Tio Sam is once again beating the drums of war, this time in Latin America. Between September 2 and November 15, the American military has officially announced 21 missile strikes on alleged “drug vessels” in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific, killing more than 80 people according to the establishment press. Over the course of the last three months, the US has built up significant military assets in the region as well, deploying around a dozen destroyers, aircraft carriers, and other warships, as well as nearly 12,000 troops. On October 15, the US President Donald Trump stated that he had approved CIA covert Operation within Venezuelan territory and, during a call with American troops on Thanksgiving, he declared that he would begin land strikes against Venezuelans “very soon.”
Dubbed “Operation Southern Spear” by US “Secretary of War” Peter Hegseth, this campaign of airstrikes and military build-up in and around Venezuela is part of a broader attempt by US Imperialism to reassert itself in what it considers to be its traditional “sphere of influence.” The military actions and threats against alleged “drug cartels” and the Venezuelan government are mirrored by the US States recent interventions into elections in Honduras and Argentina, in addition to its intense campaign of military threats, economic warfare, and influence-peddling in many Latin American countries, such as Colombia, Brazil, Cuba, and Mexico.
As seen by the long-standing “Monroe Doctrine”, named after an 1823 policy laid out by President James Monroe, US Imperialism has viewed Latin America as its own playground for more than a century. To the American capitalist class, they have a special right to economic and political domination over Latin America which no country is allowed to challenge.
To understand Trump’s new campaign of warfare, economic control, and regime change within Latin America, we must situate it within the broader international context that American imperialism faces. While the United States is still the world’s dominant imperialist power, its relative strength and position has declined significantly in the last three decades, and it finds itself increasingly challenged by the rival imperialist powers of China and Russia. For example, although the United States still holds the highest share of imports and exports across Latin America as a whole, China now ranks as South America’s largest trading partner and as the second largest for the entirety of Latin America. In concrete terms, what this means is that has China increased its relative political and material control over the semi-colonial nations of Latin America, competing for influence with the United States.
In response to US interventions, Maduro’s government has deepened military ties with Russia, particularly regarding Russian anti-aircraft missiles supplies. The Russian and Chinese imperialists, however, are not willing to come into direct contradiction with the US and remained silent on the question. A desperate Maduro has entered into negotiations with Trump while keeping the terms secret from the people, without realizing that US imperialism will accept nothing short of full capitulation and the establishment of a puppet regime.
Other leaders of the Latin American opportunist “left”, most notably Lula of Brazil, Sheinbaum of Mexico, and Boric of Chile, have flocked back to US imperialism in a shameless manner and abandoning their former ally, even moving to pursue closer military ties with the US. They do this while continuing to open up national resources to Russia and China as they look for other options to ensure the rule of the bureaucratic faction of the big bourgeoisie.
The workers and peasants of Venezuela and Latin America, who have the most to lose facing US attacks, form the consistent base of anti-imperialism; and only by reconstituting or constituting their Party and through launching democratic revolutions can genuine national and social liberation be guaranteed.
Regardless, any potential military invasion, sanction/tariff threat, or regime change operation by the United States in Latin America must be understood as the actions of a declining imperialist power who is desperately flailing, attempting to use pure brute force to vainly re-establish total control over a region its capitalist view as theirs and theirs alone. Furthermore, in this way Trump is simply escalating a set of imperialist policies that American presidents have been pursuing for decades in ill-fated attempts to preserve their status as the “unipolar” imperial hegemon.
Revolutionary and class-conscious organizations in the United States are faced with the pressing task of organizing a powerful anti-imperialist front of rebellion and resistance against this new wave of imperialist military interventions abroad. The construction of this anti-imperialist front is a complimentary component of the broader task of constructing a class-conscious front against rising fascism (the increasing tendency towards fascism) and the reactionary offensives on the masses in our country, and should not be viewed as a separate or parallel project to that task. Nothing illustrate this link clearer than the re-militarization of Vieques: in preparation of a war against Venezuela, US military assembled in Puerto Rico – a colony of US imperialism – and again occupied its old military outpost that once caused immense health and climate damage to generations of Puerto Ricans. As workers and people oppressed by US imperialism across the world share the same enemy, the anti-imperialist united front must be built within the territory of the US and outside of it. The formation of a strong and united front of organized masses, founded on class-conscious anti-imperialist principles and based on the force of the multinational US proletariat, is a vital step on the road to socialist revolution in our country, and it is through completing the tasks of socialist revolution that the strongest blows are dealt to US imperialism.
Those who stand to economically benefit from imperialist wars in Latin America and the Middle East, the American capitalist class, are in turn the main enemies of the multinational working-class on the territory of the United States. The main target of our struggles and mobilizations is US imperialism and its class allies and agents among the working-class movement, and against these foes we raise up a powerful anti-imperialist front, both in solidarity with the workers and oppressed peoples of Latin America and in pursuit of the tasks of socialist revolution here in the United States. At the same time, we reaffirm our immense faith in the people of Venezuela to defend their national sovereignty, and we have no doubt that this round of military adventures of US imperialism will inevitably end in another defeat.
Yankee, go home!
U.S Out of Latin America!
Down with US Imperialism!
Victory to the Venezuelan People!
Long live proletarian internationalism!
