Italy's luxury brands shaken by sweatshop probes

Rome (AFP) – A series of investigations into exploitative work conditions within fashion subcontractors has roiled Italy's luxury industry, with the government decrying attacks on "Made in Italy".


Issued on: 03/12/2025 - RFI

Tod's iconic leather shoes are handmade, but Italian prosecutors say they have found 'degrading' conditions at its Chinese subcontractors © Gabriel BOUYS / AFP/File

Five fashion brands have been put under court administration since 2024 following probes by Milan prosecutors that uncovered worker abuses and a lack of oversight into the supply chains of some of Italy's most respected brands.

Most recently, lawyers for luxury leather company Tod's were due in a Milan court Wednesday, where prosecutors want to impose a temporary advertising ban and outside administrators in light of what they have called "malicious" actions by the company.

The investigations led by prosecutor Paolo Storari have cast a spotlight on the dark underside of the luxury industry.

At issue is the near-ubiquitous practice of brands subcontracting work to suppliers, who in turn contract to others, amid ever-tighter margins and scant oversight of labour conditions.


To date, investigations have targeted Loro Piana, Dior's Italian subsidiary Manufactures Dior, Giorgio Armani Operations and Alviero Martini -- and prosecutors have suggested more probes could come.

Italy's government has gone on the offensive, with Industry Minister Adolfo Urso saying the reputation of Italian brands was "under attack".

It has proposed a certificate for luxury companies to show they are in compliance with current law -- a measure critics have called toothless, in part because it is voluntary and would unduly shield brands from liability.

"We are taking concrete measures to firmly defend Italian fashion, to protect its reputation and the values that have made it synonymous with beauty, quality and authenticity," Urso said in October.

'Chain of exploitation'

Prosecutors last month said Tod's -- whose leather loafers can reach over $1,000 -- and three of its executives had "full awareness" of the exploitation of Chinese subcontractors but failed to set up systems to prevent it.

Tod's allegedly ignored its own audits revealing working hours and wage violations -- with workers paid as little as 2.75 euros per hour -- breaches of safety measures and what prosecutors called "degrading" sleeping areas within the factory.

Under Italian law, companies can be held responsible for offences committed by representatives -- such as approved suppliers -- acting in their interest.

Advocates for fashion industry workers have for decades pointed to widespread abuses in the supply chain.

Suppliers "are at the mercy of big brands that impose commercial conditions, starting with prices that are too low to cover all costs", said Deborah Lucchetti, national coordinator of the Clean Clothes Campaign in Italy.

That, in turn, fuels a system in which first-tier suppliers turn to subcontractors, imposing ever more stringent terms, which leads to labour abuses, most often against migrants.

"It's a chain of exploitation," she told AFP.

Italy's fashion suppliers are predominately small- and medium-sized companies, tens of thousands of whom have shuttered in recent years, according to industry associations, amid a luxury downturn and higher production costs.

Unable to invest, due to lack of guaranteed work from the commissioning brands and hyper-thin margins, the suppliers stay small. When a big order arrives, they turn to subcontractors for quick help, a system that "effectively pushes players in the supply chain to engage in illegal conduct", said Lucchetti.

Prosecutors said both Tod's and Loro Piana could not have been unaware that one of their main suppliers was externalising all its production -- given that the supplier did not have any production equipment, such as sewing machines, in its facility.

The companies targeted thus far have variously responded by cutting ties with the suppliers, condemning their actions, or blaming them for concealing abuses.

Reputational risk

Amid the reputational risk, some brands have sought to reassure consumers.

Last week, one of Italy's top luxury brands, Prada, invited journalists to its Scandicci factory outside Florence, showing the step-by-step transformation of supple leather into luxury handbags.

Asked about the investigations, Prada's Chief Marketing Officer Lorenzo Bertelli, who also heads social responsibility, said production had never been an afterthought for the company.

Other fashion executives, Bertelli said, don't view production "as an area of responsibility": "And this has led to many of things you have read in the newspapers."

Prada does not disclose how much of its production is in-house, but says it is the highest in the industry. Prada owns 25 factories, 23 of which are located in Italy.

Bertelli called it a "constant battle" to keep Prada's supply chain clean.

"We must constantly carry out inspections or checks on suppliers, this is the daily work we do."

© 2025 AFP

Trump’s provocations are

 bolstering Latin America’s

 left

By Steve Ellner

Published 15 November, 2025

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First published at Jacobin.

When Donald Trump assumed the presidency in January 2025, the Pink Tide governments in Latin America were losing ground. The approval rating of Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reached the lowest of his three presidential terms, while that of Colombia’s Gustavo Petro was a mere 34 percent. And in the wake of the fiercely contested results of the July 2024 presidential elections in Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro found himself isolated in the region.

Now, less than a year later, the political landscape has shifted. Trump’s antics — such as his renaming of the Gulf of Mexico, the weaponization of tariffs, and aggressive military actions in the Caribbean and Pacific — have revitalized Pink Tide governments and the Left in general. Latin America has reacted to Trump’s invocation of the Monroe Doctrine with a surge of nationalist sentiment, mass demonstrations, and denunciations from political figures across most of the spectrum, including some on the center right.

While the United States appears more and more like an unreliable and declining hegemon, China is seeking to position itself as a champion of national sovereignty and a voice of reason in matters of international trade and investment. When Trump slapped a 50 percent tariff on most Brazilian imports in July, the Chinese stepped in to help fill the gap for the nation’s all-important soybean exports.

