Category Archives: United States

Trump revives “big stick” approach to Latin America

by Jim Hodgson

With all of my passion for justice and in the face of so many gross injustices, I can get paralyzed. And with Trump in power next door, there is always something new to distract us from what went before or from demanding freedom for captives or the release of the #EpsteinFiles.

Just today, he threatened Canada again. #ElbowsUp, still.

Yesterday, it was a plan to end Israel’s war in Gaza that even the New York Times admits “checks every box on Israel’s wish list.” It does nothing to strengthen Palestine or assist recovery after the genocide, and will impose a new, colonial-style authority on the people. 

Let’s step back for a moment.

Last week, I was going to write about Trump’s efforts to rescue his far-right cronies in Argentina and Brazil. Here’s a short version.

Argentina’s president, Javier Milei, faces a collapsing peso and political setbacks. Milei’s chainsaw approach to slashing government was a model for Trump and Elon Musk. U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said Sept. 22 that Washington is ready to do “whatever is necessary” – from central bank swaps to direct peso purchases or buying Argentine debt through the Treasury’s Stabilization Fund. The moves are intended to ease political opposition to Milei that has grown as the economy collapses. Milei – already dependent on a $20 billion IMF package – sought U.S. support ahead of congressional elections in October. Investors have been pulling money out from Argentina since Milei’s party lost an election in Buenos Aires province on Sept. 7, provoking worry that he will soon lack legislative support to advance his agenda. 

Front-page of a Buenos Aires newspaper shows Trump managing the rescue plan for Argentina’s Milei. Right: response from Occupy Democrats.

Earlier, Trump imposed a 50% tariff on goods from Brazil, claiming that Brazil engages in unfair trade practices and that the government is engaged in a “witch hunt” against Trump’s ally, former president Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro was convicted earlier this month of attempting a coup after voters dumped him from office. He was sentenced to more than 27 years in prison, sparking Trump’s ire. The present Brazilian government called the U.S. move “a new attempt of undue interference in Brazilian internal affairs.”

When he spoke of the U.S. rescue of Argentina’s Milei, Bessent told reporters that the Trump administration hoped to solidify what it sees as a rightward shift in Latin American countries, including potentially Colombia. (Colombia is now government by a left-centre coalition led by President Gustavo Petro, who cannot succeed himself. His party is currently selecting a new candidate.) 

New and old threats

Bessent’s move came hours before Trump took centre stage at the United Nations General Assembly to press his MAGA-style policies on the rest of the world. 

In the speech, Trump threatened to “blow out of existence” Venezuela’s president, Nicolás Maduro. Maduro responded with a plan to declare a state of external unrest to enable rapid mobilization in defence of Venezuela. He had earlier sent a letter to Trump, proposing direct talks. When asked about the letter, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, said it was “full of lies” and said the administration still views Maduro as an “illegitimate leader.”

Trump’s threat came after he moved warships into the south Caribbean and after recent attacks on Venezuelan fishing boats (alleged without evidence to be carrying drugs). Trump and his minions seem determined to revive the worst applications of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America, from the 19th-century Monroe Doctrine to Teddy Roosevelt’s “big-stick” diplomacy in the early 20th century.

A recent US government document revealed the Trump administration plans to redirect $1.8 billion in foreign aid toward a new “America First” strategy, Reuters news agency reported Sept. 24. It would give priority to neutralizing “Marxist, anti-American regimes” in Latin America. The report said $400 million would support activities to end illegal immigration to the US, counter China, and “confront the Marxist, anti-American regimes of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua.” The document, known as a Congressional Notification, follows news that the upcoming National Defense Strategy will also pivot the U.S. away from a focus on adversaries like China and Russia to instead prioritize efforts in the Americas.

