Venezuela’s economy and the transition to socialism

By Reihana Mohideen

Published date 8 January, 2026

First published at Ang Masa Para sa Sosyalismo.

The United States has unleashed a frontal assault not only on Venezuela, but on all of Latin America—and on the very idea of sovereignty itself, which is a threat to all countries of the Global South. The attack on Venezuela is a central front in a wider imperial offensive to reimpose U.S. domination over the region. Under the Trump administration, Washington has openly revived the 202-year-old colonial Monroe Doctrine, cynically updating it for the twenty-first century and arrogantly rebranding it as the “Donroe Doctrine,” a declaration of imperial entitlement over the peoples, resources, and futures of Latin America.

By attacking Venezuela, the U.S. empire hopes to accomplish several goals:

• Impose U.S. hegemony in Latin America (from the Monroe Doctrine to the Donroe Doctrine).
• Exploit Venezuela’s natural resources (oil, gas, critical minerals, and rare earth elements), as part of an attempt to build a new supply chain in the western hemisphere.
• Cut off Latin America’s ties with China (as well as with Russia and Iran).
• Threaten other left-wing governments in the region (primarily Cuba and Nicaragua, but also Brazil and Colombia).
• Destroy the project of regional integration in Latin America and the Caribbean (in organizations like the ALBA and CELAC).
• Sabotage Global South unity (given Venezuela’s support for Palestine, Iran, African liberation struggles, etc.).

(Ben Norton, 2026)

An understanding of the economic crisis in Venezuela is important to counter this naked imperialist aggression. This article presents a left political-economy analysis of the Venezuelan economic crisis, integrating the work of economist Michael Roberts, CounterPunch, Jacobin and Monthly Review contributors. It argues that Venezuela’s economic crisis reflects the interaction of rentier capitalism, external monetary constraint, and imperialist sanctions rather than the failure of socialism.

1. Rentier Capitalism and Structural Limits

Venezuela’s core structural weakness lies in its rentier capitalist formation, in which oil income takes the form of ground rent rather than surplus value generated through diversified domestic production (Roberts, 2024, 2026). High oil prices enabled redistribution without transforming the productive base, masking low productivity, weak profitability, and limited accumulation outside hydrocarbons. This diagnosis aligns with Latin American structuralist economics, which holds that demand expansion in peripheral economies with weak industrial capacity leads to import dependence and balance-of-payments pressure rather than endogenous growth.

Roberts (2026) emphasizes that even during periods of oil recovery, Venezuela remains trapped in price-dependent rent extraction: “the tragedy of Venezuela is that everything depended on the oil price; there was little or no development of the non‑oil sectors, which anyway were in the hands of private companies. There was no independent national plan of investment controlled by the state.”

Oil output normalization does not resolve the underlying absence of value-creating accumulation, leaving the economy structurally vulnerable to external shocks and coercion.

2. The Chávez Years: Social Gains Without Class Expropriation

Left analyses associated with CounterPunch and related outlets emphasize the historically significant social gains achieved during the Chávez years, including sharp poverty reduction, expanded healthcare access, education, and food security. These advances were real and transformative for the popular classes. According to Pete Dolack (CounterPunch, 2019): “There are also the social programs known as “missions” that are based on the direct participation of the beneficiaries. Begun in 2003, there are more than two dozen missions that seek to solve a wide array of social problems. Given the corruption and inertia of the state bureaucracy, and the unwillingness of many professionals to provide services to poor neighborhoods, the missions were established to provide services directly while enabling participants to shape the programs. Much government money was poured into these programs, thanks to the then high price of oil, which in turn enabled the Chávez government to fund them.”

Roberts reinforces the argument that redistribution rested on oil rents rather than a reorganization of production relations. The domestic bourgeoisie was not expropriated as a class, private banking remained largely intact, and nationalizations often lacked workers’ control, limiting deeper structural transformation.

3. The Communes: Localized Economic Organization Under Sanctions

During the Chávez period, the Venezuelan government promoted the establishment of communes as part of the Bolivarian vision of participatory socialism. These are legally recognized local collective organizations that coordinate production, social services, and local governance, particularly in poor neighborhoods and rural areas. Under the weight of U.S. sanctions and economic blockade, communes have become vital to everyday survival, distributing food and organizing essential services where the state alone cannot reach. According to Peter Lackowski (CounterPunch, 2026): “The years 2016 through 2021 were a time of intense hunger and death after President Obama acted to cut off food and medicine imports. The communes responded with a surge in production that has contributed to Venezuela’s near-complete self-sufficiency in food today.”

Yet they cannot substitute for national-scale industrial and infrastructure investment, which is necessary for structural transformation. In effect, communes function as a buffer system, redistributing resources and enabling survival under externally imposed economic coercion, while fostering a limited form of participatory economic practice.

In sum, communes represent a partial counterweight to capitalist market pressures exacerbated by sanctions, but they do not, in isolation, overcome the systemic reliance on oil rents or transform Venezuela’s broader production relations. Their effectiveness is amplified in regions where local engagement is high but remains tightly constrained by national and international economic forces.

