Trump warns against 'Bad Santa' and defends coal in Christmas call with kids



By Euronews
Published on 25/12/2025 -

US President Donald Trump joked about "bad Santa" infiltrating the country and praised "clean, beautiful coal" while taking calls from children tracking Santa's progress on Christmas Eve.

US President Donald Trump marked Christmas Eve by quizzing children who called in about which presents they were excited to receive, while promising not to let a “bad Santa” infiltrate the country and suggesting that a stocking full of coal may not be so bad.

Vacationing at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, the president and First Lady Melania Trump participated in the tradition of talking to youngsters dialling into the North American Aerospace Defence Command (NORAD), which playfully tracks Santa's progress around the globe on Christmas Eve each year.

“We want to make sure that Santa is being good. Santa’s a very good person," Trump said while speaking to kids ages 4 and 10 in Oklahoma. “We want to make sure that he’s not infiltrated, that we’re not infiltrating into our country a bad Santa.”

Trump, who was in a jovial mood while talking with the kids, said at one point that he “could do this all day long” but would likely have to return to more pressing matters, such as efforts to quell the fighting in Russia’s all-out war with Ukraine.

When an 8-year-old from North Carolina asked if Santa would be mad if no one left cookies out for him, Trump said he did not think so, but added, “But I think he’ll be very disappointed.”

“You know, Santa’s — he tends to be a little bit on the cherubic side. You know what cherubic means? A little on the heavy side,” Trump joked. “I think Santa would like some cookies.”

Barbie doll and not coal

Asked by an 8-year-old girl in Kansas what she'd like Santa to bring, the answer came back, “Uh, not coal.”

“You mean clean, beautiful coal?" Trump replied, evoking a favoured campaign slogan he has long used when promising to revive domestic coal production.

“I had to do that, I’m sorry,” the president added, laughing and even causing the first lady, who was on a separate call, to turn toward him and grin.

“Coal is clean and beautiful. Please remember that, at all costs,” Trump said. “But you don’t want clean, beautiful coal, right?”

“No,” the caller responded, saying she'd prefer a Barbie doll, clothes and candy.

Trump has often marked Christmases past with criticisms of his political opponents, including in 2024, when he posted, “Merry Christmas to the radical left lunatics.”

Shortly after wrapping up Wednesday's Christmas Eve calls, he returned to that theme, posting: “Merry Christmas to all, including the radical left scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our country, but are failing badly.”

"What we (have in the US) is a record stock market and 401Ks, lowest crime numbers in decades, no Inflation, and yesterday, a 4.3 GDP, two points better than expected," he added.

"Tariffs have given us trillions of dollars in growth and prosperity, and the strongest national security we have ever had. We are respected again, perhaps like never before. God bless America," Trump concluded.

'Enjoy what may be your last Christmas!' Trump attacks 'sleazebags' in dark holiday screed

Robert Davis
December 25, 2025

RAW STORY



President Donald Trump attacked people he described as "losers" and "sleazebags" in a dark screed on social media on Christmas night.

In the post, Trump attempted to distance himself from disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, someone he has previously referred to as a close friend. This comes at a time when new revelations from recently released Epstein files show Trump rode on Epstein's private plane, dubbed the "Lolita Express," at least eight times. Other documents indicate Trump spent time at Epstein's home in New York City, and that the two men exchanged birthday pleasantries.

"Merry Christmas to all, including the many Sleazebags who loved Jeffrey Epstein, gave him bundles of money, went to his Island, attended his parties, and thought he was the greatest guy on earth, only to 'drop him like a dog' when things got too HOT, falsely claimed they had nothing to do with him, didn’t know him, said he was a disgusting person, and then blame, of course, President Donald J. Trump, who was actually the only one who did drop Epstein, and long before it became fashionable to do so," Trump wrote on Truth Social.

"When their names get brought out in the ongoing Radical Left Witch Hunt (plus one lowlife 'Republican,' Massie!), and it is revealed that they are Democrats all, there will be a lot of explaining to do, much like there was when it was made public that the Russia, Russia, Russia Hoax was a fictitious story - a total Scam - and had nothing to do with 'TRUMP,'" he wrote.

Trump also attacked "losers" like The New York Times for its coverage of his election and second administration.

"The Failing New York Times, among many others, was forced to apologize for their bad and faulty Election 'Reporting,' even to the point of losing many subscribers due to their highly inaccurate (FAKE!) coverage," Trump wrote. "Now the same losers are at it again, only this time so many of their friends, mostly innocent, will be badly hurt and reputationally tarnished. But sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!! Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!"

Observers pounce on Trump's hateful Christmas rant: 'Never get used to this insanity'

David McAfee
December 25, 2025 

RAW STORY

Donald Trump caused a stir among his critics when he released a Christmas screed attacking his perceived enemies.

The president took to his own social media site, Truth Social, to strike a familiar tone for his celebrations of various holidays.

"Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly. We no longer have Open Borders, Men in Women’s Sports, Transgender for Everyone, or Weak Law Enforcement," he wrote. "What we do have is a Record Stock Market and 401K’s, Lowest Crime numbers in decades, No Inflation, and yesterday, a 4.3 GDP, two points better than expected. Tariffs have given us Trillions of Dollars in Growth and Prosperity, and the strongest National Security we have ever had. We are respected again, perhaps like never before. God Bless America!!!"

This message didn't resonate well with political analysts.

Columnist Molly Jong-Fast wrote, "Nearly a decade of this …"

Another columnist (who never worked for Trump), Michael A. Cohen, also chimed in:

"I know people are going to complain about this … but Trump is directly quoting the original version of the Sermon on the Mount."

