Venezuela Won’t Ever Again be a Colony: Maduro Says on Trump’s Oil Blockade
The US president has once again lashed out against Venezuela. Following a series of economic sanctions and the military deployment of over 15,000 soldiers and war ships in the Caribbean Sea, Donald Trump has decided to take further action to suffocate the government of Nicolás Maduro economically.
“Recover our oil”?: Trump’s controversial statements
While for weeks the White House has been justifying its sanctions and threats of invasion against Venezuela by accusing it of being a key node in an international drug trafficking scheme, the imposition of the naval blockade seems to have a different motivation. Trump has declared that the “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS” is in order to take back resources that, according to Trump, belong to the United States.
“America will not allow Criminals, Terrorists, or other Countries to rob, threaten, or harm our Nation and, likewise, will not allow a Hostile Regime to take our Oil, Land, or any other Assets, all of which must be returned to the United States, immediately,” Trump said on Truth Social.
Trump threatened: “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”
Trump declared that, “For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION.”
The announcement was made a week after the US military seized a Venezuelan oil tanker bound for Cuba. The Maduro government has denounced this act before the United Nations, which it considers an “act of international piracy.”
“Interventionism and imperialism,” says Caracas
Venezuelan authorities have stated that Trump’s announcement is a “grotesque threat” and a violation of international law, free trade, and freedom of navigation. They denounced that Trump “claims on his social media that Venezuela’s oil, land, and mineral wealth are his property” and that “consequently, Venezuela must immediately hand over all its riches.”
Furthermore, the statement affirms: “The true intention [of Trump’s measure], which has been denounced by Venezuela and by the people of the United States in large demonstrations, has always been to appropriate the country’s oil, land, and minerals through gigantic campaigns of lies and manipulation.”
According to the statement, Venezuela will report the incident to the United Nations through its ambassador. It also called on the US people and the rest of the world to reject this measure, “which once again reveals Donald Trump’s true intentions to steal the wealth of the country that gave birth to the Liberating Army of South America… The people of Venezuela, in perfect unity with the military and police, will defend their historic rights and triumph through peaceful means.”
Caracas declared: “Venezuela will never again be a colony of any empire or foreign power, and it will continue with its people along the path of building prosperity and defending its independence and sovereignty.”
Opposition to war with Venezuela grows within the US
Meanwhile, condemnation of Trump’s decision has also emerged within the United States. Congressman Joaquín Castro said, “A naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war. A war that the Congress never authorized and the American people do not want.”
Castro added that himself, US Representative Jim McGovern, and Representative Thomas Massie, will bring a resolution to the House of Representatives calling on President Trump to “end hostilities with Venezuela.” “Every member of the House of Representatives will have the opportunity to decide if they support sending Americans into yet another regime change war,” he stated.
For its part, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL) issued a statement rejecting the blockade and denouncing it as an act of war: “In his administration’s latest act of war, Donald Trump has ordered a naval blockade of Venezuela. Its stated goal is to cut off all oil revenue to force the illegal overthrow of an independent government. This is a siege designed to cause economic collapse and a humanitarian crisis as a precursor to all-out war by the United States. This aggression is about controlling Venezuela’s oil and reversing its political independence. It follows a pattern of US intervention in Latin America, where governments that resist US control are targeted for regime change.”
Furthermore, the PSL states: “Trump has made his colonial intentions clear by stating US plans to steal Venezuelan land, oil, and minerals. The people of the United States have overwhelmingly opposed military intervention in Venezuela. This war, like the war on Iraq, is built on false pretenses and imperial ambition. We must organize and mobilize to stop this blockade and prevent a wider war. No war on Venezuela.”
Courtesy: Peoples Dispatch
In Venezuela, We Have Not Been Invaded
Photo by roger kuzna
I am writing these words from Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, on December 12, 2025, one day after María Corina Machado, the newly appointed Nobel Peace Prize winner, said at a press conference in Oslo, Norway, in response to a journalist’s question about whether she would accept a military invasion of Venezuela, that:
Venezuela has already been invaded. We have the Russian agents, we have the Iranian agents, we have terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas operating freely, in accordance with the regime. We have the Colombian guerrilla, the drug cartels that have taken control of 60 percent of our population, not only involving drug trafficking but in human trafficking, networks of prostitution. This has turned Venezuela into the criminal hub of the Americas.
