren de Aragua and the Cartel de los Soles, which according to Washington has close ties to the Maduro government.
Needless to say, anyone who believes or supports this latest pretext for war against a country the US has tried to regime change at least twice so far this century and which has been subject to more than a decade of crippling US sanctions is either exceptionally gullible or an apologist for empire.
That is not to say that Maduro or elements within his government are not engaged in drug trafficking — though the US is, to my knowledge, yet to present any evidence supporting that — but rather that this has little, if anything, to do with the US’ latest escalation in what is now a years-long simmering conflict.
An Old, Tired and Poorly Written Script
This latest escalation began around two weeks ago with US Attorney General Pam Bondi’s announcement of a $50 million bounty for information leading to Maduro’s arrest, up from $25 million. Erik Prince, the shadowy founder of the disgraced mercenary firm Blackwater whose name has changed so often it’s hard to keep up, followed up by tweeting: “Should be dead or alive.” It is an old, tired and increasingly poorly written script:
The news of the deployment, reported by CNN, was later corroborated by White House press secretary Katerine Leavitt. Asked if the new operation might include the landing of troops on Venezuelan shores, she replied that the US was considering “using all its power” to stem the flow of drugs from Venezuela to the United States, and insisted that Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro is the head of a cartel, as well as an illegitimate ruler.
This must be a sweet moment for US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has been dreaming of regime change in Venezuela, as well as Cuba and Nicaragua, for as long as he has been in politics.
On August 14, Rubio confirmed the deployment of US naval and air forces in the Caribbean Sea in what he described as an effort to combat drug cartels that are “utilizing international airspace and international waters” to transport drugs to the US.
From Venezuela Analysis:
The deployed US sailors and marines are assigned to the Iwo Jima (IWO) Amphibious Ready Group (ARG) and the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit (MEU) Special Operations Capable (SOC). Both units are trained and equipped to conduct quick global missions to accomplish US strategic goals. They are not anti-narcotics units.
At a press conference, Rubio identified as a primary target the so-called “Cartel de los Soles,” which Washington alleges is led by Maduro and other high-ranking Venezuelan officials intent on “flooding” the US with narcotics.
“The Cartel de los Soles is one of the largest criminal organizations that exists in the hemisphere. It is indicted in the federal courts of the United States,” Rubio said. He added that the US does not recognize the Maduro government, calling it a “criminal enterprise” that threatens US national security and oil interests in Guyana, referencing Exxon Mobil’s operations in the disputed Essequibo region.
Of course, this has about as much to do with combatting the narcotics trade as the wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya and Afghanistan had to do with combatting Islamist terrorism.
After all, the US is arguably the largest enabler of drug trafficking organisations on the planet while it wages a Global War on Drugs, just as it has been arguably the largest supporter of Islamist terrorist organisations while waging a Global War on Terror. Both types of organisations have proven to be useful allies in the pursuance of US imperial ambitions (e.g. the Colombian and Mexican cartels during Nicaragua’s Contra insurgency in the 1980s, or the Al Qaeda offshoots in Syria) while also serving as handy pretexts for military intervention.
The Real Reasons
The Venezuelan government is under no illusions about the US’ real goals. Venezuela’s Defence Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez said that the United States wants to “force regime change” in the South American country — a goal it has been seeking for over two decades, since the failed right-wing coup against Chavez in 2003. And let’s not forget the farcical attempted coup by Trump’s hand-picked “interim leader” for Venezuela, Juan Guaidó, in 2019.
It is not hard to see why the US wants regime change in Venezuela:
It is not just that Venezuela has more oil under its soil and sea than any other country; it is the fact that it is located slap bang in the US’ direct neighbourhood. During last year’s presidential campaign Trump openly admitted that he wanted to seize Venezuelan oil, saying (emphasis my own): “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have gotten all that oil, it would have been right next door.”