Economics expert Tahra Hoops said, "This is something you definitely say when the economy is thriving and your constituents are happy."

One popular user, Mark Mangino, simply said that Trump "can’t help himself."

Podcaster Spencer Hakimian quoted Trump and added, "Just as Jesus envisioned it."

Author Jennifer Erin Valent wrote, "One of my Christmas wishes is that we never, ever get used to this insanity."

'Holy projection': Internet erupts after Trump's Christmas Day screed

Robert Davis
December 25, 2025

RAW ST0RY

Political analysts and observers on Thursday chided President Donald Trump's dark screed against "sleazebags" and "losers."

Trump posted a holiday message on his Truth Social platform, where he decried how the recently released Jeffrey Epstein files have impacted his presidency, and attacked political enemies like the Democrats and Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) for forcing the administration to release the files. Trump also threatened that this year may be "the last Christmas" because of how he's been treated.

"Sadly, that’s the way it is in the World of Corrupt Democrat Politics!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Enjoy what may be your last Merry Christmas!"

Political analysts and observers shared their thoughts on social media.

"The walls are closing in on Donald Trump and his corrupt, criminal regime, and he’s absolutely losing his mind," Rep. Yassamin Anasari (D-AZ) posted on X. "Merry Christmas!!"

"Holy projection," Democratic analyst Adam Mockler posted on X.

"Trump, who has (sic) accused of raping young girls alongside Epstein in recently released DOJ files, is projecting again," writer Polly Singh posted on X.

"When bombing Nigeria doesn’t change the subject, might as well try whatever the hell this is supposed to be," Jeopardy champion Hemant Mehta posted on X.

"Why is @realDonaldTrump calling himself a 'Sleazebag'?" Democratic congressional candidate George Conway posted on X.

"He doesn’t sound merry," former CNN anchor Jim Acosta posted on X.

'Pathetic loser': Trump spends his Christmas posting over 100 times to social media

Alex Henderson
December 25, 2025 

ALTERNET

Donald Trump using a laptop aboard his private airplane on July 27, 2016

 (Image: Screengrab via Facebook / Donald J. Trump)


On Christmas Eve 2025, President Donald Trump took to his Truth Social platform and posted: "Merry Christmas to all, including the Radical Left Scum that is doing everything possible to destroy our Country, but are failing badly. We no longer have Open Borders, Men in Women's Sports, Transgender for Everyone, or Weak Law Enforcement."

Trump continued, " What we do have is a Record Stock Market and 401K’s, Lowest Crime numbers in decades, No Inflation, and yesterday, a 4.3 GDP, two points better than expected. Tariffs have given us Trillions of Dollars in Growth and Prosperity, and the strongest National Security we have ever had. We are respected again, perhaps like never before. God Bless America!!! President DJT."

But that post was just the beginning of Trump's Christmas posting blitz. He published more than 100 posts to his Truth Social account in the early hours of Christmas morning, the Independent reported.

Trump ranted about a variety of subjects, attacked Somali immigrants and bragged about his economic policies. The president also reiterated his repeatedly debunked claim that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

Trump also reposted a video from deputy White House chief of staff Stephen Miller, who claimed that the president's opponents want to turn the United States into Somalia.

Miller, in the video, told viewers, "When you see the state of Somalia, that's what they want for America. Because it's easier to rule over an empire of ashes than it is for the Democratic Party to rule over a functioning, western, high-trust society with a strong middle class. That's their model for America: to make the whole country into a version of Somalia."

Trump's avalanche of Truth Social posts got a negative reaction from attorney Ari Cohn. Highlighting his posts about the 2020 election, Cohn posted, "What a pathetic loser."

CHRISTIAN CRUSADE

US launches 'numerous' strikes targeting Islamic State militants in Nigeria, Trump says


Copyright AP Photo

By Symela Touchtidou & George Dimitropoulos & Euronews
Published on 26/12/2025 -

The "powerful and deadly" strikes were carried out against so-called Islamic State group militants "targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians," the US president wrote on social media on Thursday night.

The US carried out "powerful and deadly" strikes on Thursday against so-called Islamic State group (IS) militants in northwestern Nigeria, US President Donald Trump announced on Thursday.

The attack marked a major escalation in an offensive that Nigeria's overstretched military has struggled with for years, as it is battling multiple armed groups.

Trump said that "terrorist scum" targeted in the strikes were "viciously targeting and killing mostly innocent Christians."

The US military "executed numerous perfect strikes," Trump said.

The US Africa Command (AFRICOM) later said Thursday's attack was a joint operation, part of an exchange of intelligence and strategic coordination between the two countries.

In November, Trump ordered the US military to prepare for action in Nigeria to counter Islamist extremist groups.

The strikes launched by the US are considered crucial help for Nigeria’s security forces, which are often overstretched and outgunned as they fight multiple security crises across different regions.

In states like Sokoto, the military frequently carries out airstrikes targeting militant hideouts and Nigeria has embarked on mass recruitment of security forces.
Cooperation with the Nigerian government


On Friday morning, Nigeria's foreign ministry said in a statement that the country's authorities "remain engaged in structured security cooperation with international partners, including the United States of America, in addressing the persistent threat of terrorism and violent extremism".

"This has led to precise attacks on terrorist targets in Nigeria through airstrikes in the northwest," the statement added.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu insisted that the country is religiously tolerant and said security challenges affect people "irrespective of religions and regions."