Bureaucratic state ownership, however, left critiques argue, that state ownership without workers’ control or democratic planning does not abolish capitalist relations; it often reproduces bureaucratic management and inefficiency, especially where production remains dependent on oil rents rather than socialized accumulation. (Roberts, 2024)

4. Sanctions as Imperialist Economic Warfare

There is broad consensus that U.S. sanctions constitute coercive economic warfare and collective punishment rather than neutral policy instruments. Financial sanctions imposed from 2017 onward prohibited new Venezuelan government borrowing, blocked debt restructuring, and severed access to international credit and trade finance, sharply accelerating economic collapse: “Most immediately, they prevented a debt restructuring that would be necessary to resolve Venezuela’s balance of payments crisis. The sanctions also prevented the government from pursuing an ERBS program because a peg to the dollar would require access to the dollar-based financial system, which the sanctions have cut off as much as possible. The whole idea of restoring confidence in the domestic currency while stabilizing the exchange rate would seem impossible when a foreign power is cutting off as much of the country’s dollar revenue as it can, freezing and confiscating international assets, and, as the Trump administration has done for nearly two years, pledging to do much more of these things — not to mention threatening to take military action. Thus, one of the most important impacts of the sanctions, in terms of its effects on human life and health, is to lock Venezuela into a downward economic spiral.” (Weisbrot & Sachs, 2019).

Sanctions froze billions of dollars in Venezuelan state assets held abroad, including foreign exchange reserves and the U.S.-based subsidiary CITGO, while secondary sanctions intimidated banks, insurers, and shipping firms from engaging in even humanitarian transactions. The result was acute import compression, particularly of food, medicine, fuel, and industrial inputs.

Restrictions on Venezuela’s oil exports and payments systems forced crude sales at steep discounts and drastically reduced usable foreign exchange. These measures were explicitly aimed at controlling Venezuelan oil reserves, particularly in the Orinoco Belt, and reasserting U.S. hegemony in Latin America. Sanctions, blockades, and coup attempts thus form an integrated imperial strategy of rent extraction rather than discrete policy errors.

5. Humanitarian and Class Impacts of Sanctions

Empirical evidence demonstrates that sanctions had severe and measurable humanitarian consequences. Weisbrot and Sachs (2019) estimate that sanctions contributed to tens of thousands of excess deaths by sharply reducing imports of food, medicine, and medical equipment. Caloric intake declined, disease prevalence increased, and the public healthcare system experienced acute shortages due to blocked financial transactions. Marcetic (2019) provides vivid quantification and argumentation about how sanctions inflict human suffering and exacerbate crises. (Branko Marcetic, 2019)

Sanctions also functioned as a class weapon. Wage-dependent populations bore the brunt of inflation, shortages, and service collapse, while holders of foreign currency and capital adapted through dollarization, arbitrage, and offshore accumulation. Sanctions therefore redistributed income upward while politically disciplining the Venezuelan working class: “The impact of sanctions on Venezuela has been severe and widespread, disproportionately affecting the poor and those dependent on wages and government services. While the wealthy and those with access to foreign currency have been largely able to avoid the worst effects, wage earners have suffered from shortages, inflation, and declining real incomes. In this sense, sanctions act as a tool of class oppression, redistributing resources upward and disciplining the popular classes.” (Weisbrot & Sachs, 2019)

6. Inflation, External Constraint, and Distributional Conflict

Sanctions-induced dollar shortages transformed inflation into a mechanism of class redistribution, eroding real wages and public-sector incomes while protecting profits and wealth denominated in foreign currency (Roberts, 2026).

Inflation thus emerged not from fiscal excess but from externally imposed scarcity interacting with a rentier production structure. The loss of oil export revenues and access to international payment systems sharply constrained imports of food, medicine, fuel, and industrial inputs.

From a balance-of-payments perspective, Venezuela’s macroeconomic instability was driven by a binding external constraint. Growth and stabilization were limited by access to foreign exchange. Multiple exchange-rate regimes were rational responses to scarcity, designed to prioritize essential imports and social programs, but under conditions of capital flight, sanctions, and institutional erosion they generated arbitrage, corruption, and parallel markets. Even during periods of oil-price recovery, sanctions sharply reduced net export earnings, reinforcing the foreign-exchange constraint and undermining policy effectiveness: As Roberts points out “Although oil prices began recovering in 2017 and output stabilized in other oil producers, it did not in Venezuela – because that was the year that sanctions by the US and other countries were imposed.” (Roberts, 2024).

Venezuela lacked effective monetary sovereignty. Although it issued its own currency, essential goods and capital inputs required access to foreign exchange overwhelmingly generated by oil exports. Sanctions reducing export earnings that translate directly into shortages and economic instability, while inflation followed the loss of foreign exchange rather than excessive money creation. Sanctions strangled access to dollars, making stabilization impossible.

7. Profitability, Capital Strike, and Dual Economic Structures

Beyond macroeconomic instability, Venezuela’s prolonged stagnation reflects chronically low profitability and weak accumulation outside the hydrocarbons sector. Roberts links this to the failure to transform production relations and diversify industrial capacity. Sanctions deepened this structural weakness by destroying investment expectations, cutting off trade finance and insurance, and enforcing a politically mediated capital strike against both state-led and private investment.

Post-Keynesian theory complements this analysis by emphasizing how uncertainty, blocked finance, and collapsing expectations suppress long-term investment even when the state seeks to coordinate accumulation. Under sanctions, profitability calculations were reshaped not by productive efficiency but by access to foreign currency, import channels, and informal networks.

Informal dollarization partially stabilized circulation and trade but produced a segmented dual economy: a dollar-based service, commerce, and import sector alongside a precarious bolívar wage economy dependent on collapsing real incomes. This dual-circuit accumulation pattern, characteristic of peripheral economies under external constraint, entrenched inequality and weakened collective labor power. Wage earners absorbed the costs of adjustment through inflation and deteriorating public services, while holders of dollars and mobile capital adapted through arbitrage, offshore accumulation, and selective market integration (Roberts, 2026).

Taken together, these dynamics show that Venezuela’s crisis was not simply one of mismanagement or policy error. It was the outcome of structural dependence, sanctions-induced external strangulation, and class struggle over distribution under conditions of scarcity. Inflation, dollarization, and capital flight functioned as mechanisms of upward redistribution and political discipline, reinforcing capitalist social relations rather than transcending them.

