Following Washington’s invasion of Venezuela, President Donald Trump called on Congress to increase the U.S. rulers’ current record-level war spending — $901 billion budgeted this year so far — by more than 50%. Trump’s demands come amid a sharp acceleration in the rivalry between Washington, Beijing and the U.S. rulers’ competitors in Europe, and Washington’s expanding efforts to reassert domination of the Western Hemisphere.
Trump says Washington will “run” Venezuela for years and insists Washington will get Greenland from Denmark’s rulers. Venezuela and Greenland both have fossil fuels, rare earth minerals and strategic ports. For Moscow and Beijing, losing their access and ties to Venezuela is a significant blow. The U.S. rulers view control of Greenland as key to their efforts to drive Beijing out of shipping and potential military corridors across the Arctic.
In moving to fast-track U.S. war production, Trump is acting for the entire U.S. ruling class, not narrow partisan political interests. He knows the U.S. rulers need to crank up industrial production to meet the economic and military challenges ahead.
Trump issued an executive order Jan. 7 capping the pay, dividend payments and other perks awarded to war industry bosses if they don’t build new plants, increase production and meet the Pentagon’s demands for on-time delivery. War Secretary Pete Hegseth will monitor their compliance.
The Pentagon also announced a significant seven-year contract with Lockheed Martin for more Patriot missiles. Hegseth said such long-term deals were needed “so these companies will be confident in investing more to grow the industrial base that supplies our weapons systems more and faster.”
Sonic weapons used in assault
Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, glorified the gruesome use of new sonic weapons during the invasion of Venezuela. She posted five American-flag emojis alongside an account in the New York Post by an alleged survivor of Washington’s slaughter, in which U.S. forces killed 100 Venezuelans and Cubans guarding President Nicolás Maduro.
“It was like a very intense sound wave,” the unnamed survivor states. “We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground unable to move. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon — or whatever it was.”
The U.S. rulers’ rivals and competing ruling classes currently allied to Washington are responding to its war moves by expanding production of their own deadly armories.
Chinese officials boasted Jan. 4 they possess high-powered microwave weapons with greater reach than Washington’s. Beijing unveiled its highly mobile truck-mounted system, saying it has almost unlimited firing capacity and can take out drone swarms over a much wider area than lasers. The U.S. microwave anti-drone system can range over 1.2 miles, while Beijing’s version ranges beyond 1.9 miles.
A Chinese-made radar system supplied to Venezuela failed to provide the government there with advance warning of Washington’s invasion. And Moscow’s air defense systems provided to Venezuela were not operational, as Russian military specialists and spare parts were redirected to the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine.
The capitalist rulers in Germany, the most powerful imperialist power in Europe, are also ramping up their war preparations, like rival ruling classes elsewhere.
For decades Berlin had let its military decay. But Chancellor Friedrich Merz got rid of rules restricting war spending last year. Germany’s 2025 military spending topped 83 billion euros ($97 billion), up from 23 billion in 2021, before Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
As Washington demands control of Greenland, the country’s foreign minister, Vivian Motzfeldt, proposed meeting with U.S. officials without inviting the Danish government, which claims responsibility for directing Greenland’s foreign policy. Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with officials from Greenland and Denmark Jan. 14.
Motzfeldt’s proposal indicates Washington’s war moves elsewhere are having an impact on some Greenland officials.