The U.S. rulers are stepping up their assault on the sovereignty of Venezuela and other Caribbean nations, blowing up boats in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. In three new attacks since Oct. 27, 21 people were killed, bringing the total number to 67 dead since Washington’s assaults began Sept. 2.
U.S. War Secretary Peter Hegseth claimed Nov. 1 that the boats carried “narco-terrorists,” to try to justify the 16 U.S. strikes.
The assaults are affecting fishermen and other working people in the region. “Everybody’s terrified. There’s no law and order on the sea,” Gary Aboud, corporate secretary of the Fisherman and Friends of the Sea in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago, told the Washington Post.
The murderous assaults are just part of Washington’s broader military buildup in the region, the largest deployment since Washington’s invasion of Panama in 1989.
Fighter jets are now stationed in the U.S. colony of Puerto Rico at the former Roosevelt Roads Naval Station, which was closed in 2004. A mobile air traffic control tower to service them has been installed at what is now the civilian Rafael Hernández Airport. Of the 10,000 American troops currently in the Caribbean, half are on bases in Puerto Rico. Another civilian airport on St. Croix in the Virgin Islands is now being used for refueling military aircraft.
This is not just being done to attack Venezuela. Washington is looking to strengthen its long-term control over the Western Hemisphere.
Washington is out to topple the Venezuelan government, which controls the largest oil reserves in the world. The Pentagon has identified targets inside Venezuela, including military facilities, and ports and airports controlled by the military.
“Are Maduro’s days as president numbered?” CBS-TV’s Norah O’Donnell asked President Donald Trump Oct. 31, referring to Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro.
“I would say, ‘yeah.’ I think so, yeah,” Trump replied. He said he “doubted” there would be a U.S. war against Venezuela, but his administration’s provocations increase the danger of escalation.
The U.S. rulers aim to install a government in Venezuela that’s subservient to Washington, and, in doing so, to tighten the ongoing economic and political war they wage against socialist Cuba. The administration’s moves build on former President Joseph Biden’s refusal to recognize the July 2024 election that Maduro claimed he had won.
Imperialists’ long-term perspective
The U.S. rulers also aim to better prepare the U.S. military for coming wars worldwide. And governments are being pressed to take sides, deciding whether to ally more closely with U.S. imperialism or oppose its military and political moves.
A summit of government heads from Europe and Latin America scheduled for Nov. 9-10 in Santa Marta, Colombia, is near the area where the U.S. airstrikes are taking place.
Trump has imposed sanctions on Colombia, as well as Venezuela, and is threatening military action and denounced Colombian President Gustavo Petro as “an illegal drug leader.”
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen have cancelled their scheduled attendance at the summit.
In addition, the 10th Summit of the Americas, scheduled to be held December in Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic, has been called off entirely.
The 15 governments in the Caribbean Community, all smaller countries, issued a statement last month taking their distance from Washington’s attacks. It said that fighting drugs and weapons trafficking “should be through ongoing international cooperation and international law” and “reaffirmed unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries in the Region.”
The government of Trinidad and Tobago was the only member of the bloc to refuse to sign the statement.
“I have no sympathy for traffickers,” Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar said. “The U.S. military should kill them all violently.”
In response, Maduro accused Persad-Bissessar of “converting Trinidad into an aircraft carrier of the U.S. Empire against Venezuela.” He suspended all talks with her administration on developing offshore gas fields. Trinidad and Tobago lies only 7 miles from the Venezuelan coast.