"These aggressive policies seek to extend US dominance in Latin America, no matter the human cost," CodePink said.
Stephen Prager
Aug 21, 2025
The White House's announcement Wednesday that it had deployed three warships to the coast of Venezuela has raised fears among antiwar and human rights advocates of the US becoming embroiled in another potential "regime change" quagmire.
In recent weeks, the Trump administration has accused Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro of being one of the world's largest traffickers of illegal narcotics and of leading the cocaine trafficking gang Cartel de los Soles.
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In 2020, Maduro was charged with narco-terrorism and conspiracy to import cocaine into the US, with the first Trump administration promising a $15 million reward for his arrest. The Biden administration increased that bounty to $25 million before Trump, earlier this month, doubled it to $50 million.
Trump also expanded the litany of accusations against Maduro, alleging that he is the kingpin of Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, an allegation that Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says there is no evidence to support.
Even before Maduro's indictment, however, Trump had long sought to oust him from power. During his first term, he repeatedly suggested that the US should invade Venezuela to take Maduro out—an idea that his top aides rebuffed.
Trump instead dramatically escalated sanctions on Venezuela, which many studies have shown contributed to the nation's historic economic crisis. His former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo explicitly acknowledged that the goal of these sanctions was to push the Venezuelan people to topple Maduro.
In 2023, following his first presidency, Trump lamented at a rally that the US had to purchase oil from Venezuela, saying that if he were in charge, "We would have taken [Venezuela] over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door."
The exact objective of Trump's destroyers, which are expected to arrive on the Venezuelan coast as soon as Sunday, remains unclear. But the Venezuelan government and others in the region have perceived Trump's threats as a serious provocation.
On Monday, Maduro said he would mobilize 4.5 million militia members following what he called "the renewal of extravagant, bizarre, and outlandish threats" from Trump. After the announcement of approaching warships, those militias began to be deployed throughout the country.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro issued a harsh warning to Trump following the news.
"The gringos are mad if they think invading Venezuela will solve their problem," he said. "They are dragging Venezuela into a Syria-like situation, with the problem that they are dragging Colombia too."
The American antiwar group CodePink condemned the deployment of ships as a "reckless escalation" that "dangerously militarizes the Caribbean and brings our region closer to war."
The group argues that Venezuela's role in drug trafficking is being overblown to justify an invasion. They note that the US's own internal assessments of global drug trafficking have not identified Venezuela as a primary transit country. They also cite the UN's latest World Drug Report, which did not find Venezuela to be a central node of the drug trade.
The Washington Office on Latin America, a DC-based human rights group, has warned that a regime change war would likely be a catastrophe on par with the invasion of Iraq two decades prior.
"The 'victorious' US military would likely find itself governing an impoverished country with broken institutions, trying to hand over power to an opposition weakened by repression and exile, and probably facing an insurgency made up of regime diehards, criminal groups, and even Colombian guerrillas," they said. "There is no evidence that this approach would lead to a democratic transition in Venezuela."
"These aggressive policies seek to extend US dominance in Latin America, no matter the human cost," CodePink said. "The people of Venezuela, like the people of the United States, deserve peace, dignity, and sovereignty, not threats, blockades, and warships."
Two statements from Comunes (Venezuela): ‘Against the imperialist threat’ and ‘The Maduro government fears the people’
Translations by Federico Fuentes for LINKS International Journal of Socialist Renewal.
Against the imperialist threat
Comunes International Committee, August 21
Under the guise of fighting drug trafficking and narco-terrorism, an extraordinary deployment of US military forces in the southern Caribbean was recently announced. This clearly constitutes an open and brazen threat to the national sovereignty of any country in the region. We strongly condemn this deployment and call for mobilising the anti-imperialist spirit that has characterised the continent's progressive, democratic and revolutionary forces.
The tragedy is that this is happening at a time when Nicolás Maduro’s government has decided to implement the most brutal economic austerity measures against the working class, ban the revolutionary left and persecute social movements.
Now is the time for building authentic and popular national unity, which requires:
- Organising the clamour of the popular majorities demanding procedural guarantees for those prosecuted, persecuted and criminalised for dissent,
- Pushing for a general wage rise and the reopening of collective contract discussions, and
- A return to the rule of law enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, especially with regards to the full restoration of freedom of speech, thought and peaceful assembly.
The national government seems to want to use anti-imperialist rhetoric to maintain the solidarity of social movements and allied governments. Any strategy adopted to confront the imperialist threat must be built on ensuring that the suffering of a people who have endured the loss of waged employment, the dissolution of social security and deterioration of basic public services, is not made worse.
It is time to demand that those who have lived off Venezuela’s crisis — parliamentarians, judges, bankers, and senior government officials — be the ones who place themselves on the frontline of the military containment strategy, to prevent the poorest from once again bearing the brunt of this crisis.
The way to defend the homeland is through greater freedoms and more democracy, and never with authoritarianism and the persecution of those fighting for social justice. Therefore, we demand the national government cease the attacks it has unleashed on leftist organisations, social movements and political parties. National unity must include everyone, by overcoming wounds to strengthen democracy, and by fully restoring the rule of law and justice.