Trump has previously designated Nigeria a "Country of Particular Concern" due to the "existential threat" it poses to its Christian population. The designation by the US Department of State allows for sanctions against countries "engaged in serious violations of religious freedom."

Nigeria’s security crisis impacts both Christians, predominant in the south, and Muslims, who form the majority in the north, according to residents and security analysts.

Jihadist groups such as Boko Haram and the Islamic State of West Africa have wreaked havoc in northeastern Nigeria for more than a decade, killing thousands of people, yet most of them were Muslims, according to ACLED, a group that analyses political violence around the world.

The armed groups operating in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country, include at least two organisations linked to the Islamic State: the Islamic State of West Africa, an offshoot of Boko Haram that operates mainly in the northeast, and the lesser-known Islamic State's Shahel Province (ISSP), known locally as Lakurawa, with a strong presence in the northwest.

US and Nigerian authorities did not specify which organisation had been targeted.

The motives for attacks vary, but armed groups often exploit the absence of state and security forces in remote areas, making recruitment easier.

Evidence shows that these areas have among the highest levels of poverty, hunger and unemployment in the country.

Nigeria's Minister of Defence Christopher Musa has previously stated that military action accounts for only 30% of what is needed to address the country's security crisis, with the remaining 70% dependent on good governance.

Trump says “MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists” (sic) after strikes in Nigeria

A US missile being launched against Islamic terrorists in Nigeria / US Department of War - X

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By bno - Taipei Office December 26, 2025

Donald Trump said the US military had carried out what he described as a powerful and deadly strike against Islamic State fighters in north-western Nigeria, an operation Washington says was conducted in close co-ordination with Nigerian forces, the BBC reports.

The US president claimed the attacks targeted Islamist militants responsible for killing civilians, accusing them of violence aimed primarily at Christians. In a statement on his Truth Social platform late on Christmas Day, Trump said the US would not allow what he called radical Islamic terrorism to flourish under his leadership.

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries! I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was” Trump penned on the social media site.

He added thart “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing. Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper” before closing “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues” (sic)

US Africa Command later confirmed that air strikes were carried out in Sokoto state in conjunction with Nigerian authorities. Nigeria’s foreign minister, Yusuf Maitama Tuggar, said the action was a joint operation against terrorist groups and stressed that it was not linked to any particular religion. He added that the mission had been planned for some time and was based on intelligence supplied by Nigeria, the BBC added.

Tuggar did not rule out further operations, saying any future action would depend on decisions taken by leaders in both countries. Nigeria’s foreign ministry later said the strikes formed part of ongoing security co-operation with international partners to counter violent extremism, resulting in precision hits on militant targets in the north-west.

The intervention follows Trump’s order last month for the US military to prepare options to confront Islamist militants in Nigeria. It also comes amid growing claims in some US political circles that Christians are being subjected to systematic persecution in the country - itself an assertion strongly disputed by Nigerian officials and independent monitors.

According to the BBC, groups tracking violence say there is no evidence that Christians are being killed at higher rates than Muslims in Nigeria, which is broadly split between the two faiths. Data compiled by conflict monitoring organisations indicate that Islamist insurgencies in the north-east, including Boko Haram and Islamic State West Africa Province, have killed thousands over the past decade, with most victims being Muslim.

Nigeria’s president, Bola Tinubu, has repeatedly insisted that the country’s security crisis cuts across religious and regional lines. Advisers to the president have said Nigeria welcomes international assistance but emphasise that any military action must respect the country’s sovereignty and be conducted jointly.

Trump announces Christmas night strikes against ISIS in Nigeria

Robert Davis
December 25, 2025 
RAW STORY




President Donald Trump announced on social media that the U.S. conducted a strike against ISIS in Nigeria on Christmas night.

"Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!" Trump wrote on Truth Social. "I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was."

"The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing," the post continued. "Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper. May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues."

The Christmas night strikes in Nigeria are just the latest in a long series of strikes the Trump administration has conducted. According to reports, the administration has struck 22 alleged drug boats in international waters and killed nearly 100 people. The administration has also bombed Iran's nuclear facilities, although experts questioned the premise for those strikes.

US Launches Christmas Strikes on Nigeria—the 9th Country Bombed by Trump

Trump—who calls himself “the most anti-war president in history”—has now bombed more countries than any president in history.


Brett Wilkins
Dec 25, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

President Donald Trump—the self-described “most anti-war president in history”—has now ordered the bombing of more countries than any president in history as US forces carried out Christmas day strikes on what the White House claimed were Islamic State militants killing Christians in Nigeria.

“Tonight, at my direction as Commander in Chief, the United States launched a powerful and deadly strike against ISIS Terrorist Scum in Northwest Nigeria, who have been targeting and viciously killing, primarily, innocent Christians, at levels not seen for many years, and even Centuries!” Trump said Thursday in a post on his Truth Social network.

“I have previously warned these Terrorists that if they did not stop the slaughtering of Christians, there would be hell to pay, and tonight, there was,” the president continued. “The Department of War executed numerous perfect strikes, as only the United States is capable of doing.”

“Under my leadership, our Country will not allow Radical Islamic Terrorism to prosper,” Trump added. “May God Bless our Military, and MERRY CHRISTMAS to all, including the dead Terrorists, of which there will be many more if their slaughter of Christians continues.”

A US Department of Defense official speaking on condition of anonymity told the Associated Press that the United States worked with Nigeria to conduct the bombing, and that the government of Nigerian President Bola Tinubu—who is a Muslim—approved the attacks.