This little nugget of a speech is a perfect example of why Trump is loathed by so many in the Washington beltway — he says the quiet part out loud regarding Washington’s imperial ambitions.
Other reasons why the Trump administration once again wants to topple the Maduro government despite the lingering embarrassment from the Guaidó affair include Venezuela’s close ties to China, Russia and Iran, the US’ three most important strategic rivals.
It will be interesting to see how China and Russia respond if the US does attack Venezuela. For its part, Beijing has condemned Washington’s military build-up in the South Caribbean Sea and has expressed its opposition to “any move that violates the purposes and principles of the US Charter and a country’s sovereignty and security.”
Meanwhile, Moscow has, to my knowledge, remained conspicuously silent on the issue despite its recent strengthening of military and economic ties with Venezuela. This has stoked speculation in certain quarters that Putin has given Trump the green light to attack in exchange for concessions over Ukraine.
[UPDATE: On Friday evening Sergei Lavrov held a phone conversation with Venezuela’s Vice President Delcy Rodriguez in which he conveyed Moscow’s clear political support for Caracas in its efforts to “defend national sovereignty and guarantee institutional stability” from “growing external pressure”. The Russian foreign minister did not specifically mention the US’ deployment of military ships off the Venezuelan coast]
It is also perfectly plausible that the build-up of troops is part of a diversionary tactic. The Trump administration desperately needs to distract its MAGA base from the ongoing Epstein scandal, over which it is bleeding support from high-profile figures such as Joe Rogan. In an expert piece of trolling, Maduro responded to the US raising its bounty on his head by offering a $50 million reward for information pertaining to the Epstein case:
President Maduro has so far responded to the mobilisation of US forces by ordering the deployment of four and a half million members of the National Bolivarian Militia to defend Venezuela’s “territory, sovereignty, and peace.” From Venezuela Analysis:
In a televised address on Monday, Maduro urged all militia members to be “armed and ready” to defend the entire national territory. He also ordered the activation of campesino (peasant) and workers’ militias in rural areas and factories nationwide.
“No empire will come to touch the sacred soil of Venezuela, nor should it touch the sacred soil of South America,” Maduro remarked.
The Bolivarian Militia is a voluntary combat unit of the Venezuelan armed forces that was created in 2005 by President Hugo Chávez. It is composed of civilian men and women of all ages.
Venezuelan Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino López responded on Tuesday that the militia was prepared to “defend every inch” of the Caribbean nation. Caracas has prohibited the use of drones in Venezuelan territory for 30 days.
Washington’s threats are not just aimed at Venezuela, warns Maduro; they are aimed at the entire Latin American region. And he’s right: as we have been warning since 2023, the US is seeking to use the war on drugs as a means of reasserting its power and strategic influence in its direct neighbourhood, one gun at a time. The Venezuelan leader called for support and unity from all of the countries in the region.
Washington has rekindled its interest in its so-called “backyard” as it seeks to retrench from certain parts of the world back to the American continent as well as reassert control over the region’s abundant resources — including its rare earth elements, lithium, gold, oil, natural gas, light sweet crude, copper, abundant food crops and vast deposits of fresh water.
Here’s Laura Richardson, the former commander of US Southern Command, laying out what SOUTHCOM wants from Latin America and the Caribbean:
The US government and military, and the corporations whose interests they serve, have their eyes on all of these prizes. They also have their eyes on the region’s two bi-oceanic passages, the Panama Canal and the Drake’s Passage, hence the US military’s renewed interest in Argentina, as well as no doubt the interoceanic corridor being developed across Mexico’s Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
The Mexican-Lebanese geopolitical analyst Alfredo Jalife argues that one of the main goals of US policy is to maintain firm control over the so-called “American Mediterranean”, a term first coined in the 19th century by the geographer Alexander von Humboldt to describe the combined maritime space of the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico.