As sociologist Malfred Gerig argues, Venezuela’s crisis cannot be reduced either to policy error or sanctions alone, but to their interaction with deep structural contradictions: “This is not a question of bad economic policy, but of deeply serious structural contradictions… The sanctions were mounted on these two factors – poor management of economic policy and a very serious crisis – thus creating a perfect storm… dispossession, social marginalization, deterioration of production conditions, etc.” (Gerig, Jacobin Revista)

8. Recent Growth Trends (2024–2025)

Despite long-term structural and imperial pressures, Venezuela recorded positive growth in 2024 and 2025, driven primarily by partial oil-sector recovery and sanctions evasion. Official figures report growth above 9 percent in 2024, while IMF and external estimates remain more modest.

Roberts (2026) cautions that this rebound reflects price effects and output normalization rather than a transformation of productivity, living standards, or class relations. From a heterodox perspective, Venezuela exhibits stabilization without development.

Conclusion

Venezuela’s crisis must first and foremost be understood as part of the broader historical problem of attempting to transition toward socialism within a hostile global capitalist system with the economic and military power to crush the revolution.

Sanctions imposed by the United States and supported by other imperialist powers functioned as a form of economic warfare, tightening external constraints, collapsing foreign-exchange earnings, and redistributing income upward. These measures were not reactions to policy failure but instruments of discipline designed to block sovereign development paths outside imperialist control.

The Venezuelan experience demonstrates that socialism cannot be constructed through rentier capitalism, even when resource rents are deployed for progressive redistribution. Oil revenues enabled historically significant social gains, but they did not dissolve capitalist production relations or overcome structural dependence on external markets. As long as accumulation remained grounded in hydrocarbon rents rather than transformed productive relations, the Bolivarian process remained vulnerable to external shocks, capital flight, and imperialist coercion.

State ownership alone is insufficient. Without workers’ control, democratic planning, and effective accountability within state enterprises, nationalization reproduced bureaucratic inefficiency and elite privilege. Under sanctions, emergency centralisation and a lack of transparency further entrenched bureaucratic power, weakening popular participation. Socialist transition requires not merely public ownership, but the collective control of production by the working class.

Importantly, many of these contradictions were recognized by Hugo Chávez himself. Chávez repeatedly warned of the dangers of bureaucratization, and insufficient transformation of production relations. The persistence of bureaucratic privileges within the state apparatus reflected not a lack of awareness but the unresolved balance of class forces within Venezuelan society and the international system.

The Venezuelan case also highlights the centrality of political struggle and mass mobilization. Electoral victories and redistributive policies proved insufficient without sustained grassroots organization capable of enforcing accountability, expanding workers’ power, and resisting bureaucratic consolidation. Campaigns, popular education, and organized class struggle remain decisive for any socialist project under siege.

The experience invites comparison with Cuba, which—despite severe limitations under an economic blockade — demonstrates the strategic importance of breaking landlord and capitalist power early, maintaining mass political organization, and prioritizing socialist planning over rent distribution. Cuba’s trajectory shows that survival under sanctions is possible, but only through deep social mobilization, disciplined organization, and the subordination of bureaucratic privilege to popular control.

In sum, socialism cannot be built without dismantling rent dependence, confronting bureaucratic privilege, and placing workers’ democratic control at the center of economic life—especially within a world system structured to punish any challenge to imperialist capitalist hegemony. Venezuela’s crisis must therefore be understood as part of a broader historical problem: the attempt to transition toward socialism within a hostile global capitalist system that possesses both the economic and military power to crush revolutionary projects. Economic sanctions and blockades are central weapons in this imperialist arsenal, designed precisely to suffocate such transitions. Economic warfare aimed at strangling revolutionary processes is often the primary form of imperialist attack, preceding—and in some cases replacing—direct military intervention. Campaigning against imperialist sanctions and blockades must therefore be a central task of the international solidarity movement, even before open military aggression erupts.

References

Ben Norton. (2026). Donroe Doctrine: Trump attack on Venezuela is part of imperial plan to impose U.S. hegemony in Latin America. https://mronline.org/2026/01/06/donroe-doctrine-trump-attack-on-venezuela-is-part-of-imperial-plan-to-impose-u-s-hegemony-in-latin-america/

Roberts, M. (2024). Venezuela: The end game? The Next Recession. https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2024/07/27/venezuela-the-end-game/

Roberts, M. (2026). Venezuela and oil. The Next Recession. https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2026/01/05/venezuela-and-oil/

Pete Dolack. (2019). Sorting Through the Lies About Venezuela – CounterPunch.org

Peter Lackowski. (2026) Venezuela’s Communes: Socialism of the Twenty-First Century. https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/01/03/venezuelas-communes-socialism-of-the-twenty-first-century/

Weisbrot, M., & Sachs, J. (2019). Economic sanctions as collective punishment: The case of Venezuela. Center for Economic and Policy Research. https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04-1.pdf

Branko Marcetic (2019). Sanctions Are Murder. https://jacobin.com/2019/05/venezuela-sanctions-trump-intervention Sanctions Are Murder

International Monetary Fund. (2025). Venezuela country profile. https://www.imf.org/en/countries/ven

CounterPunch. (2025). The U.S. war on China, Venezuela, and the international left. https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/11/11/the-u-s-war-on-china-venezuela-and-the-international-left/

Monthly Review / MR Online. (2019–2020). Venezuela sanctions dossiers and CEPR reports. https://mronline.org

Pete Dolack. (2019). Sorting through the lies about Venezuela. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/02/01/sorting-through-the-lies-about-venezuela/

Malfred Gerig. (2024). La larga depresión venezolana. https://jacobinlat.com/2024/11/la-larga-depresion-venezolana/ (Jacobin Revista)

MR Online. (2020). Economic sanctions as collective punishment: The case of Venezuela (Weisbrot & Sachs). https://mronline.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/venezuela-sanctions-2019-04-1.pdf

 

Against U.S. imperial war on Venezuela! An interview with Marea Socialista’s Gonzalo Gómez

By Gonzalo Gómez & Anderson Bean

Published date 8 January, 2026

First published at Tempest.

