If there is one thing that the Trump regime has succeeded at, it is in ripping off the mask of American imperialism and smashing it into a million pieces on the ground. The era of lofty platitudes about the “rule of law” or “liberating” the people of (insert name of nation to be plundered) is over.

Trump’s racism allows no space for Venezuelans to have agency over their own lives. Indeed, as he talks about taking their oil, he demonizes those Venezuelans who seek a better life in the US. This is a regime that has murdered scores of civilians, many of them fishermen, in the Caribbean on the basis of a lie. Now it is using the term “terrorism” to justify any act of military violence. So, it is abundantly clear what this is all about to all but those still brainwashed by the cult of MAGA and American exceptionalism.

In this post and others, Trump is open about the American doctrine of ownership over all the resources in its “sphere of influence.” He uses the grammar of a mob boss, but none of it is a departure from official American foreign policy. There is no attempt to veil this. No flowery words about democracy or human rights. No bromides or vagaries to cloud intent. It is the naked theft of another sovereign country’s land and natural resources said in no uncertain terms.

Venezuela poses no threat to the United States. It does not produce fentanyl. It has not attacked the US or any of its strategic interests. Like Cuba, its crime is its rejection of US hegemony. Its sin is choosing a government which is at odds with the power and interests of the wealthy elite and American capital investment.

We cannot expect establishment Democrats to offer any meaningful opposition to the regime’s aggression. They have played handmaiden to American imperialism and more often champion its projects of expansion and aggression. And the corporate-owned US media will likely whitewash this as well.

This is an industry which has been complicit in every other war of conquest launched by every other administration throughout US history. Its role will be merely to sugarcoat the regime’s most belligerent talking points while stoking American nationalism. It relies on a public which has been conditioned to reject critical thinking. A public that is struggling to pay mounting debt, rent, food expenses, healthcare and costs of daily living under the worst predations of late capitalist exploitation.

The United States has been the primary engine of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. The colonial-settler ethnostate being its most important colonial asset. One which the US has invested billions of dollars in, year after year. But it is also one that gives it constant grief, especially in the last 2+ years. And with little payout. Venezuela offers a new opportunity for capital investment and enormous gain. And, without a doubt, the Trump regime is aggressively steering the entire hemisphere toward an all out war to obtain it for its wealthy shareholders.

Kenn Orfanos, December 2025