It was not immediately known how many people were killed or wounded in the strikes, or whether there are any civilian casualties.

The Nigerian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that “terrorist violence in any form, whether directed at Christians, Muslims, or other communities, remains an affront to Nigeria’s values and to international peace and security.”

The US bombings followed a threat last month by Trump to attack Nigeria with “guns-a-blazing” if the country’s government did not curb attacks on Christians.

Northwestern Nigeria—including Sokoto, Zamfara, Katsina, and parts of Kaduna State—is suffering a complex security crisis, plagued by armed criminal groups, herder-farmer disputes, and Islamist militants including Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP/ISIS) and Boko Haram. Both Christians and Muslims have been attacked.

Since emerging in Borno State in 2009, Boko Haram has waged war on the Nigerian state—which it regards as apostate—not against any particular religious group. In fact, the majority of its victims have been Muslims.

“According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, more Muslims than Christians have been targeted in recent years,” Chloe Atkinson recently wrote for Common Dreams. “Boko Haram has massacred worshipers in mosques, torched markets in Muslim-majority areas, and threatened their own coreligionists.”

“The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity.”

“It is true that Christian communities in the north-central regions have suffered unimaginable horrors as raids have left villages in ashes, children murdered in their beds, and churches reduced to rubble,” she said. “The April massacre in Zike and the June bloodbath in Yelwata are prime examples of the atrocities taking place in Nigeria.”

“The crisis in Nigeria is not a holy war against Christianity,” Atkinson continued. “Instead, it’s a devastating cocktail of poverty, climate-driven land disputes, and radical ideologies that prey on everyone and not just any distinct group.”

“By framing Nigeria’s conflict as an existential threat to Christians alone, Trump is not shining a spotlight on the victims,” she added. “Instead, he is weaponizing right-wing conspiracy theories to stoke Islamophobia, the same toxic playbook he used to fuel his ban on Muslims, and which left refugee families shattered at America’s borders.”

Former libertarian US Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.) noted on X that “there’s no authority for strikes on terrorists in Nigeria or anywhere on Earth,” adding that the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force (AUMF)—which was approved by every member of Congress except then-Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.)—“is only for the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks.”

“The War Powers Resolution doesn’t grant any authority beyond the Constitution,” Amash added. “Offensive military actions need congressional approval. The Framers of the Constitution divided war powers to protect the American people from war-eager executives. Whether the United States should engage in conflicts across the globe is a decision for the people’s representatives in Congress, not the president.”

In addition to Nigeria, Trump—who says he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize—since 2017 has also ordered the bombing of Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Pakistan, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen, as well as boats allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean. Trump has also deployed warships and thousands of US troops near Venezuela, which could become the next country attacked by a president who campaigned on a platform of “peace through strength.”

That’s more than the at least five countries attacked during the tenure of former President George W. Bush or the at least seven nations attacked on orders of then-President Barack Obama during the so-called War on Terror, which killed more than 940,000 people—including at least 432,000 civilians, according to the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs.

Trump continued the war on ISIS in Iraq and Syria started by Obama in 2014. Promising to “bomb the shit out of” ISIS fighters and “take out their families,” Trump intensified the US campaign from a war of “attrition” to one of “annihilation,” according to his former defense secretary, Gen. James “Mad Dog” Mattis. Thousand of civilians were killed as cities such as Mosul, Iraq and Raqqa, Syria were flattened.

Trump declared victory over ISIS in 2018—and again the following year.

Some social media users suggested Trump’s “warmongering” is an attempt to distract from the Epstein files scandal and alleged administration cover-up.

“Bombing Nigeria won’t make us forget about the Epstein files,” said one X user.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M

Chevron: the only foreign oil company left in Venezuela


By AFP
December 23, 2025


Chevron currently extract oil from four fields and offshore gas from another field in Venezuela - Copyright AFP Yuri CORTEZ

The US oil company Chevron is walking a tightrope amid tensions between Washington and Caracas to retain its fragile position as the only foreign company allowed to exploit Venezuela’s oil reserves —- the largest in the world.

Washington’s total blockade of oil tankers, added last week to punishing US sanctions, has put Chevron and its presence in Venezuela back in the spotlight.



– Why is Chevron in Venezuela? –



The Venezuelan Gulf Oil Company, Chevron’s predecessor in Venezuela, was founded in April 1923 and began operating its first well in August 1924.

Initially operating near Lake Maracaibo, it then moved on to new deposits such as Urumaco and Boscan. Most reserves are now in the Orinoco Belt.

Gulf Oil merged with Standard Oil of California in 1984, forming the giant now known as Chevron.

The group currently extracts oil from four fields and offshore gas from another field, covering a total area of nearly 30,000 hectares (115 square miles).

This is part of a partnership with the state-owned company PDVSA and its affiliates that employs around 3,000 people.

According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2023, Venezuelan territory contained around 303 billion barrels, or about 17 percent of the world’s reserves.

The US embargo on Venezuelan crude oil, in place since 2019, was relaxed in 2023 with licenses to operate in the country.

But President Donald Trump revoked them all in the first half of 2025 before granting an exception to Chevron.

Yet, according to an industry expert, recent presidential decisions do not affect the group’s activities.

“We believe our presence continues to be a stabilizing force for the local economy, the region and US energy security,” the company told AFP, assuring that it operates in compliance with the law and “sanctions frameworks provided by the US government.”

Other foreign oil companies do not operate inside Venezuela because of the US embargo and a Venezuelan law that requires foreign firms to partner with PDVSA in majority state-owned ventures, a structure Chevron accepted when it was imposed.