Lula vs. Trump

Different scenarios are playing out in different nations but with similar results: the strengthening of the Left and, in some instances, the weakening of the Right. One type of case is seen in both Brazil and Mexico, where Lula and Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum have combined firmness with discretion, in contrast to Petro’s more confrontational rhetoric.

In July, Lula responded defiantly to Trump’s attempt to strong-arm Brazil through punitive tariffs designed to secure the release of the US president’s ally, former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro, who was jailed for his involvement in coup and assassination plots. Unlike other heads of state, Lula refused to reach out to Trump, saying, “I’m not going to humiliate myself.” Instead, Lula declared that “Brazil would not be tutored by anyone,” at the same time recalling the 1964 Brazilian coup as a previous instance of US intervention.

Different scenarios are playing out in different nations but with similar results: the strengthening of the Left and, in some instances, the weakening of the Right.

The face-off sparked mass pro-government demonstrations throughout the country that far outnumbered those called by the Right demanding the freeing of Bolsonaro. Lula’s supporters blamed the Right for the tariffs, and particularly Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo, who campaigned for them after moving to Washington, DC. Lula called Bolsonaro a “traitor” and said he should face another trial for being responsible for what has come to be called “Bolsonaro’s tax.” In a sign that Trump’s tariffs were a game-changing boost for the Left, the eighty-year-old Lula announced last month that he would run for reelection in October 2026, as his popularity reached the 50 percent mark.

Some analysts faulted Lula for having failed to use his thirty-minute videoconference with Trump on October 6 to condemn Washington’s gunboat diplomacy in the Caribbean. According to this interpretation of the call, Lula displayed naivete and gutlessness by combining “concern and accommodation with US imperialism” and believing that “negotiations will be guided by a ‘win-win logic.’”

In fact, Lula has spoken out against the US military presence as a “factor of tension” in the Caribbean, which he calls a “zone of peace.” Lula, though, undoubtedly could have gone further, as was urged by the Landless Workers’ Movement (MST) — which backed Lula’s last presidential bid — by explicitly declaring solidarity with Venezuela against US attacks.

Still, Lula can hardly be accused of submissiveness in his dealings with Trump. Indeed, Lula and Sheinbaum as well have been adept in their relations with the US president and have ended up getting much of what they wanted. Moreover, at the same time that Trump retreated from his tariff threats against both Brazil and Mexico, he took to praising their respective heads of state.

A united front in the making

In Brazil and elsewhere in the region, a new alignment is emerging, drawing in both right- and left-leaning forces in reaction to Washington’s posture. One notable example was Lula’s appointment of Homeless Workers’ Movement (MTST) activist and former presidential candidate Guilherme Boulos as minister of the presidency in October. Boulos belongs to the Socialism and Liberty Party (PSOL), a leftist split-off from Lula’s Workers’ Party (PT) that endorsed Lula’s 2022 presidential candidacy but had ruled out holding positions in his government.

Boulos, who was instrumental in organizing the recent protests against Washington’s tariff hikes, spoke of the significance of his designation: “Lula gave me the mission to help put the government on the street . . . and [listen] to popular demands.” His appointment signals a leftward turn in which, in the words of the Miami-based CE Noticias Financiera, “Lula showed that he is going into the 2026 election ready for war. A war in his own style, using the social movements.”

Venezuela is another example where political actors across much of the political spectrum are converging on the need for a broad front to oppose US aggression in the region. No other Pink Tide government has faced such a rapid succession of regime change and destabilization attempts as Venezuela under the government of Maduro, Hugo Chávez’s successor. The government’s response to these and other challenges has at times deviated from democratic norms and has included concessions to business interests, drawing harsh criticism from both moderate and more radical sectors of the Left.

In Brazil and elsewhere in the region, a new alignment is emerging, drawing in both right- and left-leaning forces in reaction to Washington’s posture.

One leader in the latter category is Elías Jaua, formerly a member of Chávez’s inner circle, whose leftist positions on economic policy and internal party democracy left him marginalized within the Chavista movement. In the face of the US military threat in the Caribbean, Jaua has closed ranks with Maduro and decried the “psychological war” being waged against the president. He went on to say that, in this critical moment, it is necessary “to place the tranquility of the people above any ideological, political, or ulterior interest,” adding “the Homeland comes first.”

Other long-standing political figures who have supported Maduro’s call for a national dialogue to face the US threat — while continuing to criticize Maduro for alleged undemocratic practices — include some on the center and center right of the political spectrum, including former presidential candidates Henrique Capriles, Manuel Rosales, and Antonio Ecarri.

Others are moderate leftists who held important posts under Chávez and/or belonged to the moderate left party Movimiento al Socialismo (MAS) in the 1990s. One of the latter is Enrique Ochoa Antich, who presented a petition signed by twenty-seven leading anti-Maduro moderates that stated “it is disheartening to see an extremist sector of the opposition” supporting sanctions and other US actions. Ochoa Antich proposed a dialogue with government representatives “over the best way to foment national unity and defend sovereignty.”

In Argentina, Trump came to the aid of the Right in what will likely prove to be a Pyrrhic victory. On the eve of the October 2025 legislative elections, Trump offered to bail out the Argentine economy to the tune of $40 billion but only on the condition that the party of right-wing president Javier Milei emerge victorious, which is precisely what happened. Trump’s blackmail was denounced as such by politicians ranging from Peronist leaders linked to former Pink Tide governments to centrists who had been among their most vocal critics. Facundo Manes, leader of the centrist Radical Civic Union, was an example of the latter, declaring “the extortion advances.” Meanwhile on the streets of Buenos Aires, protest banners denouncing Milei were marked by anti-US slogans “Yankee go home” and “Milei is Trump’s mule,” as well as the burning of a US flag.