National unity must be built on the system of rights enshrined in the National Constitution!
We condemn any foreign interference!
End the threats and repression against popular movements demanding their rights!
The Maduro government fears the people
Comunes, August 20
In less than a week, the government has intensified its repression against social struggles and the left.
First, it attacked a group of mothers as they held a peaceful vigil outside the Supreme Court of Justice, demanding the release of their unjustly detained children.
Three days later, Martha Lía Grajales, a lawyer and human rights defender who had been supporting the mothers in their protests, was arrested and disappeared.
Martha Lía was released thanks to popular and international leftist protest. In response to this pressure, the government unleashed a campaign of lies to not only discredit her but human rights organisations and leftist intellectuals, paving the way for a new crackdown.
The following day, a retired workers’ leader and teachers’ union leader were detained in Maracay. All this in the same week that the government finally pulverised Venezuelan wages to below a dollar a month.
This is not the first time that this government, which increasingly resembles the right and has increasingly been exposed as such to the left inside and outside Venezuela, has persecuted popular struggles and progressive sectors.
Hundreds of social and union leaders have passed through Maduro’s prisons. Any popular mobilisation is brutally repressed.
Just seven months ago, the government imprisoned [presidential candidate] Enrique Márquez, harassed [REDES leader] Juan Barreto, and persecuted [leftist lawyer] María Alejandra Diaz, who had to seek refuge in an embassy. All for simply putting forward a position that differed both from the government, which has betrayed the people, and the subservient neoliberal right.
As it shifts to the right and towards capital, this government further represses popular protest and becomes increasingly fearful of leftist and progressive positions that expose its betrayal. It prefers a thousand times over a false polarisation with [far-right opposition leader] María Corina [Machado], from which it benefits and is able to sustain its precarious internal cohesion, than to have to respond to people’s demands and criticism from the left.
Government spokespersons have justified this repressive barrage by arguing that the country is under siege from the US and right-wing terrorist threats. For government acolytes, it is never a good time to protest or criticise. They act like the “good cops” of the peace of the cemetery (“they are right, but this is not the time to raise such criticisms”).
However, these initial events (the attacks against the mothers, the arrest of Martha Lía) occurred before the US made its insane threats public. Furthermore, if the government is sincerely interested in calling on all Venezuelans to close ranks in the face of threats of imperialist aggression, why does it choose to repress, defame and persecute anyone who thinks differently? What is the purpose of persisting with an economic policy of starvation that sows hopelessness and discouragement in the vast majority, when they are needed to defend the homeland?
The government is not afraid of the US, to whom it sells oil and with whom it has not stopped negotiating; the government is afraid of the people.
Hence its vicious persecution of those who fight. Hence its campaign of lies against all those who question their neoliberal policies from the people’s side. If the government were serious about being anti-imperialist, and did not simply seek to use it as a red rag to negotiate with Washington, they would engage in dialogue with the people, not with [the big business federation] Fedecamaras and the gringos.
We, Comunes, have always confronted the positions of the fratricidal right, which prefers a scorched-earth policy and would not hesitate to hand the country over to the US to seize power. We have always stood up to US imperialism, which has sowed death and misery across the continent and the world. We have always insisted that the solution to the Venezuelan crisis must be a matter for us, Venezuelans, without interference or intervention.
We are prepared to confront any form of foreign intervention without hesitation. But that does not mean we renounce the need to denounce and confront a government that has destroyed popular sovereignty, eroded the constitution, imprisoned and repressed the humble, enriched the rich and impoverished the poor, trafficked our sovereignty, and surrendered itself to world powers in order to preserve power at all costs.
We will defend the homeland, confront imperialism, and once again denounce the interventionist and anti-democratic right, but we will also fight against this neoliberal and authoritarian government.
Is Venezuela the Next Target of the US Empire?
President Donald Trump has deployed several warships and thousands of Marines to the southern Caribbean – just miles off the coast of Venezuela. The provocative mission was launched under the guise of an anti-narcotics crusade, but risks disastrous outcomes for both countries.
While a war with Venezuela might seem unlikely, the move is sure to radically escalate tensions with the Latin American state, and in the worst-case scenario could become a trip-wire for direct conflict with Caracas.
According to a recent New York Times report, the president has signed a secret directive authorizing military action against drug cartels designated as “terrorist” groups, having added several drug gangs to the terror blacklist since February. The new operation in the Caribbean is almost certainly based on that order.
One US official reached by Reuters earlier this week suggested the naval mission might involve lethal force, saying the warships could be used not only for “intelligence and surveillance operations, but also as a launching pad for targeted strikes.”
The deployment will include at least 4,000 sailors and Marines, and a wide range of military assets: three Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyers, transport vessels, an amphibious assault ship, as well as a nuclear-powered attack submarine and P8 Poseidon reconnaissance planes.
That’s a lot of soldiers and hardware for a few drug busts, raising questions about how such an arsenal might be used in practice – and who it is intended for. (Granted, any major operation against Venezuela would require a much larger force, with the US’s 1989 invasion of Panama involving well over 25,000 troops.)