But not everyone serving Trump is onside with these approaches. On Sept. 29, the Washington Post reported that eight current and former officials have said there is a deep rift between the political appointees at the Pentagon and the military leaders there. Reflecting on the Post report, historian Heather Cox Richardson said that War Secretary Pete Hegseth “is withdrawing forces from Europe, reducing the concentration of power and consolidating commands abroad while focusing on using the military in the U.S. and neighboring countries.“

Among Trump administration opponents to use of force to provoke regime change in Venezuela is Richard Grenell, Trump’s special envoy to the country, said Drop Site News on Sept. 29. Grenell has successfully re-opened channels for export of Venezuelan oil to the United States. Grenell and his supporters say diplomatic negotiation is the best way to protect U.S. economic interests. Among those who oppose Grenell is U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio. 

Gunboats follow sanctions in U.S. strategy for regime change in Venezuela

by Jim Hodgson

U.S. claims to have bombed a supposed “drug vessel” in the southern Caribbean were met with considerable scepticism and calls for action to stop an invasion.

Action suggestion from the Alliance for Global Justice (AFGJ): Please send an email to UN Secretary General António Guterres asking him to intervene to stop a possible U.S. invasion of Venezuela.

“Earlier this morning [Tuesday], on my Orders, U.S. Military Forces conducted a kinetic strike against positively identified Tren de Aragua Narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility,” President Donald Trump said in a Truth Social post. “The strike occurred while the terrorists were at sea in International waters transporting illegal narcotics, heading to the United States. The strike resulted in 11 terrorists killed in action.”

He added that TdA is a “foreign terrorist organization” that operates under the control of Nicolás Maduro, Venezuela’s president.

Mexico’s La Jornada shared Images of the U.S. boat attack

Neither Trump nor the video showed any proof that the boat was carrying drugs, nor that it came from Venezuela, nor that it had anything to do with TdA, much less that its destination was the United States. There is no indication of who the crew was. Why would 11 people be on a small boat that is supposedly carrying a large amount of drugs? Could they have been migrants? Human traffickers? It’s more common that such craft are stopped and searched. If anything is found, arrests follow. Not summary executions.

On social media, Venezuelan news outlet Venezuelanalysis speculated on how U.S. SOUTHCOM knew the small boat was carrying drugs without carrying out an inspection. On Monday, President Maduro said his country was at “maximum preparedness” and denounced the expanded U.S. military presence in the Caribbean as, “an extravagant, unjustifiable, immoral and absolutely criminal and bloody threat.”

In Colombia, President Gustavo Petro said he doubted the veracity of the U.S. claim. “We have spent decades capturing civilians who transport drugs without killing them.”

In Mexico, where Trump’s secretary of state Marco Rubio arrived Monday night, news of the attack was felt to be a warning to President Claudia Sheinbaum about methods the United States might use in its effort to dismantle Mexican cartels.

In previous weeks, the United States had deployed as many as eight warships, a nuclear-powered submarine and 4,500 troops as part of Trump’s anti-drug cartel operation, projecting military force into the Caribbean Sea. Among useful news analyses: The Cradle (left, a publication usually focused on events in West Asia). Newsweek (right), unusual among mainstream U.S. media is sharing multiple articles about a new “Trump Doctrine.” It’s similar in effect to the Monroe Doctrine, ostensibly about curbing European influence in the Americas, but used to justify U.S. interference in Latin America and the Caribbean since 1823.

In March, Trump used the Tren de Aragua myth as a justification to justify the extraordinary rendition of young Venezuelan men to El Salvador. A New York Times article in April showed that Tren de Aragua is not invading the United States. Nor is it a “terrorist organization,” and to call such “criminal groups terrorist is always a stretch since they usually do not aim at changing government policy.” The article goes on to show that Tren de Aragua is not centrally organized, much less that it colludes with the Maduro government. 

Maduro said in March that TdA “no longer exists; we defeated it.” The Venezuelans held in El Salvador were finally returned home in July.

Left: Chevron is once again moving Venezuelan oil to the United States. Right: President Nicolás Maduro speaks with foreign reporters.