This convergence around the need to confront Trump’s threats and actions creates an opportunity for progressives and socialists across the continent to unite. The call for such unity was taken up by the São Paulo Forum, a body that brings together over one hundred Latin American leftist organizations, which Lula helped found in 1990. At the outset of Trump’s first administration in 2017, the forum drafted the document “Consensus of Our America” as a response to the neoliberal Washington Consensus and the escalation of US interventionism in the hemisphere.

At the same time that it defended the pluralism of progressive movements and avoided the term “socialism,” the consensus document foresaw the drafting of a more concrete set of reforms and goals. The expected next step, however, never materialized. More recently, the Cuban political analyst and strategist Roberto Regalado lamented that, despite the urgent need for unity, “far from consolidating and expanding, the ‘Consensus of Our America’ has languished.”

Trump and the Latin American right

Much of the Latin American right has tied its fortunes to President Trump. The right-wing presidents of Argentina, Ecuador, and Paraguay are Trump followers, as are Bolsonaro, the Chilean presidential candidate José Antonio Kast, and former president Álvaro Uribe in Colombia. In Venezuela, right-wing opposition leader María Corina Machado dedicated her recent Nobel Peace Prize to Trump.

In 2022, Machado’s fellow Venezuelan rightist Leopoldo López cofounded the World Liberty Congress dedicated to regime change in nations that Washington considers adversaries. The idea is in line with the notion of creating an “International of the Right” promoted by Trump strategist Steve Bannon, among others. Bannon founded The Movement in 2016 to unite the European right, but it has been largely snubbed by much of that continent’s right wing.

While in the US, Trump exploits patriotism, in the case of Latin America, nationalist sentiment and support for Trump are oxymorons.

Such “internationalism” on the Right is even less likely to flourish in Latin America. While in the United States, Trump exploits patriotism — or a perverted form of it — in the case of Latin America, nationalist sentiment and support for Trump are oxymorons, specifically when it comes to tariffs, immigration, threats of military invasion, and the brandishing of the Monroe Doctrine. In Venezuela, for instance, Machado’s popularity has declined and her opposition movement has fractured as a result of popular repudiation of Trump’s policies.

In the United States, Trump plays to his fanatic supporters while his popularity steadily declines. In Latin America, the same is occurring, with the difference being that his popularity couldn’t get much lower than it already is. Pew Research Center reports that just 8 percent of Mexicans have “confidence” in Trump.

Trump has contributed to a major shift in Latin America’s political landscape, now marked by political polarization and leftist inroads. In many countries, the Left — which for decades remained on the sidelines — has become a major point of reference, rallying around the banners of national sovereignty, if not anti-imperialism.

In Chile, a Communist, Jeannette Jara, received a surprising 60.5 percent of the vote in the primaries to represent the main anti-rightist bloc in the upcoming presidential elections. While taking a cautious tone, Jara still directly addressed Trump, saying in the wake of his meddling in Argentine elections, “No US soldiers will enter. Chile is to be respected, and so is its sovereignty.”

In Ecuador, despite harsh repression, the followers of ex–Pink Tide president Rafael Correa have come close to winning the last three presidential elections. And in Colombia, Petro has reinvigorated his movement’s base through his forceful denunciations of US military operations and by leading a drive, begun in October, to secure two million signatures for a national constituent assembly.

“Polarization” often refers to a scenario in which the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum gain ascendancy. That is not what is happening in Latin America, at least on the Left. Instead, there is a convergence of progressives of different political stripes, both domestically and among Pink Tide governments, in their opposition to Trump and all that he represents. The challenge now is to translate this convergence into organized forms of unity — through united fronts at the national level as well as in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other regional bodies.

Steve Ellner is an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over 40 years. He is the author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon.n the wake of his meddling in Argentine elections, “No US soldiers will enter. Chile is to be respected, and so is its sovereignty.”

In Ecuador, despite harsh repression, the followers of ex–Pink Tide president Rafael Correa have come close to winning the last three presidential elections. And in Colombia, Petro has reinvigorated his movement’s base through his forceful denunciations of US military operations and by leading a drive, begun in October, to secure two million signatures for a national constituent assembly.

“Polarization” often refers to a scenario in which the extremes on both sides of the political spectrum gain ascendancy. That is not what is happening in Latin America, at least on the Left. Instead, there is a convergence of progressives of different political stripes, both domestically and among Pink Tide governments, in their opposition to Trump and all that he represents. The challenge now is to translate this convergence into organized forms of unity — through united fronts at the national level as well as in the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and other regional bodies.

Steve Ellner is an associate managing editor of Latin American Perspectives and a retired professor at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela, where he lived for over 40 years. He is the author of Rethinking Venezuelan Politics: Class, Conflict, and the Chávez Phenomenon.

The US War on China, Venezuela, and the Global Left

Because of the economic and political alliance between China and Venezuela, it is impossible to understand the growing push for war on Venezuela without also considering the buildup to war with China as well.


This image was posted on social media by President Donald Trump and shows a boat that was allegedly transporting cocaine off the coast of Venezuela when it was destroyed by US forces on September 2, 2025.
(Photo: President Donald Trump/Truth Social)

Megan Russell

Michelle Ellner
Nov 15, 2025

Common Dreams

Resistance movements against US imperialism have sprouted up all over the world in response to its indiscriminate violence and disregard for human life. Together, they form the living front of the international left, a network of people and organizations that seek liberation from the same systems of domination and colonial control. While their forms differ, from student encampments to workers’ strikes, the purpose remains the same: an end to empire and the creation of a new multipolar world rooted in the simple truth of our shared humanity and the equal worth of every nation and people.