On the morning of January 3, U.S. forces, with 150 jets, armed helicopters, and state-of-the-art drones, launched an attack on Venezuela. Strikes hit Venezuela’s largest military complex in Caracas along with targets in La Guaira, Miranda, and Aragua. Less than 90 minutes later, Maduro was kidnapped and flown out of the country.

In a subsequent press conference, Trump announced that the U.S. would “run” Venezuela until a “safe transition will take place,” meaning a neocolonial transition. In the same press conference, Marco Rubio made it clear that this was to set a precedent for all of Latin America when he said, “If I lived in Havana and were part of the government, I would be worried.”

With this act of naked imperial aggression, the Trump administration has entered a new phase of imperial assertion, one defined by open seizure of territory, resources, and political authority. The so-called rules-based order has been exposed as a hollow fiction. No longer even evoked, it has given way to the raw exercise of force justified on the pretext of narcotrafficking.

For Latin America, this is not just merely an episode of aggression but also a profound wound to regional dignity and self-determination, one whose consequences will reverberate far beyond Venezuela. The acting president, former Maduro vice president Delcy Rodriguez, has spoken of “collaboration and dialogue” with Trump and the United States, which is to be understood in terms of tutelage and cooperation with full access to oil. This so far has been endorsed by the entire executive branch, the military leadership, and the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV). It remains to be seen whether fractures will emerge.

It is important that Trump is going for this “transition” rather than turning to Venezuelan opposition leaders Edmundo Gonzalez and Maria Corina Machado because he believes it can guarantee him greater control and stabilization for his plans of colonial or semi-colonial domination.

Since returning to office, Donald Trump has dramatically escalated U.S. pressure on Venezuela. What began as sanctions and rhetorical threats has increasingly taken the form of military intimidation, maritime attacks, oil seizures, and covert dealmaking—often justified under the language of “counter-narcotics” or “national security.” At the time of this interview (before the January 3 attack and abduction), the U.S. had carried out over 30 attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 107 people.

At the same time, Trump has quietly extended Chevron’s access to Venezuelan oil under opaque and constitutionally dubious arrangements, even as his administration labels Venezuela a “terrorist state” and doubled the bounty on Nicolás Maduro’s arrest.

These developments raise urgent questions: Why is the U.S. escalating now? What explains the contradictions between sanctions, military aggression, and continued oil exploitation? How do internal divisions within Trump’s camp—between hardline regime-change advocates and energy-sector pragmatists—shape U.S. policy? And how has Maduro used U.S. threats to justify intensified repression at home, particularly against workers, left critics, and popular organizations?

To help unpack the meaning and consequences of Trump’s latest moves—and to clarify what an independent, anti-imperialist left position should be—Tempest’s Anderson Bean interviews Venezuelan socialist Gonzalo Gómez from Marea Socialista on Venezuelan politics and U.S.–Latin America relations.

Note: This interview took place before the events of January 3.

Trump has intensified sanctions, deployed a massive military presence in the Caribbean, authorized lethal attacks against boats, and seized Venezuelan oil. And yet, at the same time, he has extended Chevron’s license to operate under opaque and secretive terms. How should we understand this combination of escalation and accommodation? What is genuinely new here, and what represents an acceleration of existing U.S. policy?

I think there is a double game being played by both sides. Trump plays carrot and stick: They are contradictory elements and, at the same time, they combine dialectically in the service of his goals and interests.

This situation also seemed functional to the survival of Nicolás Maduro’s government under the conditions Venezuela is currently experiencing. What is new, one could say, is the intensification of military-type actions: the air-naval encirclement, the attacks on boats of alleged drug traffickers (I’ll make an observation about this later), and the restrictions on air traffic and on the movement of vessels carrying Venezuelan oil products — not Chevron’s. Now they also say they attacked a supposed drug production center on land, which is also unclear.

That represents an increase in pressure on Venezuela and on the government of Nicolás Maduro, fundamentally on military terrain. But these are still fairly limited actions, and they seem more directed at generating scenarios that force negotiations with the government, or that allow the United States — Trump — to obtain some concession from Nicolás Maduro’s government.

They are not yet decisive actions, beyond the fact that they signify an intervention or could be a prelude to something more serious that may come later. These actions are evidently an escalation compared to simple sanctions — both sanctions against regime officials and broader economic sanctions. But they also appear to be a message to the rest of Latin America and to the pro-imperialist far-right opposition demanding signals from the Trump government. They also speak to the positioning of the United States on the geopolitical and strategic plane: its increasingly intense competition with China and Russia and its attempt to prevent any Latin American government from deepening relations with these other emerging imperialist powers, which are gradually reducing U.S. space and influence.

The United States wants to reassert itself in the Caribbean and retake control. Of course, conditions have changed, and today many governments are emerging on the extreme right with neoliberal policies that are openly pro-imperialist. This also gives the Trump government opportunities to attack the Venezuelan government.

On the issue of opacity, I think it’s important to emphasize that, on the one hand, business with Chevron falls within the framework of the so-called — or rather, misnamed — Anti-Blockade Law, which in reality is not anti-blockade at all. Instead, it serves to manage operations, transactions, and contracts carried out by the Venezuelan government. In Venezuela, what exists is a process of dismantling sovereignty, of denationalization, of advancing agreements with mixed enterprises, and a historic retreat of the state-owned oil and gas company PDVSA’s sovereign capacity for oil production.