The ‘Cartel’ That Wasn’t
The latest criminal gang blacklisted by the Trump administration is the Venezuelan “Cartel de los Soles” (Cartel of the Suns), which was sanctioned by the Treasury in July. Secretary of State Marco Rubio has insisted that President Nicolas Maduro is the group’s “leader,” while top Venezuelan officials and military officers have long been accused of deep ties to the organization.
However, Washington has offered many allegations but little public evidence of Maduro’s supposed role in the group, and the often-repeated claims about senior officials are likely overstated.
Instead, the so-called ‘cartel’ appears to operate more like a loose-knit partnership of corrupt mid-level officials, opportunistic soldiers, and organized criminals – an arrangement tolerated and overseen, but not orchestrated, by the central government in Caracas.
“Today, the catch-all term ‘Cartel of the Suns’ masks the fact that the state-drug trafficking axis is now less a network run by the military and Chavista politicians and more a system that it regulates,” InSight Crime, a US government-funded think tank, acknowledged in its profile of the group.
In a previous report, the same NGO all but demolished Washington’s narrative about Cartel de los Soles, saying it is not a “hierarchical organization with Maduro directing drug trafficking strategies,” but rather a “decentralized” group with no leadership structure to speak of. It went on to argue that “the removal of individual high-ranking officials would likely have zero impact on how the broader network operates.”
American officials have also accused Maduro of links to another Venezuelan crime ring known as Tren de Aragua (TDA). Though the Trump administration has accused the group of waging “irregular warfare” against the United States on Maduro’s orders, US intelligence agencies found no support for that claim.
“The Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States,” the National Intelligence Council concluded in an April 7 memo. The council added that it had “not observed the regime directing TDA, including to push migrants to the United States, which probably would require extensive coordination and funding between regime entities and TDA leaders.”
Another Rerun?
The latest military action in the Caribbean carries great risks of escalation with Caracas – up to and including a new hot war that’d devastate the region, squander US blood and treasure, and drive an unprecedented surge of immigration into the United States, among other unforeseeable consequences.
Already, Venezuela appears to be preparing for the worst, with Maduro mobilizing millions of militia fighters in response to the US deployment while condemning Washington for “bizarre and outlandish threats.” This comes just weeks after the State Department boosted its bounty on the leader’s head to $50 million.
However, those who paid attention during Trump’s first term are likely feeling a strong sense of déjà vu right about now. After all, between 2017 and 2021, the 45th president imposed waves of sanctions on Venezuela; mulled whether to label Latin American drug cartels as terrorist groups and deployed forces to the Caribbean to combat them; criminally charged Maduro for “narco-terrorism” and offered a reward for his capture; and even backed a (failed) coup attempt by Venezuela’s US-friendly opposition.
While none of the above resulted in full-blown conflict at the time, that’s little reason for optimism now, as the president has only grown more reckless since returning to office. To avoid the worst outcomes for our country and theirs, US troops must vacate the Caribbean immediately and leave socialist Venezuela to its own devices.
Private Chinese Firm Invests $1 Billion to Pump 60,000 Bpd Crude in Venezuela
Private Chinese firm China Concord Resources Corp (CCRC) is developing two oilfields in Venezuela, from which it expects to produce 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude by the end of next year, thanks to a planned investment of $1 billion, an executive involved in the project told Reuters on Friday.
Private Chinese operators are a rare sight in Venezuela, where Chinese state-held majors have developed oilfields in the past.
Yet, CCRC has signed a 20-year production sharing contract with Venezuela and is already producing 12,000 bpd from the two oilfields, Lago Cinco and Lagunillas Lago, the unnamed executive told Reuters.
The Chinese company’s plan entails pumping as much as 60,000 bpd from the two fields by the end of 2026 by reopening mothballed wells and developing new ones. The light crude from the fields would go to Venezuela’s state oil firm PDVSA, while the heavy crude is set to be shipped to China, according to the executive.
China’s state firms have stopped buying oil from Venezuela after the 2019 sanctions under President Trump’s first term in office. But independent Chinese refiners are key customers of Venezuela’s crude and have continued importing it through the years.
Large companies are also staying away from Venezuela, which has opened the door to private firms such as CCRC.
“Because of the U.S. sanctions on Venezuela's oil sector, no big-name companies would dare operate there, handing opportunities to small companies like Concord,” the executive told Reuters.
U.S. supermajor Chevron is a rare Venezuelan presence among the biggest international oil firms, now that its license to operate in the country holding the world’s biggest crude reserves has been reinstated.
At the end of July, the Trump Administration granted Chevron a sanction exemption for its operations in Venezuela but only on the condition that no money from these operations would go to the Venezuelan government.
Last week, Chevron dispatched the first two Venezuelan crude cargoes to the U.S. since Washington restored its license. The Mediterranean Voyager and Canopus Voyager left Venezuelan waters at the end of last week loaded with Hamaca and Boscan heavy crudes, bound for the U.S. West Coast and Port Arthur, Texas, respectively.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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