Tony Saunois, secretary of Committee for a Workers’ International
The kidnapping of Venezuelan President, Nicolás Maduro, and his wife, Cilia Flores, through the military assault by US imperialism has, in a dramatic fashion, ushered in 2026. This naked colonial attack by the Trump regime will have profound consequences in Venezuela, throughout Latin America and in global geopolitical relations. This modern version of ‘gun-boat diplomacy’ starkly illustrates the nature of the era we are now in.
This was not the peaceful operation claimed by Trump and much of the Western media. Venezuelan forces claim most of Maduro’s bodyguards were killed as they fought back during the operation. In addition, 32 Cuban fighters were also killed. The Venezuelan regime reports that over 100 were killed in the fighting. The crucial question is what follows now in Venezuela.
Trump’s actions were preceded by imperial piracy, with Venezuelan oil seized at sea and the amassing of a US armada with 15,000 troops in the Caribbean.
Maduro, in his first court appearance, stated he regards himself as “a prisoner of war”, which in many respects he is. The charges against him border on the ludicrous. The drug cartel he is accused of heading, ‘Cartel de los Soles’, branded a narco-terrorist organisation by the US, does not even exist as an organisation – in Venezuela it is an acronym for officials taking bribes! Maduro may or may not be corrupt or involved with drug cartels. However, that is a matter for the Venezuelan working class to judge and decide upon. Not US imperialism desperate to get its hands on Venezuelan oil.
Trump gloatingly proclaimed the US will now “run” Venezuela and boasted US oil companies will seize Venezuela’s oil, which he calls “our oil”. He went on to threaten that the US was not afraid of a further invasion, or “boots on the ground” should the Venezuelan regime not comply with the dictates of US imperialism.
Trump’s claim that this is about “democracy”, echoed by other western capitalist leaders like UK prime minister Starmer, is farcical. Brazenly, Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio have dismissed the idea of new elections in Venezuela until the US “has sorted it out”. The previously lauded leaders of the Venezuelan right-wing opposition, like María Machado and Edmundo González, (recognised by Washington and others as the supposed winners of the 2024 Venezuelan presidential election), have for now been unceremoniously ditched because they are “lacking support”.
Trump has openly and shamelessly laid claim to Venezuelan oil on behalf of US companies. Now he claims that he will seize fifty million barrels of Venezuelan crude and sell it on the open market. The revenue will be under his control and the funds raised can only be used to purchase US-produced goods! He blurts out the real intentions of US imperialism and brushes aside the sham hypocrisy of capitalist diplomacy, which is hated by sections of the US and other ruling classes globally. Western capitalist denunciations of Maduro as a dictator are echoed by a deafening silence about their ‘allies’ heading brutal dictatorships, like in Saudi Arabia.
This intervention, as Trump boasted, marks a return to the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ in a modern form. Declared by US president James Monroe in 1823, it asserted the right of US imperialism to intervene throughout Latin America in any way necessary to advance and protect its interests. Then, it was motivated to extend US influence throughout the Americas against continued European intervention in the Western Hemisphere. Today, the ‘Monroe Doctrine’ is aimed at warning both China and Russia to keep out of what the US still regards as its ‘backyard’, despite the weakened position of US imperialism throughout the continent and globally.
Significantly, Maduro was meeting a Chinese trade delegation only hours before he was kidnapped. China is the largest purchaser of Venezuelan crude oil. The White House’s National Security Strategy, released in December 2025, asserts the unilateral right of the US to deny rival powers the ability to own or control “strategically vital assets” in the Americas, and declares that the US should “make every effort to push out foreign companies that build infrastructure in the region”, something that China has done rapidly in Latin America. Chinese goods trade with Latin America has grown forty times since the turn of the century to reach $518 billion in 2024. Increasingly, Latin Americans are driving BYD cars, using Xiaomi smartphones, and ordering taxis and food from Didi rather than Uber.
The assertion of US imperial might has decisive implications beyond Venezuela and Latin America, in the new world geopolitical order. This has been reflected in the seizure of an oil tanker flying a Russian flag in the Atlantic by US and UK forces. In the UK, Starmer is paying a price for his collusion with Trump and refusal to condemn the kidnapping of Maduro, with further divisions opening up in the ruling Labour Party as a result.
‘Rules-based’ order
The former so-called ‘rules-based’ international order of ‘international law’, which supposedly existed following the Second World War, presided over by capitalist bodies such as the United Nations, has been shredded. Yet even in the past the ‘rules’ were frequently broken by all the imperialist powers. Witness the interventions in Vietnam, Iraq, Iran and elsewhere. US imperialism has invaded or instigated military coups in almost every country in Latin and Central America.
However, in the new geopolitical situation, with weakened US and European imperialisms, mirrored by the rise of China and some other powers like India, greater consequences will flow from the new ‘Monroe Doctrine’. After all, if the US can intervene to defend its interests in its ‘backyard’ why can’t other powers like China, Russia, or India do the same? The scene is now set for further military conflicts globally and greater polarisation.