Although PDVSA still produces perhaps more than 50 percent of total oil output, today one could say that Chevron may be accounting for about one fifth, around 20 percent, of production.

This seems contradictory, because the country that is militarily attacking Venezuela maintains licenses allowing a U.S. transnational corporation to operate in the country and allows oil tankers carrying Chevron’s oil to pass through to the United States. Trump, incidentally, says that the Venezuelan government receives little direct benefit in hard currency and that the proceeds mainly go toward maintaining installations, operational and technical costs, etc. But the opposition has said — or complained — that through negotiations, agreements, or contracts with Chevron, the Venezuelan government has obtained around four billion dollars.

In any case, this serves as a negotiating tool, because Venezuela depends increasingly on U.S. oil companies.

Whether Chevron remains in Venezuela or not ends up being the object of transactions or concessions on both sides and ultimately becomes functional to this game between the Maduro government and the Trump government.

Also I think, perhaps the term “accommodation” needs clarification: Who is accommodating whom? In some way, both sides accommodate each other within the corresponding tensions, and either side may be willing to make any move in pursuit of its own interests.

The Venezuelan government accommodates the pressure from the Trump government because it maintains Chevron, despite presenting itself as anti-imperialist, as a defender of sovereignty, and as a defender of the national oil industry. Yet it maintains a petroleum company from the aggressor country and depends on it for a significant portion of production. So what kind of anti-imperialism is that?

One might say it is “realpolitik,” because PDVSA is not in a position to produce that oil, and if it did not, it would have an impact on the Venezuelan people. But in reality, I do not believe that Venezuelan oil extraction is generating better conditions for the Venezuelan people, because it is appropriated by the bureaucracy and by a policy that benefits national elites — whether from the government or local capitalism — along with imperialism itself.

No one has talked about the possibility of Venezuela taking control of the production currently handled by Chevron, or of seeking a mechanism for technical and productive recovery, as it had in the past. And nobody knows anything, because there is no way to audit what is done with PDVSA, with Venezuelan oil, and with the companies operating in Venezuela.

A revolutionary, anti-imperialist, socialist government would propose full nationalization under workers’ and social control with audits of all operations — or at least a progressive plan to achieve that. And that is not happening.

So yes, there is accommodation. It seems that what they want is to maintain this type of relationship. The Trump government is interested in not leaving space that could be occupied by China, Russia, Iran, or other countries. It is also interested in obtaining information about Venezuela’s oil industry, which Chevron allows it to do. And it holds a lever: At a certain moment it can say, “We stop producing oil” and provoke a sudden impasse for Venezuela.

The government of Nicolás Maduro does not appear to be taking preventive measures in the face of this. On the contrary, it is exposing us to an even greater vulnerability vis-à-vis imperialism.

These attacks are occurring at a moment of deep exhaustion inside Venezuela: collapsing wages, mass migration, unresolved elections, and severe repression. At the international level, they also coincide with the decline of U.S. influence in Latin America and the growing presence of China, Russia, and Iran. Can you speak about the moment in which this recent escalation of attacks against Venezuela occurs, and the political and geopolitical context of that escalation?

I think it occurs at a moment when U.S. imperialism — and Donald Trump as head of government — are seeking to reposition and recover U.S. power and influence, which had been declining in the face of China’s momentum and Russia’s military power.

They are doing this through force, through faits accomplis, and through dismantling the multilateral international legal system and international treaties — that is, through an abrupt, de facto approach.

To defend its space, it is striking that Trump is willing to agree to peace in Ukraine by ceding territory to Russia without European involvement. At the same time, we observe China’s actions around Taiwan, and the United States positioning itself in the Caribbean as if the world’s regions were being marked out under the primary control of one power or another. That is the scenario we are seeing.

But Venezuela’s situation, from the standpoint of the interests of the population and the working class, has not improved at all due to these pressures and actions by Trump. On the contrary, they have served to harden Nicolás Maduro’s government, to provide excuses for increased repression and authoritarianism, and to attack union sectors in order to contain any possibility of struggle, demands, or internal protest.

This repression is also directed against the left opposition. It does not represent a numerical threat, but it is a symbolic threat, because it challenges the government’s claim to be left-wing, anti-imperialist, and socialist, by pointing out that it is in fact an authoritarian government with anti-worker policies and even some neoliberal policies.

This situation has allowed the regime to sustain its rhetoric and victimization as an anti-imperialist force before certain sectors internationally. And internally, conditions have worsened: There are fewer democratic freedoms and fewer possibilities for organization and action. And I’m not referring only to the government’s claiming that it is defending itself against the far-right opposition like María Corina Machado — who supports an invasion and offers Venezuelan resources to the United States — but also against grassroots sectors and the population for making any demand at all, even for speaking on social media.

The bureaucracy is far more intolerant today than before, and it finds justification for this in the external situation.

There appear to be marked divisions within Trump’s camp: One faction including the oil lobby and figures like Richard Grenell favors maintaining the Chevron channel; another, led by Marco Rubio and Florida hardliners, pushes for total isolation and regime change. How do these competing priorities explain Trump’s erratic swings and what do they tell us about his real objectives?

Beyond the fact that this may reflect real sectors within Trump’s government — on one side, people close to the oil lobby, and on the other those representing Cuban migration in Florida — I think Trump arbitrates between these two seemingly opposing policies. Both serve his carrot-and-stick tactic.