– How many barrels? –



According to Stephen Schork, an analyst at the Schork Group consulting firm, Venezuela’s total production is around 800,000 to 900,000 barrels per day compared to more than 3 million at its peak.

With its license, Chevron generates around 10 percent of Venezuela’s production, although sources differ on the exact figure.

This currently represents around 150,000 to 200,000 barrels per day, 100 percent of which is exported to the United States.

But the oil is high-sulfur “sludge,” said Schork.

“It is heavy, nasty stuff. You can’t move this oil in a pipeline,” and it’s the hardest to refine, he explained.

Because of the embargo, Caracas is forced to sell its oil on the black market at heavy discounts, mainly to Asia.

But the new US blockade is expected to significantly reduce these illicit exports — by up to 50 percent according to experts.



– Does US need the oil? –



The United States has refineries around the Gulf of Mexico that were specifically designed decades ago to process this highly viscous Venezuelan oil.

Due to its lower quality, it is converted into diesel or by-products such as asphalt, rather than gasoline for cars.

“The United States does not need this oil,” noted Schork.

If they want it, he believes, it is for political reasons.

They want to “prevent the vacuum created by their departure from being filled by countries that do not share their values, such as China and Russia,” according to a source close to the matter.

Trump ‘Choosing From the War Crimes Menu’ With ‘Quarantine’ on Venezuela Oil Exports

“Economic strangulation is warfare and civilians always pay the price,” lamented CodePink.


Oil tankers are seen anchored in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela on December 4, 2025.
(Photo by José Bula Urrutia/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Brett Wilkins
Dec 25, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

President Donald Trump has ordered US military forces to further escalate their aggression against Venezuela by enforcing a “quarantine” on the South American nation’s oil—by far its main export—in what one peace group called an attempted act of “economic strangulation.”

“While military options still exist, the focus is to first use economic pressure by enforcing sanctions to reach the outcome the White House is looking [for],” a US official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

The move follows the deployment of an armada of US warships and thousands of troops to the region, threats to invade Venezuela, oil tanker seizures off the Venezuelan coast, Trump’s authorization of covert CIA action against the socialist government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and airstrikes against boats allegedly running drugs in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean that have killed more than 100 people in what critics say are murders and likely war crimes.

This, atop existing economic sanctions that experts say have killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans since they were first imposed during the first Trump administration in 2017.

“The efforts so far have put tremendous pressure on Maduro, and the belief is that by late January, Venezuela will be facing an economic calamity unless it agrees to make significant concessions to the US,” the official told Reuters.




The official’s use of the word “quarantine” evoked the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, an existential standoff that occurred after the John F. Kennedy administration imposed a naval blockade around Cuba to prevent Soviet nuclear missiles from being deployed on the island, even as the US was surrounding the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons.

“This is an illegal blockade,” the women-led peace group CodePink said in response to the Reuters report. “Calling it a ‘quarantine’ doesn’t change the reality. The US regime is using hunger as a weapon of war to force regime change in Venezuela. Economic strangulation is warfare and civilians always pay the price. The US is a regime of terror.”

Critics have also compared Trump’s aggression to the George W. Bush administration’s buildup to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, initially referred to as Operation Iraqi Liberation (OIL). But unlike Bush, Trump—who derided Bush for not seizing Iraq’s petroleum resources as spoils of war—has openly acknowledged his desire to take Venezuela’s oil.

“Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it,” he Trump said on Monday. “Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”

On Wednesday, a panel of United Nations experts said that the US blockade and boat strikes constitute “illegal armed aggression” against Venezuela.

Multiple efforts by US lawmakers—mostly Democrats, but also a handful of anti-war Republicans—to pass a war powers resolution blocking the Trump administration from bombing boats or attacking Venezuela have failed.

The blockade and vessel seizures have paralyzed Venezuela’s oil exports. Ports are clogged with full tankers whose operators are fearful of entering international waters. Venezuela-bound tankers have also turned back for fear of seizure. Although Venezuelan military vessels are accompanying tankers, the escorts stop once the ships reach international waters.

According to the New York Times, Venezuela is considering putting armed troops aboard tankers bound for China, which, along with Russia, has pledged its support—but little more—for Caracas.

Trump Isn’t Planning to Invade Venezuela. He’s Planning Something Worse

Rather than launching a military invasion that would provoke public backlash and congressional scrutiny, Trump is doubling down on something more insidious.

A vendor counts Venezuelan bolivar banknotes at La Hoyada market in Caracas on December 23, 2025.
(Photo by Federico Parra/AFP via Getty Images)

Michelle Ellner
Dec 25, 2025

Common Dreams

The loudest question in Washington right now is whether Donald Trump is going to invade Venezuela. The quieter, and far more dangerous, reality is this: he probably won’t. Not because he cares about Venezuelan lives, but because he has found a strategy that is cheaper, less politically risky at home, and infinitely more devastating: economic warfare.

Venezuela has already survived years of economic warfare. Despite two decades of sweeping US sanctions designed to strangle its economy, the country has found ways to adapt: oil has moved through alternative markets; communities have developed survival strategies; people have endured shortages and hardship with creativity and resilience. This endurance is precisely what the Trump administration is trying to break.

Rather than launching a military invasion that would provoke public backlash and congressional scrutiny, Trump is doubling down on something more insidious: total economic asphyxiation. By tightening restrictions on Venezuelan oil exports, its primary source of revenue, Trump’s administration is deliberately pushing the country toward a full-scale humanitarian collapse.

