The United States of America bombed Venezuela early this morning and kidnapped its president, Nicolás Maduro, and first lady, Cilia Flores. Following the guidelines set by the Trump administration’s revival of the Monroe Doctrine, a new chapter has begun in the long history of US interference in Venezuela, with the main objective of controlling the oil in the country with the largest reserves in the world. As Florida Republican Congresswoman María Elvira Salazar stated in a recent interview on Fox Business, “Venezuela will be a feast for US oil companies.”
The US economic, legal, and media strategy began by seeking, and achieving, the declaration of opposition leader María Corina Machado as a Nobel Peace Prize winner and associating Maduro with the Cartel of the Suns, a phantom organization that Trump uses to pressure and corner the Venezuelan president. The second step began with the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president, who, according to the US Attorney General, will be tried for “narco-terrorism” (although the claim to try a foreign head of state has no legal basis, as it contradicts the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the principle of sovereign immunity), while opening the door to the destabilization of the Bolivarian regime, allowing for the arrival of a new figure in the country’s presidency.
Just this morning, the controversial opposition leader and Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado (an active accomplice in the coup attempts, the “guarimbas” that left dozens dead in the streets of Venezuela, and the economic blockade to which Venezuela is subjected) assured that “the US has fulfilled its promise to enforce the law” while also announcing that “we are prepared to take power” and calling for Edmundo González to be the new president, asking the military to support him.
On the other hand, while Russia, Brazil, Cuba, and China condemn the flagrant violation of international law and the attack on Venezuela’s sovereignty, the European Union continues to behave like a US colony, avoiding taking a position on the US attack on Venezuela and reducing its stance to the need to defend the safety of citizens in the country. In response to this, it is worth noting the rapid response of citizens in the streets condemning the flagrant violation of Venezuelan sovereignty by the US.
These events reactivate the scenarios designed during the Trump administration (2017-2021), which include suffocating sanctions, coup attempts, and covert operations. While none of these strategies have so far succeeded in permanently destabilizing the Bolivarian government, they have deepened the humanitarian crisis and population exodus. After this morning’s US intervention, the US discourse focused on intervening in Venezuela to restore democracy and pursue narco-terrorism is exposed by its unquestionable violation of international law, as well as by President Trump’s public statements indicating that the US will be “very strongly involved” in the country’s oil sector.