At a certain moment when [U.S. special envoy Richard] Grenell arrives and presents himself in Venezuela, they explore possibilities of opening doors or flexibilizing certain things in exchange for immediate concessions, such as the release of U.S. prisoners. On the other side, [U.S. Secretary of State] Marco Rubio draws boundaries — what lines cannot be crossed — and blocks the development of Grenell’s initiatives. I think this is part of the same game. It is not contradictory; it ends up being functional to Donald Trump’s policy, and Trump is the one who arbitrates it.

The Maduro government rhetorically denounces U.S. aggression, but at the same time maintains joint ventures with U.S. corporations under the Anti-Blockade Law while repression intensifies against workers, unions, and left critics. How has Maduro responded to the recent attacks, and how has this affected repression inside Venezuela?

As we said before, the interventionist siege and everything the Trump government is doing have led the Venezuelan government to harden internal conditions: increasing repression, intolerance, and further restricting democratic freedoms. The union movement is caught up in this. The government always carries out cosmetic operations and puts on shows — such as the so-called “union constituent assembly” — and then says, “we’ve held tens of thousands of assemblies to consult the working class about production.”

But nobody talks about wages, collective bargaining, union freedoms, or the ability to freely form unions or act. That is completely closed.

Chevron policy goes down a path that is not that of a revolutionary government of workers or the people. The government does not talk about restoring production centered on PDVSA with democratic participation of the working class in controlling oil operations — technical workers, professionals, and so on — nor about social auditing. On the contrary, it has been increasing opacity in all economic actions and increasingly trying to work with private capital.

In Marea Socialista, we say that Venezuela today has a form of lumpen capitalism governed by a corrupt bureaucracy that, in recent years, has destroyed everything that had been advanced in the early years of the Bolivarian Revolution.

Contradictorily, this scenario is more conducive to the government maintaining the type of control it currently exercises.

And just to add one more thing: Several boats have been sunk that Trump claims belonged to drug traffickers. In some cases, the Maduro government says they were fishermen. But the Trump government presents no evidence or indications, does not confiscate recoverable goods, does not show drugs, and does not recover bodies. More than that, they have allegedly executed surviving victims, and those victims have no names.

It’s as if they were sardines, not human beings. Where did they come from? What are their communities, their families, their neighborhoods? In Venezuela, there is only diplomatic denunciation: “Boats were sunk, people were killed extrajudicially.” Fine — but where are the data, the lists, the details about these people?

There is a dehumanization of the conflict, and both sides are engaging in something similar. As for the right-wing opposition, it is appalling: They do not fundamentally question what is happening. Some may have said they oppose interventionism, but not María Corina Machado. So yes, boats were sunk — but no one really talks about the people.

My final question is about what the Left’s position should be, both internationally and inside Venezuela. How can the Left oppose U.S. imperialist aggression and extrajudicial violence without aligning itself with an authoritarian, neoliberal government that is privatizing the oil sector, jailing union leaders, and crushing democratic rights? What would a genuinely anti-imperialist, working-class alternative look like at this moment?

We must adopt, first and foremost, a firm anti-imperialist position: against interventionism, against any possibility of invasion, against violations of Venezuela’s territorial sovereignty. We must denounce this frontally, as well as those collaborationist sectors — such as María Corina Machado — that support, approve, or remain silent in the face of what is happening. In reality, they call for U.S. intervention and offer to hand over Venezuela’s resources. That would produce a future equal to or worse than what we have under Nicolás Maduro.

Beyond the internal struggle, we must promote a sustained, deep international campaign with all forces willing to confront U.S. interventionism without aligning with the Maduro government.

This clear anti-imperialist stance does not mean giving political support to Nicolás Maduro’s government. We must continue denouncing its anti-democratic, corrupt, and anti-worker character, and continue demanding democratic, social, and labor rights for Venezuelans and the working class. We must demand improved living conditions. The government claims there is economic growth, but it does not raise wages or comply with the Constitution regarding the minimum wage. People cannot cover the basic cost of living.

We must demand the restoration of freedoms and the ability to organize and mobilize. This is also fundamental to defending the country: You cannot defend a country based solely on the will of a bureaucracy that decides everything about the government and the military while oppressing the population and subjecting it to unacceptable conditions. That creates vulnerability to imperialism and space for the far right and for confusion among the population about those proposing intervention as a solution.

So: neither imperialist intervention nor authoritarian, oppressive, anti-worker government. We must demand our rights, organize, and mobilize to defend them, and thereby be in better conditions to defend the country against imperialism.

This also implies a truly anti-imperialist and nationalist policy toward dealings with companies like Chevron and others — even from other powers — seeking sovereign and independent alternatives for the functioning of our principal national industry, while also attempting to overcome extractivism.

Beyond the internal struggle, we must promote a sustained, deep international campaign with all forces willing to confront U.S. interventionism without aligning with the Maduro government. In Marea Socialista, this was part of a resolution approved at the recent Third Congress of the International Socialist League, presented together with sections from Ecuador and Colombia, because the aggression goes beyond Venezuela.

We propose an international solidarity campaign, with mobilizations and protests in all possible countries against Trump’s interventionism. This must also involve allies inside the United States willing to mobilize against Trump’s policies — against militarism and interventionism — and who understand that this is also part of defending the U.S. working class against the abuses of that government: its treatment of migrants, the most vulnerable sectors, and workers.

That needs to be encouraged, just as it was demonstrated that the large mobilizations against the genocide in Gaza by Israel — with the collaboration of the Trump administration — were important in helping to put a stop to what was happening.

I would like to conclude by reiterating that we oppose imperialist intervention, we oppose the pro-imperialist and pro-intervention far right, and Venezuela’s way out cannot come from either of them. Nor does it lie in unconditional defense of Nicolás Maduro’s government, whose nature we already know.