The alliance between China and Venezuela is part of this broader project. And the US push for war against both nations is but a violent reaction to the impending truth that US hegemonic status is slipping, and with it, its control on global resources, political power, and the ability to dictate the terms of development and sovereignty for the rest of the world.




Trump Administration Has ‘Made the Decision to Attack Military Installations Inside Venezuela’: Report



Trump’s Escalation Against Venezuela Continues as Hegseth Deploys Aircraft Carrier Strike Group to Latin American Waters

Over the past month, the Trump administration has unleashed a series of strikes on Venezuelan fishing vessels, claiming to be cracking down on drug smugglers. The lie is as unoriginal as it is absurd, and a stark example of the waning facade of the supposed “morality” of liberal internationalism. Truth is often exposed during these periods of turbulence, when agitation overrides calculation; the knowledge of its imminent demise is so dire that the empire is barely trying to hide its true intentions anymore.

What is the truth, then? The truth is that the US war on Venezuela has nothing to do with drugs and everything to do with control. For years, Venezuela has faced relentless pressure, economic warfare, sanctions, and constant threats designed to undermine its sovereignty and keep it under the boot of US empire. As with most nations, US interest in Venezuela is about strategic resources and power. First, Venezuela sits atop the largest proven oil reserves in the world, along with significant deposits of gold, coltan, and other minerals critical to technology and energy production. Control over these strategic resources means control over global markets and energy security. Second, Venezuela’s geographic location within Latin America makes it a pivotal point of leverage within the region.

The lesson is clear: Where there is a US-backed war or intervention, you are likely to find some strategic resource or monetary interest beneath it.

Yet Venezuela’s defiance did not emerge in a vacuum. It followed more than a century of US domination across the hemisphere, from the invasion of Haiti and the occupation of Nicaragua to the coups in Guatemala, Chile, and Honduras. What unites these histories is a single message from Washington: No Latin American nation has the right to chart an independent course.

The Bolivarian Revolution, launched with Hugo Chávez’s election in 1998, was a direct challenge to that order. Emerging from the ruins of neoliberal collapse, it confronted Venezuela’s historical condition as a rentier state subordinated to US interests. Chávez redirected oil revenues to social programs, such as mass education and healthcare, while expanding access to political participation through communal councils and cooperatives.

Venezuela’s defiance took continental form 20 years ago, in November 2005, when Latin American leaders gathered in Mar de la Plata, Argentina, for the Summit of the Americas. There, Washington sought to impose the Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA)—a hemispheric agreement that would have locked the region into permanent subordination to US capital.

The summit instead became a turning point in modern Latin American history. Before tens of thousands of people chanting “ALCA, ALCA, al carajo!” the governments of Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina, and others rejected the deal. That rejection, led politically by Hugo Chávez and supported by social movements across the continent, signaled the collapse of the neoliberal consensus and the rebirth of Latin American sovereignty. Out of that victory came ALBA and Petrocaribe, mechanisms of regional cooperation that prioritized social development over corporate profit. The US has spent decades trying to reverse it through sanctions, coups, and now, open militarization in the Caribbean.

Today, matters are complicated by the introduction of a new, increasingly powerful actor. China has, over the past few decades, maintained a strong alliance with Venezuela. Starting in the early 2000s, China began providing Venezuela with tens of billions of dollars in loans to be repaid in oil shipments. This has enabled Venezuela to fund social programs and infrastructure while bypassing Western-controlled financial systems like the IMF and World Bank. A US Institute of Peace report states, “China’s industrialization boom in the early 2000s created new opportunities for its resource-rich trade partners in Latin America and Africa. Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez… was enthusiastic about advances from China.”

Since then, China has also helped Venezuela build railways, housing projects, and telecommunications infrastructure as part of its broader Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) to foster development across the Global South. The partnership, unlike those with the US, is not coercive but strictly noninterventionist. China does not advocate for regime change like US leaders, but maintains steadfast diplomatic support, referring to itself as an “apolitical development partner” while criticizing the history of US interference in the internal affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries. Meanwhile, the US criticizes China’s lack of desire to instigate regime change.

Because of the economic and political alliance between China and Venezuela, it is impossible to understand the growing push for war on Venezuela without also considering the buildup to war with China as well. They are, after all, part of the same battle. As the USIP report writes, “Venezuela will remain a key site for the rapidly expanding strategic rivalry between the United States and China.” US leaders are fully willing to sacrifice the lives of Venezuelan civilians if it means destroying the Venezuelan economy, installing a US puppet government, and destroying the budding solidarity movement between the two nations. As it stands, Venezuela has also provided a source of economic sovereignty to China by helping diversify its energy sources away from the Middle East and US-controlled suppliers, acting as a lifeline against US sanctions and economic isolation.

So though the US certainly has a vested interest in Venezuela itself, the nation is also another battlefront for the US war on China, which under the Trump administration has manifested as an escalating trade battle over strategic resources, a hyper-militarization of Pacific allies around China, and a domestic crackdown on Chinese nationals and Chinese Americans in the US. Of course, China is no existential threat to US citizens themselves. The only threat it poses is to a US-dominated world system and the perpetuation of the international division of labor that keeps a few Western elite wealthy, while the rest of the world struggles.