In recent months, US actions in the Caribbean Sea, including the harassment and interdiction of oil tankers linked to Venezuela, signal a shift from financial pressure to illegal maritime force. These operations have increasingly targeted Venezuela’s ability to move its own resources through international waters. Oil tankers have been delayed, seized, threatened with secondary sanctions, or forced to reroute under coercion. The objective is strangulation.

This is illegal under international law.

The freedom of navigation on the high seas is a cornerstone of international maritime law, enshrined in the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Unilateral interdiction of civilian commercial vessels, absent a UN Security Council mandate, violates the principle of sovereign equality and non-intervention. The extraterritorial enforcement of US sanctions, punishing third countries and private actors for engaging in lawful trade with Venezuela, has no legal basis. It is coercion, plain and simple. More importantly, the intent is collective punishment.

Trump’s calculation is brutally simple: make Venezuelans so miserable that they will rise up and overthrow Maduro.

By preventing Venezuela from exporting oil, which is the revenue that funds food imports, medicine, electricity, and public services, the Trump administration is knowingly engineering conditions of mass deprivation. Under international humanitarian law, collective punishment is prohibited precisely because it targets civilians as a means to achieve political ends. And if this continues, we will see horrific images: empty shelves, malnourished children, overwhelmed hospitals, people scavenging for food. Scenes that echo those coming out of Gaza, where siege and starvation have been normalized as weapons of war.

US actions will undoubtedly cause millions of Venezuelans to flee the country, likely seeking to travel to the United States, which they are told is safe for their families, full of economic opportunities, and security. . But Trump is sealing the US border, cutting off asylum pathways, and criminalizing migration. When people are starved, when economies are crushed, when daily life becomes unlivable, people move. Blocking Venezuelans from entering the United States while systematically destroying the conditions that allow them to survive at home means that neighboring countries like Colombia, Brazil, and Chile will be asked to absorb the human cost of Washington’s decisions. This is how empire outsources the damage. But these countries have their own economic woes, and mass displacement of Venezuelans will destabilize the entire region.

Venezuela is a test case. What is being refined now—economic siege without formal war, maritime coercion without declared blockade, starvation without bombs—is a blueprint. Any country that refuses compliance with Washington’s political and economic demands should be paying attention. This will be the map for 21st century regime change.

And this is how Trump can reassure the United States Congress that he is not “going to war” with Venezuela. He doesn’t need to. Economic strangulation carries none of the immediate political costs of a military intervention, even as it inflicts slow, widespread devastation. There are no body bags returning to US soil, no draft, no televised bombing campaigns. Just a steady erosion of life elsewhere.

Trump’s calculation is brutally simple: make Venezuelans so miserable that they will rise up and overthrow Maduro. That has been the same calculation behind US policy toward Cuba for six decades—and it has failed. Economic strangulation doesn’t bring democracy; it brings suffering. And even if, by some grim chance, it did succeed in toppling the government, the likely result would not be freedom but chaos—possibly a protracted civil war that could devastate the country, and the region, for decades.

Tomorrow, people in Venezuela will celebrate Christmas. Families will gather around the table to eat hallacas wrapped with care, slices of pan de jamón, and dulce de lechoza. They will share stories, dance to gaitas, and make a toast with Ponche Crema.

If we oppose war because it kills, we must also oppose sanctions that do the same, more quietly, more slowly, and with far less accountability.

But if this economic siege continues, if Venezuelan oil is fully cut off, if the country is denied the means to feed itself, if hunger is allowed to finish what bombs are no longer politically useful to accomplish, then this Christmas may be remembered as one of the last Venezuelans were able to celebrate in anything resembling normal life, at least in the near future.

Polls consistently show that nearly 70 percent of people in the United States oppose a military intervention in Venezuela. War is recognized for what it is: violent, destructive, unacceptable. But sanctions are treated differently. Many people believe they are a harmless alternative, a way to apply “pressure” without bloodshed.

That assumption is dangerously wrong. According to a comprehensive study in medical journal The Lancet, sanctions increase mortality at levels comparable to armed conflict, hitting children and the elderly first. Sanctions do not avoid civilian harm—they systematically produce it.

If we oppose war because it kills, we must also oppose sanctions that do the same, more quietly, more slowly, and with far less accountability. If we don’t act against economic warfare with the same urgency we reserve for bombs and invasions, then sanctions will remain the preferred weapon: politically convenient but equally deadly.


Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.


Michelle Ellner
Michelle Ellner is a Latin America campaign coordinator of CODEPINK. She was born in Venezuela and holds a bachelor’s degree in languages and international affairs from the University La Sorbonne Paris IV, in Paris. After graduating, she worked for an international scholarship program out of offices in Caracas and Paris and was sent to Haiti, Cuba, The Gambia, and other countries for the purpose of evaluating and selecting applicants.
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The Donroe Doctrine

Happy Xmas (under Trump, war is far from over)

William Hartung,

 Common Dreams
December 25, 2025 


Donald Trump makes an announcement about new US Navy ships. REUTERS/Jessica Koscielniak

Earlier this month, the Trump administration released its new National Security Strategy, or NSS. Normally, such documents are poor predictors of what’s likely to happen in the real world. They are more like branding tools that communicate the attitudes of a given administration while rarely offering a detailed or accurate picture of its likely policies.