George W. Bush Missed the Chance for Peace With Russia

Newly declassified documents show George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin sought to avert a New Cold War.


by James Carden | Jan 7, 2026 


Reprinted from The Realist Review.


Vladimir Putin:… Of course certain differences exist between us. We know about them, but it’s important to cement the positive achievements. This is the way to go…

It is clear that withdrawing from any kind of controls on nuclear warheads is a dangerous thing to do.

George W. Bush: We need to work on that. I’m concerned about transparency on what looks like a nuclear launch and everyone panics. We need to work this out. Let me just say I understand your concerns.

Putin:… A missile launch from a submarine in Northern Europe will only take six minutes to reach Moscow

Bush: I understand.

Putin: And we have established a set of response measures – there’s nothing good about it. Within a few minutes our entire nuclear response capability will be in the sky.

Bush: I know.

Thus began the final meeting between Presidents George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia on April 6, 2008.

Last week, the National Security Archive at George Washington University published newly declassified verbatim transcripts of three conversations between Presidents George W. Bush, Vladimir Putin and their top national security advisers in 2001, 2005, and 2008. The transcripts contain a number of surprises and have significant historical implications, particularly for the rather tarnished reputation of George W. Bush, who emerges as both surprisingly well-informed and well-intentioned (Bush also seemed keenly aware of the danger a John McCain or Hillary Clinton administration would have posed to US-Russia relations, remarking in April 2008, that, “What I’m concerned about is US-Russia relations won’t get any better than what you and I have. History will show it’s very good. I’m not sure about the next group – not Medvedev, but who follows me.”)

For his part, Putin repeatedly expressed his willingness to cooperate with Bush on issues ranging from nuclear weapons, China, North Korea and Iran. It is clear that the current shape of world politics, in which Russia is now strongly aligned with both China and Iran, was in no way inevitable. One example: In order to pressure the hardline Iranian government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad from pursuing a nuclear weapons program, Putin put on hold a sale of S-300 missiles to Tehran. Bush expressed his appreciation, and Putin went on to note that with regard to the sale, “We have a contract with them signed four years ago but not being implemented.”


Bush: I appreciate that. They’re nutty.

Putin: They’re quite nuts.

Bush: Hopefully rational people will start showing up. You talk to them, we don’t. We hope to have more rational people show up; we’d like to have a better relationship.

Putin: What surprised me when I was there, they may be crazy in their ideology but they’re intellectuals. They are educated in university, come from an academic environment- including Amadinejad, his entourage, the Speaker of the parliament. They are not primitive people. It was quite a surprise to me.

The latest round of Ukraine peace talks took place over the final weekend of 2025 in Miami. Despite claims by Trump and Zelensky of great progress, there is little evidence of it. The calculus of the Kremlin has likely hardened in light of the assassination attempt on Putin the day after the Zelensky jetted off from Florida.

The failed negotiations ought to remind of us of two things. First, that President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan never seriously considered pursuing a diplomatic off-ramp with the Russians—instead, the record now amply shows they quite consciously provoked the February 24, 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. (The recent inadvertent acknowledgement by former NSC and State Department staffer Amanda Sloat provides more evidence for this conclusion.) Secondly, the newly declassified Memorandums of Conversation between Bush and Putin provide more evidence for what a number of informed analysts have been saying (without much effect) for years: That the New Cold War between Russia and the United States is both dangerous and unnecessary. It was brought about by specific policy choices made by neoconservatives in Congress and their fellow travelers among liberal hawks in the Obama and Biden administrations. Things didn’t have to be this way.

It has become an article of faith among the most rabid American advocates (Michael McFaul, Timothy Snyder, Anne Applebaum, et al.) of the Ukrainian cause that Putin’s decision to invade had nothing whatever to do with NATO expansion. Putin, so the framing goes, is a dyed-in-the-wool Russian imperialist – a génocidaire even, who wishes to extinguish the Ukrainian population once and for all. The new Bush-Putin documents should (but of course will not) put an end to that line of thinking.

In their final meeting, Putin went on at length as to the reasons he was opposed to Ukraine’s membership in NATO.


Putin: Okay. Now I’d like to repeat to you what I said to Condi and Gates in Moscow on NATO enlargement…I’d like to emphasize accession to NATO of a country like Ukraine will create for the long-term a field of conflict for you and us, long-term confrontation.

Bush: Why?

Putin: Seventeen million Russians live in Ukraine, a third of the population . Ukraine is a very complex state. This is not a nation built in a natural manner. It’s an artificial country created back in Soviet times . Following World War II Ukraine obtained territory from Poland, Romania and Hungary – that’s pretty much all of western Ukraine. In the 1920s and 1930s Ukraine obtained territory from Russia — that’s the eastern part of the country. In 1956, the Crimean peninsula was transferred to Ukraine. It’s a rather large European country built with a population of 45 million. It’s populated by people with very different mindsets. If you go to western Ukraine you’ll see villages where the only spoken language is Hungarian and people wear those bonnets. In the east, people are wearing suits, ties and big hats. NATO is perceived by a large part of the Ukrainian population as a hostile organization.

This creates the following problems for Russia. This creates the threat of military bases and new military systems being deployed in the proximity of Russia. It created uncertainties and threats for us. And relying on the anti-NATO forces in Ukraine, Russia would be working on stripping NATO of the possibility of enlarging. Russia would be creating problems there all the time. What for? What is the meaning of Ukrainian membership in NATO? What benefit is there for NATO and the US? There can be only one reason for it and that would be to cement Ukraine’s status as in the Western world and that would be the logic.