The US push for war on China is part of an ongoing campaign to hinder China’s rise. While the world hurtles inevitably toward a new multipolarity, US leaders lash out through military posturing, economic coercion, and war propaganda. President Donald Trump’s recent tariffs on China are only one small part of that larger strategy. At the heart of this confrontation lies a struggle over control of the strategic resources and technology that will define the future—rare earth minerals, semiconductors, AI, and more. China currently dominates the global supply of rare earth elements, the essential components in everything from smartphones and wind turbines to missiles and fighter jets. For the US, this is intolerable. It threatens its monopoly over high-tech production and, by extension, its military and economic supremacy. That’s why you’ll see political leaders and media sources perpetuate the narrative that China is weaponizing trade, even though it’s Western countries that have killed millions of people through unilateral sanctions since WWII. But China, as a sovereign nation, has the right to protect its strategic resources, especially when they are being used against it. Rare earth minerals, for example, are used by the US to create advanced weapons systems in preparation for war with China. And if economic warfare fails to hinder China’s rise, which it undoubtedly will if the recent Trump-Xi meetings are anything to go by, then it is increasingly likely that US leaders will force a physical confrontation, and those weapons will be used.

This isn’t the first time the US has waged war over strategic resources while using propaganda to paint a prettier picture. The Gulf War and invasion of Iraq, while justified as “defending democracy” and “protecting the world from weapons of mass destruction” that didn’t actually exist, were ultimately about carving up Iraq’s oil fields for US corporations. The NATO bombing campaign in Libya was in response to Gaddafi’s nationalization of oil and the threat to the US dollar. The continued occupation of Syria is about securing oil and gas fields. The overthrow of Bolivian President Evo Morales was connected to his nationalization of lithium, often referred to as the “new oil,” as well as attempts to thwart competition with Russia and China. The list goes on and on and on.

The lesson is clear: Where there is a US-backed war or intervention, you are likely to find some strategic resource or monetary interest beneath it. This is what it means to be an imperialist power. In order to sustain its dominance, the US must continually extract, control, or deny access to the materials that sustain global industry and technology, such as oil, gas, lithium, and rare earth minerals. And when another nation dares to assert sovereignty over its own resources, it is branded a threat to freedom, sanctioned, bombed, or toppled to keep it dependent, weak, and loyal. China, Venezuela, and all nations seeking sovereignty over their own development in ways contradictory to the capitalist imperial order threaten this, and that is why they are targeted—not for any moral or legal reason. As we’ve so clearly seen from two years of US-funded genocide in Gaza, neither morality nor legality guides US policy.

The struggle against US imperialism is a global struggle. To stand with Venezuela, with China, or with any nation resisting domination is to stand for the possibility of a new internationalism rooted in solidarity across borders. That is our task—to connect these struggles, to see in every act of resistance the reflection of our own, and to build a world of shared humanity and global equality.

Chaos: The Trump Doctrine for Latin America

by Roger D. Harris / November 14th, 2025

The US, under Trump, is unapologetically an empire operating without pretense. International law is for losers. A newly minted War Department, deploying the most lethal killing machine in world history, need not hide behind the sham of promoting democracy.

Recall that in 2023, Trump boasted: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten all that oil.” As CEO of the capitalist bloc, Trump’s mission is not about to be restrained by respect for sovereignty. There is only one inviolate global sovereign; all others are subalterns.

Venezuela – with our oil under its soil – is now in the crosshairs of the empire. Not only does Venezuela possess the largest petroleum reserves, but it also has major gold, coltan, bauxite, and nickel deposits. Of course, the world’s hegemon would like to get its hands on all that mineral wealth.

But it would be simplistic to think that it is driven only by narrow economic motives. Leverage over energy flows is central to maintaining global influence. Washington requires control of strategic resources to preserve its position as the global hegemon, guided by its official policy of “full spectrum dominance.”

For Venezuela, revenues derived from these resources enable it to act with some degree of sovereign independence. Most gallingly, Venezuela nationalized its oil, instead of gifting it to private entrepreneurs – and then used it to fund social programs and to assist allies abroad like Cuba. All this is anathema to the hegemon.

Further pushing the envelope is Venezuela’s “all-weather strategic partnership” with China. With Russia, its most consequential defense ally, Venezuela ratified a strategic partnership agreement. Similarly, Venezuela has a strong anti-imperialist alliance with Iran. All three partners have come to Caracas’s defense, along with regional allies such as Colombia, Brazil, and Mexico.

The US has subjected Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution to incessant regime-change aggression for its entire quarter-century of existence. In 2015, Barack Obama codified what economist Jeffrey Sachs calls a remarkable “legal fiction.”  His executive order designated Venezuela as an “extraordinary threat” to US national security. Renewed by each succeeding president, the executive order is really an implicit recognition of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution as a counter-hegemonic alternative that challenges Washington’s world order.

The latest US belligerence testifies to the success of the Venezuelan resistance. The effects of asphyxiating US-led sanctions, which had crashed the economy, have been partly reversed with a return to economic growth, leaving the empire with little alternative but to escalate its antagonism through military means.

The AFP reports “tensions between Washington and Caracas have dramatically risen” as if the one-sided aggression were a tit-for-tat. Venezuela seeks peace, but has a gun held to its head.

Reuters blames the victim, claiming that the Venezuelan government “is planning to…sow chaos in the event of a US air or ground attack.” In fact, President Nicolás Maduro has pledged “prolonged resistance” to Washington’s unprovoked assaults rather than meekly conceding defeat.

The death toll from US strikes on alleged small drug boats off Venezuela, in the Pacific off Colombia and Ecuador, and as far north as Mexico now exceeds 75 and continues to rise. But not an ounce of narcotics has been confiscated. In contrast, Venezuela has seized 64 tons of drugs this year without killing anyone, as the Orinoco Tribune observes.