In a week or two, my first daughter will be born, like thousands of other Venezuelan babies inside and outside the country who are about to be born or are newborns. It seems like a detail that would not matter to anyone other than the immediate circle of all our families and friends, but the words of María Corina Machado and the actions of the US government in recent months place all Venezuelans as targets of an apparently imminent military invasion which, given the narrative imposed on us—for MCM we are “the criminal hub of the Americas”—and the current global context, in which genocide in Gaza occurs with total impunity, it is logical and even prudent to think that it will seek to destroy everything in its path, hijack our future, and make us pay for our “freedom” with thousands and thousands of lives.
Venezuelan social and political forces are, and have been all these years, diverse in their positions and in their magnitudes. The problems that Venezuelans face on a daily basis have been exacerbated by the unilateral sanctions imposed on the Venezuelan people which, according to the 2014 report of the Special Rapporteur on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures of the United Nations, constitute a violation of international law seriously impacting the country’s population and preventing the enjoyment of human rights.
Our problems are not few, nor are they without enormous complexity, difficult to grasp in their entirety even for ourselves. We have problems, like any country; problems that have been part of our daily lives for years and have eroded in many ways the legitimacy of all political leadership in the country, whether in the government or the opposition. This diversity of political and social forces in Venezuela even includes clear and well-founded criticism of the Venezuelan government in many respects; clear and well-founded criticism from the left, from popular movements, and from Venezuelan workers of many of the paths we have taken in recent years.
Like any country, we are facing our own dilemma, a dilemma that includes, however, the fact that we are the world’s largest oil reserve and one of the largest reserves of gold, water, and coltan, at a time when the geopolitical map is being redrawn and the US empire is cynically playing its cards, Israel is seriously beginning to turn its attention to Latin America, and the major industrial and commercial powers are dividing up the world. So, while we are dealing with a circumstance common to the entire planet—the US empire in its most psychotic phase—we insist on the principle of self-determination and on our right to life, and on our conviction that we will be the ones to find the necessary channels to sustain ourselves and move forward on our own path.
The Dangerous Characterization of Venezuela for Its Possible Invasion
No, in Venezuela we are not living under invasion by China, Russia, Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, or any other foreign force. There is no direct evidence of this. If we had been invaded, as MCM would have us believe, this would imply the direct intervention of specific forces from these countries in our daily lives, and that is not happening in any way. Government advisors, defense or trade agreements between nations —none of these things, which are regular for any country, imply any form of invasion. There is no evidence that any foreign armed, police, parapolice, or paramilitary force is operating in Venezuela with the authorization and/or support of the national government. Furthermore, unlike in other countries in the region, there are no armed conflicts arising from territorial disputes between drug cartels, nor even, at this point, more local or smaller-scale conflicts involving microtrafficking, so it would be impossible to claim that “drug cartels have taken control of 60 percent of our population.”
The idea that Trump and MCM are trying to construct, that Venezuela is the hub of operations for all the evils that populate the nightmares of the West, is nothing more than a global narrative that seeks to dehumanize Venezuela and the region enough so that, once again, as is currently the case with Gaza and Sudan and so many other conflicts, international public opinion does not know exactly whether, given the seriousness of our situation, the end does not justify the means in this case, that is, among other possibilities, our extermination. Let us never forget what happened in Libya or Iraq, to mention two of a long list of countries “liberated” from evil by the United States. And if we believe in the idea that it is impossible to replicate experiences in the Middle East or Africa in Latin America, let us not lose sight of the fact that, since September, the United States has killed at least 87 people in its attacks in the Caribbean under the same premise that Israel kills men, women, and children with impunity in Palestine: they are terrorists, not human beings, and they are terrorists because they say they are.
In the context of what has happened in Gaza—more than 70.000 children have been killed with impunity—and taking into account that MCM is a close ally of the Israeli government and Netanyahu, the words of the current Nobel Peace Prize winner are a direct attack on the lives of Venezuelans and a clear call for the genocide that the United States and Israel are committing in Gaza to be repeated in Venezuela.