Some of those in Trump’s circle refer to a desired goal of the contending powers holding spheres of influence – in effect carving up the world between the US, China, Russia and others, and with ‘agreement’, tacit or openly, of no interference in each other’s spheres. In a globalised economy and multipolar, fractured world, this is wishful thinking. The redivision of the world between imperialist powers will only bring more tensions, shifting alliances, conflicts and new wars.
The Trump regime now proclaims that it only wants “friendly” regimes on its borders. As a result, Trump rages against the Cuban regime, and the Colombian and Mexican Presidents threatening that they could face regime change if they fail to comply with the agenda determined by the White House and Pentagon.
The White House now brazenly states it is seriously looking at how it can take Greenland. It has done this historically. In 1946 it offered to buy Greenland from Denmark for $100 million, an offer turned down by Denmark. Military occupation is apparently not being considered at this stage. An attack on Greenland, currently a Danish self-governing autonomous territory, would constitute the US attacking another member of the NATO alliance, threatening its existence, which Trump would not be concerned about. Trump will probably try to ‘buy’ Greenland, or back a campaign to bribe the population into agreeing to US investment and exploitation of its natural resources, but this could change.
Trump’s demand for Greenland is already and will further split and increase the growing conflict between the EU and US. This is reflected in the official US policy outlined in the National Security Strategy document. These developments are also accumulating divisions and splits within the EU.
It was not an accident that Trump threatened intervention in Iran should the regime continue repressing the significant mass protests that have erupted there in recent weeks. A further military attack on Iran cannot now be excluded.
Domestically, Trump is running into increasing problems, difficulties and crises. The mass “No Kings Day” protests in 2025 illustrate the growing opposition and disenchantment he faces domestically. The sizable protests against the intervention in Venezuela in the US are a further illustration of this. The execution by federal ICE paramilitaries in Minneapolis of Renee Nicole Good, and the protests that erupted as a result, illustrate the polarisation and conflicts taking place in the US. Trump faces the prospect of suffering serious setbacks in the upcoming midterm elections in November 2026.
One factor driving his turn to the Monroe Doctrine internationally at this conjuncture is precisely the domestic opposition and crisis that is unfolding.
In Latin America, large protests against US intervention have taken place in most countries. The continent and each country on it is extremely polarised, socially and politically. The governments of Colombia, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba and Chile (the outgoing government) have all condemned US intervention and demanded Maduro’s return.
On the other side, Milei in Argentina, the new Chilean president Kast, and others have enthusiastically supported Trump. They, along with the ruling classes internationally, are using the situation in Venezuela to try and discredit the idea of ‘socialism’. This will be attempted in the US, particularly following the election victory of Zohran Mamdani as Mayor of New York. He presented himself as a “democratic socialist” despite wrongly remaining in the capitalist pro-imperialist Democratic Party. Despite the limitations of his programme, his election has put the idea of socialism back on the agenda for debate in the US.
Polarised world
The explosive events following US intervention in Venezuela are a reflection of the polarised geopolitical arena that global capitalism has fostered. The multipolar world and the existence of the highly erratic Trump regime, together with right-wing nationalist Bonapartist regimes like Putin’s in Russia and Netanyahu’s in Israel, is an explosive cocktail.
The struggle for economic and political spheres of influence on all continents means that this is an era of national, ethnic and regional wars and conflicts. The Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan and other conflicts illustrate this. The clash between the UAE and Saudi Arabia in Yemen in December 2025, narrowly averted, for now, a major war erupting between these two powers rather than the proxy war that is being fought.
The US bombing of Islamist bases in Nigeria has intensified the division and clashes within the country. Crucially, the prospect of a major clash involving China and Taiwan is ever-present in the situation. More serious conflicts than those already seen are likely.
Capitalism means war in this era. But not only military wars and conflict. Important features of the class war also emerged during 2025. In December 2025, millions took to the streets in Portugal in the biggest general strike for decades. General strikes have also rocked Italy, Belgium, Greece and India. The mass protests that have shaken Iran in the last few days are also an indication of the struggles that lie ahead. The general strikes that have taken place at the moment have assumed the character of protest strikes rather than a struggle for power. Yet they have put the issue of the general strike back on the agenda of social and class struggle.
The prospect of a global economic recession or crash in 2026 is a serious possibility. This will have a decisive impact socially and politically. Combined with the geopolitical crisis and conflicts, the worsening climatic and environmental catastrophe that is unfolding, the development and introduction of AI, it can polarise the situation and consciousness still further. A layer can be drawn to right-wing populist forces for a period. Yet it will also have a radicalising effect to the left, on millions searching for an alternative social system.
The crucial challenge for the working class and revolutionary socialists is the need to build support for an alternative social system, socialism, and the programme and organisation necessary to achieve it. The struggle to build new mass socialist parties of the working class and all those oppressed by capitalism, together with the need for a revolutionary socialist programme, is now more urgent than ever. This era is to become a struggle between revolution and counter-revolution – between a socialist future or barbarism.