Russian Foreign Ministry’s María Zakharova quipped: “now that the US has suddenly remembered, at this historic moment, that drugs are an evil, perhaps it is worth it for the US to go after the criminals within its own elite.”

On November 11, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, and its accompanying warships arrived in the Caribbean. They join an armada of US destroyers, fighter jets, drones, and troops that have been building since August.

In a breathtaking understatement, the Washington Post allowed: “The breadth of firepower…would seem excessive” for drug interdiction in what it glowingly describes as a “stunning military presence.”

Venezuela is now on maximum military alert with a threatening flotilla off its coast and some 15,000 US troops standing by.  Millions of Venezuelans have joined the militia, and international brigades have been welcomed to join the defense. President Maduro issued a decree of “external commotion,” granting special powers in the event of an invasion.

The populace has united around its Chavista leadership. The far-right opposition, which has called for a military invasion of its own country, is more isolated than ever. Only 3% support such a call.

Their US-designated leader, María Corina Machado, has gone bonkers, saying “no doubt” that Maduro rigged the 2020 US election against Trump. According to the rabidly anti-Chavista Caracas Chronicles, the so-called Iron Lady “is not simply betting Venezuela’s future on Trump, she is betting her existence.”

The legal eagles at The Washington Post now find that “the Trump administration’s approach is illegal.” United Nations experts warn that these unprovoked lethal strikes against vessels at sea “amount to international crimes.”

Even high-ranking Democrats “remain unconvinced” by the administration’s legal arguments. They’re miffed about being left out of the administration’s briefings and not getting to see full videos of the extrajudicial murders.

The Democrats unite with the Republicans in demonizing Maduro to achieve regime change in Venezuela, but wish it could be done by legal means. The so-called opposition party unanimously voted to confirm Marco Rubio as secretary of state, fully aware of the program that he now spearheads.

The corporate press has been complicit in regime change in its endless demonization of Maduro. They report that Trump authorized covert CIA operations as if that was a scoop rather than business as usual. What is new is a US administration overtly flaunting supposedly covert machinations. This is part of Washington’s full-press psychological pressure campaign on Venezuela, in which the follow-the-flag media have been its eager handmaiden.

The AP reports that Jack Keane, when he served as a US Army general, instructed staff to “see reporters as a conduit” for the Pentagon. This was cited as a criticism of Trump after a few dozen embedded reporters turned in their Pentagon badges. Trump has called out the Washington press corps as “very disruptive in terms of world peace,” proving the adage that even a blind dog can sometimes find a bone.

The Wall Street Journal opines: “Nobody in the [Trump] administration seems prepared to ask the hard questions about what happens if they do destabilize the [Venezuelan] regime but fail to topple it.” Political analysts Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies suggest the answer is carnage and chaos  – based on Washington’s past performances in Iraq, Serbia, Afghanistan, Haiti, Libya, Syria, and Yemen, to mention a few.

Foreign Policy’s perspective – aligned with the Washington establishment – is that regional fragmentation is at its highest level in the last half-century. Regional organizations have become dysfunctional –  UNASUR has been “destroyed,” CELAC is “useless,” and the OAS canceled its summit. The factionalism, Responsible Statecraft agrees, “marks one of the lowest moments for regional relations in decades.” Bilateral “deals” with the US are replacing regional cohesion.

This is Latin America under the beneficence of Trump’s “Monroe Doctrine.” The alternative vision, represented by Venezuela, is CELAC’s Zone of Peace and ALBA-TCP’s development for mutual benefit.

Roger D. Harris was an international observer for Venezuela’s 2024 presidential election. He is with the US Peace Council and the Task Force on the Americas. Read other articles by Roger.

You Don’t Have to Be a Lefty to Stand with Venezuela

Nicky Reid

November 14, 2025

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Image by Meg Jenson.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I was a goddamn commie, and I’m not talking Bernie Sanders here. I’m talking hardcore, blood-red, dyed-in-the-wool, revolutionary Marxism. I was a goddamn tankie and while I quoted Lenin and defended Putin, I tended to look to the Third World for inspiration. For a deeply closeted Queer kid outnumbered by pervy Catholic fundamentalists in hick country, there was something scrumptiously satisfying about other post-Papist outlaws taking on Washington’s New Rome just south of the border. I was fascinated with Che Guevara, Salvador Allende and the Castro Brothers, but in the early aughts, Hugo Chavez was my greatest hope.

Everything about that man seemed impossible. He was a trash-talking, pot-bellied, serial David, going off on Goliath over and over and over again and somehow winning every fucking time. While Allende went down in a blaze defending democracy from the pulpit of Marxism and the Castros were forced to reduce Cuba to a floating citadel just to keep the Batista out, Hugo Chavez faced down the guns of American imperialism like Tony Montana and managed to come out of the maelstrom without ever missing an election.

It all should have been over by 2002 when the CIA organized another one of its spectacular Latin American coup d’etats. A phony protest movement was organized, high-ranking military officers had Chavez kidnapped and absconded to an unknown location, some corporate gangster named Pedro Carmena was arbitrarily installed as president, the National Assembly and Supreme Court were dissolved, and then-President George W. Bush recognized the whole farce as democracy. This is usually where the story ends and I’ve read that tragic story more times than I can count, from Augustus Sandino to Jacobo Arbenz. But then the Bolivarian Revolution flipped the script.