The area took on geopolitical significance in the mid 20th century thanks to the work of US strategists Alfred Mahan and Nicholas Spykman, with Spykman describing it as the US’ soft underbelly. Jalife’s hypothesis gives added weight to Trump 2.0’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America,” one of his first acts back in office.
A Chorus of Opposition
In recent days, many of the region’s governments have spoken out against Washington’s mobilisation of forces against Venezuela. According to O Globo, Brazil’s Lula da Silva fears that Trump is planning a military intervention in Venezuela to overthrow the Maduro government, which would put Brazil in an even more delicate position vis-a-vis the Trump administration.
The US president has imposed 50% tariffs on most Brazilian goods, citing the Brazilian judiciary’s “witch hunt” against former far-right President Jair Bolsonaro over his alleged coup attempt in 2024. There are other potential reasons for Trump’s displeasure with Brazil, however, such as Lula’s growing calls for dedollarisation, including most recently at the BRICS summit in Rio.
Other Latin American leaders have expressed concern about this latest episode of US belligerence.
“From the heart of South America we strongly condemn the military deployment of the United States in waters surrounding Venezuela,” Bolivian President Luis Arce wrote on his social networks. “Linking the Bolivarian Revolution and… President Nicolás Maduro with drug trafficking is one of the greatest infamies of the Trump administration in recent times, as well as the recurrent use of the fight against drugs as an instrument of imperialist intervention in countries that do not align with its geopolitical interests.”
However, Arce will be ending his term soon. His replacement will be one of two conservative candidates who made it through to the second round of Bolivia’s presidential elections after the left-leaning MAS movement that has governed Bolivia for the best part of the past two decades turned on itself. Whoever wins the second round, one thing is safe to assume: Bolivia will soon be seeking closer realignment with the US.
In addition, Arce made an “urgent call” for multilateral organisations like the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the Union of South American Nations (Unasur) and the Bolivarian bloc ALBA-TCP to convene “emergency meetings” to “address this issue with the seriousness it deserves” and defend regional “sovereignty and peace.”
At an extraordinary meeting convened by Maduro, the 11 heads of state and government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA-TCP) signed a declaration describing the US’ actions as a threat to regional security. The text also denounces Washington’s orders to deploy US military forces under “false pretexts” and demands the immediate cessation of any interventionist action.
Cross-regional unity is extremely unlikely, however Many of the governments in the region would love to see the back of Maduro and his Chavista movement. If there’s one thing the US’ Empire of Chaos has always been able to count on, it is division and polarisation among Latin America’s contingent nation states, in part because Washington itself has helped to sow it.
Readers may recall that it was Lula himself who blocked Venezuela’s proposed membership of the BRICS alliance last year, just months after Maduro’s contested re-election. That move has left Maduro more isolated on the world stage.
Maduro can count on the diplomatic support of neighbouring Colombia and Mexico, however. Colombian President Gustavo Petro warned that the US would make a mistake if it attacked Venezuela.
“The gringos are losing the plot if they think that invading Venezuela will resolve their problems,” said Petro. “They seek to put Venezuela in the same situation as Syria, only that they risk dragging Colombia into the problem.”
Colombia, of course, is the US’ closest client state in South America with at least seven US military bases. But since Petro’s election in 2022, the country has tried to steer a more independent course, recently joining the BRICS’ New Development Bank.
Mexico’s President Sheinbaum has also criticised the US’ deployment of troops near Venezuela citing Mexico’s constitutional commitment to the principles of non-intervention and self-determination of peoples. Mexico, of course, also faces the threat of US military intervention after being designated a US adversary the US Justice Department– a fate the Sheinbaum government has tried to avoid by sending dozens of cartel capos Washington’s way.
“Our Constitution clearly says it and it is always our position: the self-determination of peoples, non-intervention and the peaceful solution of disputes,” Sheinbaum said, adding that these problems can be resolved with dialogue.
Unfortunately, these are principles Washington has little time or respect for…
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Nick Corbishley 