The reason documents like the NSS are of limited import is simple enough: foreign and military policies aren’t set by documents but by power and ideology. Typically enough, the current U.S. approach to the world flows from struggles among representatives of contending interest groups, some of which, like the military-industrial complex (MIC), have a significant advantage in the fight. The weapons industry and its allies in the Pentagon and Congress wield a wide array of tools of influence, including tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions, more than 1,000 lobbyists, and jobs tied to military-related facilities in the states and districts of key members of Congress. The MIC — which my colleague Ben Freeman and I refer to in our new book as the trillion-dollar war machine — also has considerable influence over the institutions that shape our view of the world, from the media to DC think tanks, Hollywood, the gaming industry, and our universities.

But the power and influence of the war machine are not going completely unchallenged. The grip of militarism and the institutions that profit from it are indeed being challenged by organizations like The Poor People’s Campaign: A Call for Moral Revival; Dissenters, a youth antimilitarism group based in Chicago; antiwar veterans organizations like About Face, Common Defense, and Veterans for Peace; longstanding peace groups like the Friends Committee on National Legislation and Peace Action; networks like People Over Pentagon and Dismantle the Military-Industrial Complex; the ceasefire and Palestinian rights movements on U.S. campuses and beyond; and groups working for racial and economic justice, gay and trans rights, immigration reform, the demilitarization of the police, or compensation for environmental damage caused by nuclear weapons testing and other military activities.

As such organizations coalesce, bringing together tens of millions of us whose lives and prospects are impacted by this country’s ever-growing war machine, let’s hope it might be possible to create the power needed to build a better, more tolerant, and more peaceful world, one that meets the needs of the majority of its people, rather than endlessly squandering precious resources on war and preparations for more of it.

So why pay attention to that new strategy document if what really determines our safety and security lies elsewhere? There are several reasons to do so.

First, the NSS has prompted discussion in the mainstream media and elite circles of what U.S. priorities in the world should actually be — and such a discussion needs to be expanded to include the perspectives of people and organizations actually suffering the consequences of our militarized domestic and foreign policies.

Second, that strategy paper reflects the unnerving intentions and worldview of the current administration, which, of course, has the power to determine whether this country is at war or peace.

Finally, it suggests just how the Trump administration would like to be perceived. As such, it should be considered a weapon in the debate over what kind of country the United States should be.

'President of Peace'

From the start, the submission letter that accompanies the new strategy document is pure Donald Trump. In case you hadn’t noticed, the current occupant of the Oval Office would have us believe that everything — every single thing! — he does is bigger, better, and more beautiful than anything that ever came before it. And that’s definitely the case, in the first year of his second term, when it comes to his view of what this country’s national security policies should actually be. As the letter puts it:
“Over the past nine months, we have brought our nation — and the world — back from the brink of catastrophe and disaster. After four years of weakness, extremism, and deadly failures, my administration has moved with urgency and historic speed to restore American strength at home and abroad, and bring peace and stability to our world.
”No administration in history has brought about such a dramatic turnaround in so short a time.“

Needless to say, we’re expected to attribute that alleged American revival to the brilliance and tough-guy attitudes of the president and his team. But any reasonable American should instantly have doubts about that. After all, one of the Trump administration’s proudest accomplishments, as the new document notes, has been getting “radical gender ideology and woke lunacy out of our military.” Or, to put it slightly differently, under the guise of its crusade against DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion), the administration has effectively dismantled programs designed to reduce racism, misogyny, and anti-gay and anti-trans violence in the ranks of the military.

Whether the programs aimed at reducing entrenched discrimination in those ranks were ever sufficient is certainly doubtful, but that discrimination in the military needs to be addressed should have been and should still be beyond question. To cite just one example, a 2024 study by political geographer Jennifer Greenberg conducted for the Costs of War Project at Brown University found that there were more than 70,000 cases of sexual assault in the U.S. military in 2021 and 2023 (the years covered by her analysis). Her report also noted that, “on average, over the course of the war in Afghanistan, 24 percent of active-duty women and 1.9 percent of active-duty men experienced sexual assault.”

Pretending that widespread sexual violence doesn’t exist in the U.S. military or dismissing it as an example of “radical gender ideology and woke lunacy” should be considered, at best, a policy equivalent of criminal negligence. And it’s certainly not a great look for the person who desperately wants to be known as the “president of peace.”

But our commander-in-chief is nothing if not persistent (and predictable). In his introduction to the new strategy document, I’m sure you won’t be shocked to learn that President Trump takes the opportunity to pat himself on the back for allegedly ending “eight raging conflicts” in his first eight months in office — including those between Cambodia and Thailand, Kosovo and Serbia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, India and Pakistan, and Israel and Iran.

Of course, residents of many of those countries can be forgiven for not being aware of President Trump’s purported role in bringing relative peace to their regions or, in some of those cases, for failing to note that the peaceful situations he claims to have brought about don’t even exist. And they would be right to be skeptical. After all, this is the same president who has decimated the U.S. diplomatic corps and dismantled Washington’s main economic and humanitarian aid organization, the U.S. Agency for International Development — hardly the actions of a president of global peace.

Trump’s rhetoric in his introductory letter contrasts with some of the more sober passages in the document itself. His ranting and self-praise, however, are undoubtedly of more relevance when it comes to understanding the world that we’re actually in than the words in the body of that strategy’s blueprint. If his time in office tells us anything, it’s that his administration’s policies are heavily influenced by his personal desires and resentments, whether or not they square with existing laws, procedures, or policy pronouncements.

The Donroe Doctrine

The aspect of the newly announced military strategy that has gotten the most attention (and may be the closest to the president’s heart) is its focus not on the rest of the world but on the Western Hemisphere, including what the president has called the “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, or what’s come to be known as the “Donroe Doctrine.”