Hundreds of thousands of irate Venezuelans poured into the streets like a flash flood, many from the most impoverished favelas in the country, swarming the national palace and demanding their democracy back. When Uncle Sam rented thugs to open fire on these people, the people stood their ground and fired back. The lower ranks of the Venezuelan Army, staffed largely by denizens of those same barrios, were inspired to do the unthinkable. They turned their guns on their commanding officers and brought Chavez back from the dead. And just like that, what had started out as a carefully orchestrated American putsch had resulted in a spontaneous anti-American uprising. Uncle Sam was humiliated, Venezuela was galvanized, and I was officially in love with the Bolivarian Revolution.

Babylon kept on trying but their attempts just kept on backfiring in the most spectacular ways. When Wall Street manufactured an economic crisis by colluding with the fat cats running Venezuela’s various state-owned industries in a lockout that froze oil production for two months straight, the workers toiling beneath them formed democratic councils and brought those resources back closer to the people that lived on top of them than they had ever been. When the National Endowment for Democracy dumped millions of dollars into building up a phony opposition movement, Chavez kicked their asses fair and square in elections that even Jimmy Carter couldn’t bring himself to delegitimize and inspired a wave of other left-wing populist fire breathers across Latin America to do the same.

Soon the CIA had their hands full of democracies to overthrow from Evo Morales in Bolivia to Rafael Correa in Ecuador, from the Kirchners in Argentina to Lula and Dilma in Brazil. It was almost as if Che Guevara and Salvador Allende had birthed two, three, many Vietnams at the ballot box and started a storm too wild for firepower to pacify. Then something truly tragic happened that seemed to turn this entire Pink Tide into a hurricane of disillusionment; Hugo Chavez turned out to be human being after all.

That fantastic human missile crisis died very suddenly and somewhat suspiciously of cancer in 2013 and his successor, then-Vice President Nicholas Maduro, seemed to waste very little time betraying his revolution. He very quickly turned the Bolivarian Republic into a giant bludgeon for him to maintain the power he had practically stumbled into over Hugo’s corpse, starting by dismantling the various workers councils, misiones, comunas and collectives that had created the architecture of direct democracy that had served as the backbone of Hugo’s revolution and then concentrating their power back into a bureaucratic elite while repressing anyone who stood in this pink oligarchy’s way beneath a banner of Dengist-style state socialism.

By 2015, Maduro was ruling the nation largely by decree, by 2017, he was castrating the National Assembly and rewriting the Constitution that Hugo Chavez and millions of other Venezuelans had risked their lives to preserve, and by 2018, the Bolivarian Revolution was dead and I was heartbroken. However, in my disillusioned grief, I was also forced to take a second look at the Revolution altogether, and I was haunted by what I found. While Hugo certainly did appear to do all that he could for the Venezuelan poor, he had also steadfastly relied on many pre-existing state powers to do so and in the process consistently undermined his own revolution’s grass roots civilian infrastructure.

The most blatant and egregious example of this was the way Chavez managed Venezuela’s state oil company, PDUSA, which was actually a relic of the neoliberal oligarchy that he was elected to confront. This humongous corporate behemoth continues to represent 90% of Venezuela’s economy and was largely dependent on Chevron to function before Donald Trump’s escalated embargo pushed Maduro to replace them with Chinese capitalist roadsters who now essentially own the nation’s economy thanks to $62.5 billion dollars in predatory loans.

But it was actually Hugo who betrayed the workers councils who had saved his ass from the economic crisis of 2003 by colluding with their duplicitous bosses. In return for their cooperation, the Bolivarian Republic retained this same bureaucratic management system once the crisis was averted so long as they agreed to finance massive welfare state programs that kept their workers distracted from the fact that they had basically just proven they didn’t even require a state to achieve true economic democracy.

While Chavez publicly rallied support for these autonomous councils, he continued to rely on the exact same top-down system that had long oppressed the Venezuelan people in what appeared to be a foolish attempt to liberate them. Even when this farce managed to temporarily benefit the people it did nothing to change the imbalance of power between them and the elites. At best, this arrangement swapped one raft of oligarchs for another, turning “revolutionary” civil servants into the new bourgeoisie, but mostly it just left a system designed for oppression largely intact and only one strongman away from being turned back into another meat grinder.

Soon, I began to question everything. I looked back at my revisionist history books and began to see this same tragedy repeat itself over and over again, from Lenin shackling the Soviets and building a centralized bureaucratic monstrosity that would ultimately offer Boris Yeltsin the ability to sell the Russian economy off in chunks the size of continents to Chairman Mao laying down the industrial foundation that turned China into the world’s largest sweatshop plantation.

The problem was and has always been the state itself. As long as there is a system in place that offers one class of people a monopoly on the use of force, the government will always be a den for despotism regardless of whether the scam is dressed up in the trappings of socialism, capitalism, democracy or nationalism. Just so long as the sanctity of the state is left intact, the results will always ultimately be the same.

This was the painful revelation that ultimately led a Bolivarian-Guevarist like me to embrace free market anti-capitalism and post-left anarchism, but some things never change, and this includes my solidarity with what’s left of the Bolivarian Revolution as it faces down the barrels of total war at the hands of an empire that it had humiliated one too many times.

America’s war against the Bolivarian Revolution never changed. In fact, if anything, it has only grown crueler with age. After five major coup attempts and a dozen distinct rounds of sanctions, the United States has affectively crippled what had until fairly recently been a fully functioning economy which has in turn triggered an almost unprecedented economic crisis.