This new chapter in Venezuela’s drama plays out in the context of historic U.S. refusal to accept the development in this hemisphere of a political and economic model other than the capitalist one. Since 1998, Venezuela has embarked upon a “Bolivarian Revolution” (named for Simon Bolivar, the hero of the 19thcentury independence struggle) and intended to break capitalist hegemony over every aspect of the lives of the people.

Since 2005, U.S. administrations have made the annual determination that Venezuela has “failed demonstrably to adhere to its obligations under international narcotics agreements.” A year later, the United States began applying sanctions (“unilateral coercive measures,” the UN calls them). These and other measures have been strengthened since 2015, eventually driving a severe economic crisis and exodus of millions of people who sought better opportunities elsewhere.

In this second Trump administration, some see incoherence. On the one hand, ongoing verbal threats and this military build-up. On the other, easing of sanctions to allow Chevron to import Venezuelan oil to the United States. Conjecture persists about the relative influence of corporations like Chevron that want back in, the south Florida Venezuelans and Cubans who are Rubio’s constituency, and the isolationist sector of the Trump-MAGA base that wants out of all foreign wars.

“Aggressive” U.S. policy tightens the screws on Cuba’s people 

The White House has a new document on Cuba. To those of us who have been watching for a while, it seems more acute: it tightens the screws on a people already suffering severe effects—shortages of power, food, and medicine—provoked by the U.S. blockade.

Esteban Lazo, president of Cuba’s National People’s Power Assembly, called the statement aggressive and unjust.

The statement talks about freedom for the people, democracy, respect for human rights and human dignity, and protection for dissidents and “peaceful demonstrators.” But it also tightens restrictions on U.S. citizens who travel to Cuba. Academic travellers must “engage in a full-time program of activities that enhance contact with the Cuban people, improve civil society, and promote the independence of the people from the authorities.”

It limits how Cubans might seek asylum in the United States and how family members send money back home. It gives U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio (a second-generation Cuban-American) the power to identify any entity under the control of, or acting for or on behalf of Cuban companies, as well as to regulate their financial transactions.

It also specifies that that the Trump administration will oppose petitions before the United Nations and other international forums that demand the lifting of the embargo.

There’s a new list of “prohibited officials,” including ministers, deputy minister, members or employees of Cuba’s Parliament and Supreme Court and even the editors of Cuban state media organizations.

“Who are they trying to deceive?” ask the editors of Granma, the newspaper of the Communist Party of Cuba, in a front-page article today. “All this has been suffered by the Cuban people for more than 60 years.”

In social media posts June 30, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said that the new U.S. policy statement “responds to narrow interests that are not representative of the majority in that country, and further reinforces the economic blockade.” The goal, he added, is to cause the greatest harm and suffering to the Cuban people. “The impact will be felt, but we will not be defeated.”

Two weeks earlier, Cuba’s Catholic bishops recognized the critical situation faced by the Cuban people. In a Message for the Jubilee Year, they described: “the avid search for essential goods, the prolonged lack of electricity, the growing emigration, the disillusion, the apathy due to the repetition of promises that never come to fruition… the sadness.” Among the victims of the crisis are: “the elderly, who are alone and abandoned… those who feel they can’t freely express their convictions,” as well as those who are living on the streets, eating from the garbage bins, suffering from addictions. “They’re resentful or broken, and becoming ever more violent… lacking love, and empty of hope.” They comprise an “uncertain future,” and not only in Cuba, but also for the world.

The bishops called on “everyone, but primarily those who hold higher responsibilities” to “create a climate without pressures nor internal or external restrictions” for the “changes that Cuba needs.” The use of “external” refers to the blockade and other measures of the U.S. government; the “internal” to the political actions of the Cuban government.

Trump and Rubio use sanctions and other measures to try to force regime change. They pay no heed to the needs of the Cuban people, but churches, unions and non-governmental organizations around the world continue to press for an end to the blockade and for increased humanitarian aid.