The hemispheric focus includes the administration’s harsh immigration crackdown. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now literally kidnapping people off the city streets of this country, often regardless of their actual immigration status and absent the alleged criminal histories that have been used to justify its activities. President Trump sees this wave of repression as a badge of honor, arguing that “starting on my first day in office, we restored the sovereign borders of the United States and deployed the military to stop the invasion of our country.”

The hyper-militarization of the border has been paralleled by a wildly more aggressive posture in the hemisphere as a whole, most notably in the repeated attacks on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean Sea, the waters off of Venezuela, and even the eastern Pacific Ocean, and the preparations for what could become a regime-change war against the government of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. No matter that his country poses no direct threat whatsoever to the United States. And Republican calls for a full-scale war against that nation are occurring despite the disastrous results of this country’s regime-change policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and beyond in this century.

The attacks on those defenseless ships, targeting individuals who pose no direct threat to the United States and haven’t even been proven to be involved in drug trafficking, violate international law and are being carried out without the approval of Congress. That was no less true of the recent seizure of a Venezuelan cargo ship transporting oil to Asia and the imposition of sanctions on six more oil-carrying ships.

Unfortunately, waging war without input from Congress has been the norm in U.S. military interventions of this century. Data generated by the Military Intervention Project at Tufts University indicates that the United States has used military force or engaged in outright warfare 30 times since 2001, with Congress largely on the sidelines. And rarely have those interventions achieved anything like their stated objectives, as documented by the Costs of War Project, which has shown that America’s post-9/11 war on terror has cost at least $8 trillion, involved the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and left a huge cohort of U.S. veterans with physical and psychological injuries, all without faintly achieving the stated goals of promoting democracy or stability in the targeted nations.

End endless wars?

Despite its increasingly aggressive posture in the Western Hemisphere (and on U.S. soil), some analysts hold out hope that the Trump administration will ultimately reduce the frequency of U.S. military intervention globally and perhaps even “end endless wars.” There is rhetoric in the new strategy document that could support such a notion, but the real question is whether the president will act on it in any meaningful way.

Judging by its rhetoric alone, the administration’s strategy document would seem to suggest at least an implicit reduction in the use of force overseas, as evidenced in its discussion of strategy:

“A strategy must evaluate, sort, and prioritize. Not every country, region, issue, or cause — however worthy — can be the focus of American strategy…American strategies since the end of the Cold War have fallen short — they have been laundry lists of wishes or desired end states; have not clearly defined what we want but instead stated vague platitudes.”

The document then goes further, seeming to denounce the American war machine and the drive for U.S. military dominance globally:
“After the end of the Cold War, American foreign policy elites convinced themselves that permanent American domination of the entire world was in the best interests of our country… Our elites badly miscalculated America’s willingness to shoulder forever global burdens to which the American people saw no connection to the national interest. They overestimated America’s ability to fund, simultaneously, a massive welfare-regulatory-administrative state alongside a massive military, diplomatic, intelligence, and foreign aid complex.”

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth reinforced such themes in a Dec. 6 speech at the Reagan National Defense Forum, while highlighting the administration’s usual condemnations of efforts to reduce discrimination in the military or this country or address climate change. As he summed it up, “The War Department will not be distracted by democracy building, interventionism, undefined wars, regime change, climate change, moralizing and feckless nation building.”

Taken seriously, such observations would lead to a sharp reduction in the American global military footprint of 750 foreign bases, more than 170,000 troops deployed overseas, a Navy designed to support combat anywhere in the world, dozens of ongoing “counterterror” operations globally from Somalia to Yemen, and arms-supplying relationships with more than half the nations on earth.

Needless to say, so far that hasn’t happened, whether a Republican or a Democrat was at the helm of the administration. But as with President Trump’s professions of being a peacemaker or his occasional rhetorical jabs at “war profiteers” and “warmongers,” the anti-interventionist language in some of the administration’s new National Security Strategy is clearly aimed mainly at those parts of the president’s base here at home who are indeed sick of war and skeptical of large corporations and the “deep state.”

All too sadly, President Donald Trump, Secretary of “War” Hegseth, and the rest of the crew seem all too willing to make war in the Western Hemisphere in a significant fashion, while essentially ignoring the U.S. military’s other warring activities elsewhere on the planet. (Only recently, for instance, U.S. Africa Command confirmed that it had launched 111 airstrikes in Somalia in 2025.) And whether Trump supporters here at home are willing or in any fashion able to hold Trump to his antiwar rhetoric and blunt his penchant for using military force remains to be seen.

Fight for peace

To resist and reverse the militarization of American foreign policy will mean speaking truth to power, while working to debunk the myths that rationalize this country’s permanent war footing. But it will also require confronting power with power by generating a broad people’s movement against militarism in all its manifestations, including the militarization of foreign policy, immigration enforcement, and policing in this country, as well as the military’s role in generating staggering amounts of greenhouse gases and so accelerating climate change and threatening public health.

There are people and organizations fighting on all those fronts. Building a network of resistance that respects the priorities of each of them will take dedicated organizing and relationship-building. Much of that work is already underway. But the question remains: Can the public interest overcome the special interests and bankrupt ideologies that continue to make war and the threat of more war America’s face to the world? It’s a question on which none of us can afford to remain neutral.

William D. Hartung is a Senior Research Fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, and the author most recently of "Pathways to Pentagon Spending Reductions: Removing the Obstacles."