In 2014, Venezuela’s GDP stood shoulder to shoulder with Brazil’s at $14,000. By 2024, it was closer to Bangladesh at $3,870. As a result of this medieval style siege accelerated by every single American president from Obama to Trump, 7.7 million Venezuelans have fled for their lives, constituting the single largest displacement in modern history with 25% of the nation’s population now living abroad as refugees. Some might argue such mass sadism constitutes a form of genocide; however, this Latin American Nakba is also primed for some serious blowback.

That’s because the other thing that hasn’t changed for Venezuela is the fire that stokes its poorest citizens to fight back, specifically the lumpenproletariats who make up Maduro’s paramilitary Colectivos. While the Bolivarian oligarchy may have turned these civilian street fighters into a glorified Red Guard, they remain largely autonomous in structure, and they are the true heirs to Hugo Chavez because they were also his revolution’s founding fathers.

The Colectivos began as the armed wing of Venezuela’s Communal Councils, autonomous favela democracies that trace their roots back to the leftist guerrilla movements of the 1960s. These organizations may have been reduced to Maduro’s errand boys in recent years, but the last time America very briefly took control of the streets of Caracas in 2002, it was this same rambunctious squad of Robin Hood gangbangers who took it back with steel pipes and Brazilian off-brand Berettas.

Now, there are dozens of Colectivos operating in 16 of Venezuela’s 23 states with numbers as high as 8,000. If Donald Trump is stupid enough to play Iraq with Venezuela, he won’t be fighting fat thugs like Maduro; that pig will roll quicker than Saddam; he will be fighting a guerrilla war against the true bastard fathers of Hugo’s revolution. The Colectivos will become the Sadrists of the Western Hemisphere, and I will support their fight for the same reason that Murray Rothbard supported the Vietcong. Because sovereignty is sacred and solidarity is bigger than any one ideology.

Nicky Reid is an agoraphobic anarcho-genderqueer gonzo blogger from Central Pennsylvania and assistant editor for Attack the System. You can find her online at Exile in Happy Valley.

Return to bad days of hyperinflation looms in

Venezuela

By AFP
November 14, 2025


The International Monetary Fund projects inflation of 548 percent for Venezuela for 2025 and 629 percent for next year - Copyright AFP Joseph Prezioso

Javier TOVAR

Venezuelans are grappling with political and economic chaos, a mass population exodus and fears of a US military attack. Now, their wallets are ever thinner as a return to hyperinflation looms.

Increasingly, people live hand to mouth, buying a tomato here, a few onions there as they manage to scrape together enough bolivars for just the basics.

“If we earn 20 bolivars, we need 50,” informal merchant Jacinto Moreno, 64, told AFP in downtown Caracas.

To buy a kilogram of tomatoes, a Venezuelan needs the equivalent of one US dollar. But the average salary per month is only a few hundred dollars.

Reliable economic figures are hard to come by and a large portion of incomes are earned under the table in the informal sector.

“Prices go up every day,” lamented Moreno. “Every day.”



– 130,000 percent –



Venezuela has already had the highest inflation rate in the world, more than once.

Memories are still fresh of a record 130,000 year-on-year rise in prices recorded in 2018, according to official figures — the peak of a four-year hyperinflationary period that ended in 2021 and pushed millions to emigrate.

Venezuela’s central bank has not published inflation figures since October 2024, after President Nicolas Maduro claimed victory in what is widely considered his second stolen election in a row.

According to the leader himself, inflation reached 48 percent in 2024.

The International Monetary Fund projects a 548 percent figure for Venezuela for 2025 and 629 percent for 2026.

Norma Guzman, a 66-year-old who works as an office cleaner, told AFP she can no longer afford to buy groceries monthly or weekly.

Leaving a store with nothing but three tomatoes in a bag, she said “I shop daily” as and when she, her husband and their son manage to put aside money for food.

Maduro blames Venezuela’s economic woes squarely on US sanctions.

He also accuses Washington, which has deployed a fleet of warships in the Caribbean in a stated anti-drug operation, of seeking to depose him and seize the formerly rich petrostate’s vast oil deposits.

Maduro has said Venezuela will register GDP growth of over nine percent in 2025. The IMF estimates 0.5 percent.



– Economists detained –



Colombian-based Venezuelan economist Oscar Torrealba is among those who expect inflation to soar above 800 percent — higher than IMF projections.

“This undoubtedly brings us much closer to a hyperinflationary scenario,” he told AFP.

For Torrealba, hyperinflation is official once prices rise by more than 50 percent for three consecutive months.

But definitions vary, and for other experts an annual rate of 500 percent, such as predicted by the IMF, already amounts to hyperinflation.

Few economists still living in Venezuela dare to publicly challenge the official line, especially after several of their peers, including a former finance minister, were detained this year.

The arrests were never officially announced but coincided with a series of police operations against the publication of parallel exchange rates on web pages that were subsequently removed.



– Dollar shortage –



For now, the steep price rises have not resulted in product shortages as they did a few years ago, when people queued for hours to just to buy a small bag of coffee or sugar.

Maduro at the time responded by decriminalizing use of the US dollar — which became Venezuela’s de facto currency — as well as halting money printing and relaxing exchange controls.

Measured in dollar prices, economist Torrealba said Venezuela’s inflation hit 80 percent year-on-year in October.

The country is running low on the greenbacks used for a big portion of purchases, and which many Venezuelans try to save as insurance against bolivar devaluation.

A major source of foreign currency used to be US oil giant Chevron, which continues to operate under a special license despite sanctions but no longer pays royalties in cash. It pays in crude, instead, which the state sells on at a discount.

With fewer dollars in the market, the gap between the official exchange rate and the informal one is now over 60 percent, according to analysts.