I don’t think it’s the right logic; I’m trying to comprehend. And given the divergent views of areas of the population on NATO membership, the country could just split apart. I always said there’s a certain pro-Western part, and a certain pro-Russia part. Now the power there is held by the pro-Western leaders. As soon as they came to power they split within themselves. The political activity there fully reflects the attitudes of the population. The issue there is not accession to NATO, but to ensure the self-sufficiency of Ukraine , Also, their economy should be strengthened.

Seventy percent of the population is against NATO. Condi told me in Slovakia and Croatia the population was opposed at first and they’re now in favor. What we are against is Ukraine’s accession to NATO, but in any case we should wait until a majority of the population is in favor, then let them accede, not vice versa.

Bush: One of the things I admire about you is you weren’t afraid to say it to NATO. People listened carefully and had no doubt about your position…

Putin: I would add another thing now. I do not rule out that Russia-NATO relations could improve in the future, along with US-Russia relations.

James W. Carden is the editor of The Realist Review. He is a columnist and former adviser to the US-Russia Bilateral Presidential Commission at the U.S. Department of State. His articles and essays have appeared in a wide variety of publications including The Nation, The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, The Spectator, UnHerd, The National Interest, Quartz, The Los Angeles Times, and American Affairs.

U.S. Arms Sales to Taiwan Risk Accelerating China’s Timeline for Unification

by Harris Jenner | Jan 7, 2026 | ANTIWAR.COM

President Donald Trump’s administration has announced a massive package of arms sales to Taiwan valued at more than $11 billion that cover eight items, including 420 Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and 82 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS). If completed, it would be one of Washington’s biggest-ever military sales to Taiwan.

The long-standing policy of U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, intended to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait, is having a dangerously counterproductive effect. 11 days after the US announced $11.1 billion in arms sales to Taiwan, China holds the “Justice Mission 2025” exercise, demonstrating its dual focus on deterring Taiwan independence and countering external interference. The drills showcased A2/AD capabilities with a reach potentially extending to Okinawa and Guam.

Analysts increasingly suggest that these arms transfers are not deterring conflict but may instead be compelling China to consider more aggressive options for unification. This dynamic creates a perilous cycle: each new weapons package prompts greater Chinese military pressure, which in turn is used to justify further arms sales. The situation risks spiraling toward a direct military confrontation that neither Washington nor Beijing may be able to control.

1. Arms Sales as a Catalyst for Provocation and Miscalculation

The steady flow of advanced U.S. weaponry to Taiwan risks emboldening Taipei’s leadership, fostering a false sense of security that could lead to reckless provocations against China. Latest arms sale shows Washington has continued to assist Taipei in “rapidly building robust deterrence capabilities”, Taiwan’s defense ministry said in a statement. Weapons transfers are perceived in Taipei as tangible proof of Washington’s security commitment, a perception that may encourage riskier behavior.

This concern is echoed by regional security experts. Lyle Goldstein, director of the Asia Program at Defense Priorities, has warned the U.S. to be wary of a “reckless leader” in Taipei who might miscalculate. William Lai has lurched toward formal independence with a succession of speeches making the case for Taiwanese nationhood.

2. The Erosion of U.S. Credibility and China’s Countermeasures

Washington has long relied on a policy called “strategic ambiguity” to maintain the status quo in the Taiwan Strait. However, this policy is now facing an increasingly severe “credibility” crisis. The paradox lies in the fact that actions aimed at deterring both sides of the Strait are, in turn, eroding the foundation of its own “One China” policy.

This perceived “duplicity” has triggered a determined and multifaceted response from Beijing. China has introduced economic, diplomatic, and military countermeasures. If the U.S. continues to escalate ties with Taiwan through expanded arms sales or official exchanges – for instance, by supporting the renewal of formal Honduras-Taiwan relations – China may take additional steps, potentially including a full ban on rare earth exports. Recent Chinese sanctions against U.S. defense contractors highlight the resolve behind this stance.

3. From Military Deterrence to the Specter of Actual Combat

In response to what it views as escalating collusion between the U.S. and Taiwan, China is not merely stepping up military deterrence – it is actively preparing for the possibility of turning it into actual combat. The scale and complexity of People’s Liberation Army (PLA) exercises around Taiwan have been systematically upgraded from simple shows of force to integrated rehearsals for invasion scenarios.

The Pentagon’s 2025 report to Congress provides a sobering assessment of Beijing’s evolving calculus. It shows that China expects to be able to fight and win a war on Taiwan by the end of 2027. It outlines a spectrum of military options China is refining, from coercive blockades and precision strikes to the most decisive and risky option: a full-scale joint island landing campaign (JILC), or amphibious invasion. This preparation makes the risk of accidental escalation or miscalculated fire during routine exercises or standoffs a constant danger.

“A conflict would be disastrous for all sides. The US would have to project power several thousand miles away, no mean feat, especially since allied support is not guaranteed, ” Former Reagan White House Official and Expert Doug Bandow writes in his new analysis.

Goldstein also underscores the catastrophic risks of direct U.S. military intervention in such a conflict, especially alliances are “hardly a cure-all for Taiwan’s defense” in such a scenario. Such a confrontation may even trigger a high-intensity war between nuclear powers, and the loss would be grave.

The prevailing policy framework in Washington views arms sales as a stabilizing tool, a means to preserve peace through strength. However, the evidence suggests this approach is backfiring. The weapons pipeline is fueling a cycle of escalation, making the full-scale invasion ascend in Beijing’s strategic calculations. As Bandow and Goldstein analyze, Taiwan’s strategic value to the U.S. is limited, and the costs of a war over the island would be catastrophic.

Harris Jenner is a foreign policy advocate dedicated to promoting diplomatic and political measures for international de-escalation. Her work centers on building long-term strategic stability and advancing practical, peaceful pathways for conflict resolution.

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