By Roger D. Harris
November 20, 2025

The following excerpts are from an article posted on Nov. 15, 2025, by LA Progressive. Read the entire article at tinyurl.com/mtftp4vm.

Venezuela is now on maximum military alert with a threatening flotilla off its coast and some 15,000 U.S. troops standing by.

The U.S., 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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, challenging Washington’s world order.

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

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 U.S. air or ground attack.” (Nov. 11) In fact, President Nicolás Maduro has pledged “prolonged resistance” to Washington’s unprovoked assaults rather than meekly conceding defeat.