Venezuelans both inside and outside the country deserve the opportunity to solve our problems according to our own criteria and our own capabilities. That is sovereignty. There is currently no invasion by any foreign force in our country, and there is no basis for thinking that we represent a threat to peace in the region.
The only and most likely possibility is that we will be invaded by the US government in pursuit of nothing more than the global maintenance of its hegemony at the expense of our resources, our sweat, and our blood, both ours and that of our children.
Footnote on December 17
Yesterday, Tuesday, December 16, US President Donald Trump declared on the social network Truth Social that:
Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the history of South America. It will only get bigger, and the impact on them will be like nothing they have ever seen before —Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us. The illegitimate Maduro Regime is using Oil from these stolen Oil Fields to finance themselves, Drug Terrorism, Human Trafficking, Murder, and Kidnapping. For the theft of our Assets, and many other reasons, including Terrorism, Drug Smuggling, and Human Trafficking, the Venezuelan Regime has been designated a FOREIGN TERRORIST ORGANIZATION. Therefore, today, I am ordering a TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE OF ALL SANCTIONED OIL TANKERS going into, and out of, Venezuela.
It doesn’t take much analysis. It seems that between the FIFA Peace Prize and the Nobel Peace Prize, Venezuela (and the region) are about to experience levels of harmony, tranquility, and concord unlike anything we have seen before.
This article was produced by Globetrotter.
US oil blockade of Venezuela: what we know
By AFP
December 17, 2025
US President Donald Trump's administration has been piling pressure on Venezuela's Nicolas Maduro - Copyright AFP/File Juan BARRETO
US forces in the Caribbean — where Donald Trump has deployed a massive flotilla of warships — have been tasked by the president with blockading “sanctioned oil vessels” going to and from Venezuela.
Trump’s administration has been piling pressure on the country and its government for months, in an apparent bid to oust leftist leader Nicolas Maduro — whom Washington accuses of heading a drug cartel.
The US president has said that Maduro’s “days are numbered” and pointedly refused to rule out a ground invasion, but the Venezuelan leader has remained defiant so far.
Below, AFP examines the situation in the Caribbean.
– US assets in the Caribbean –
Many questions remain over how the Venezuela blockade will play out, and it is not clear how many tankers will be impacted, or to what degree the US military — which currently has thousands of personnel in the Caribbean — would be involved.
There are currently 11 US warships in the Caribbean: the world’s largest aircraft carrier, an amphibious assault ship, two amphibious transport dock ships, two cruisers and five destroyers.
There are US Coast Guard vessels deployed in the region as well, but the service declined to provide figures on those assets “for operational security reasons.”
Washington has also flown a series of military aircraft — including long-range bombers — along the coast of Venezuela, and has reached deals with some countries in the region for the use of their airports for military flights.
– Tanker seized –
The United States has already seized one tanker off Venezuela’s coast, taking control of the M/T Skipper last week in a raid that provides a potential preview of future action.
A video released by US Attorney General Pam Bondi showed US forces descending from a helicopter onto the tanker’s deck, then entering the ship’s bridge with weapons raised.
A US court later released a heavily redacted warrant authorizing the seizure of the ship, which the document said was carried out by the Coast Guard.
– Strikes on alleged drug boats –
Washington’s forces began carrying out strikes on alleged drug-smuggling boats in the Caribbean in early September, later expanding those operations to the eastern Pacific Ocean.
The Trump administration has said the strikes — which have destroyed more than 25 vessels and killed at least 95 people — are aimed at curbing trafficking.
But White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles told Vanity Fair magazine that the strikes are aimed at pressuring Venezuela’s leadership, saying Trump “wants to keep on blowing boats up until Maduro cries uncle.”
– ‘Quarantine’ of Cuba –
Latin American countries have been targeted with blockades in the past, most famously during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, when Washington established a “quarantine” to stop the Soviet Union from bringing offensive weapons to its Caribbean ally.
Some Soviet ships decided to turn back before reaching the quarantine line, while others were stopped and searched by US forces but cleared to proceed to Cuba.
The measure — which was called a “quarantine” rather than a blockade because no state of war existed — was lifted after the United States and Moscow reached a deal to end the crisis, which is widely considered the closest the two countries came to nuclear war.
