By the Alliance for Global Justice, published on Popular Resistance, August 25, 2025
The Trump administration is sending three warships with 4,500 marines to the coast of Venezuela, raising tensions and stoking fears of a possible US invasion. This act is the latest in a series of provocations carried out in the name of the fake War on Drugs. The newest threat follows the announcement of a $50 million dollar bounty for the arrest of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, and a declaration by the White House asserting the military option to invade the borders of any nation in order to combat alleged narcotraffickers. This justification, however, is not sincere. The Drug War is the new Big Lie used as a flimsy cover for war and repression.
The threat against Venezuela is happening at the same time that the White House is undertaking a military occupation of cities with Black mayors across the United States. There is a coordinated plan to establish both a domestic and international fascist regime under the auspices of the US Empire. Its targets are communities and countries of color, political opposition, and urban and rural working families throughout the Americas and the world.
Venezuela has responded to US aggressions with massive enlistments of volunteers in its popular militia. The government says there are 4.5 million participants deployed across the country. Meanwhile, 15,000 soldiers have been sent to the border with Colombia.
The threat of war against Venezuela is bad for myriad reasons. It is a brazen violation of Venezuela’s sovereignty. It is also part of a continent-wide proxy Cold War against China’s influence in Latin America. A US invasion would result in the loss of countless lives and will likely drag into yet another long military conflict with no end in sight. US sanctions and the blockade of Venezuela have led to untold suffering with hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced and suffering food insecurity. The possibility of a new invasion is being sold as part of the War on Drugs, but above all, it is an effort to extract private profits from Venezuela’s resources, and to impede the development of any political or economic system independent of the US/NATO Empire and transnational capitalism.
Often overlooked are the ecological consequences of US aggression against Venezuela. A possible invasion from the North obviously puts in danger the sustainability and biodiversity of the Caribbean region. Especially, though, it threatens the Amazon Basin. The US and NATO countries have been vying for control of the Amazon Rainforest for decades, an effort that has escalated in recent years. The US has conducted large-scale military exercises on the river with a focus on the rapid deployment of troops in mobile bases. One goal of these exercises is to isolate and intimidate Venezuela, enforce the blockade, and prepare for possible military action from the South. The US is trying to box Venezuela in on all sides. In addition to its actions in the Caribbean and the Amazon region, the US has significant military installations to the West in Colombia, and to the East in Guyana.
US designs are about more than Venezuela. The US is also seeking to undermine the administration of Gustavo Petro in Colombia and has imposed 50% tariffs on Brazil, trying to open way for right wing victory in both countries in their upcoming 2026 presidential elections. The US has already supported a right wing lawfare coup in Peru that was soon followed by increased US troop presence in the Peruvian part of the Amazon. If the US can topple the government of Venezuela, strengthen its already significant presence in Colombia and Peru, further militarize Guyana, and secure a right-wing electoral victory in Brazil, it will have effectively gained control of the entire Amazon Basin. This would be especially tragic as the world prepares for international climate negotiations in Belém in November 2025 at the mouth of the Amazon.
President Petro, of Colombia has come into his own conflicts with the US. Nevertheless, he made an ill-advised proposal that US and NATO militaries redirect their focus from the pseudo-War on Drugs to defending the Amazon. That would be a disastrous idea. However, Venezuela’s Nicolás Maduro countered with a proposal for a multinational force limited to the nations that make up the Amazon Basin. It is true that the Amazon is vulnerable to narcotraffickers, illegal forest clearing for large cattle ranches and monoculture, oil exploration, mining, and other stressors. The Maduro proposal is a legitimate alternative to a continued and expanded US military deployment.
The threat of a military invasion of Venezuela is predicated on quite literally “Trumped-up” allegations against President Maduro for narcotrafficking. A $50 million dollar bounty has been put on his head, followed by a directive authorizing military actions in any nation, anywhere, as part of the Drug War. But that is pure theater, pure hypocrisy.
A recent article from the Eco-Solidarity Project published in the Orinoco Tribune explains, “There can be no doubt that the true motivation for this directive is to provide cover for possible attacks against Venezuela and other target nations. Trump… accused him [Maduro] of narcotrafficking, including alleging his involvement with Mexico’s Sinaloa Cartel. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum says the allegations are unfounded. The Trump administration also dug up old allegations that Maduro was working with the former FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) to export large quantities of cocaine to the US.
However, the reality is that [Colombian ex-President and Trump ally Alvaro] Uribe… and the AUC, which Uribe led, were far more involved in narcotrafficking than the former FARC. According to Oliver Villar and Drew Cottle in their book, Cocaine, Death Squads and the War on Terror:
‘Despite the propaganda about the FARC as narco-terrorists, in 2001 Colombian intelligence estimated that FARC controlled less than 2.5 percent of Colombia’s cocaine exports, while the AUC controlled 40 percent, not counting the narco-bourgeoise as a whole…’
Pablo Hernan Sierra, alias “Alberto Guerrero”, is a former commander of the Cacique Pipinta bloc of the AUC. He told Venezuelan network TeleSur that Uribe, ‘…was our commander. He never fired a gun; but he led, he contributed, he was our man at the top.’”
There are purist and simplistic eco-defenders who will dismiss solidarity owith Venezuela simply because it is a major oil producer. Whatever criticisms of Venezuela’s ecological record might be valid, Venezuela has played a leading role in demanding meaningful agreements on climate change and supporting the development of Ecosocialism. Even if that were not true, the fact remains that the United States military is the largest institutional producer of greenhouse gasses, prosecuting wars and occupations on behalf of Big Oil and global capitalism. Whether under the Republicans or Democrats, the US refuses to enter into meaningful climate agreements and has pursued endless war across the planet in order to seize and develop resources for the profit of a few. Under US President Donald Trump, the threat against Venezuela takes place within the context of full-scale efforts to reverse ecological protections and to “drill, baby, drill” while throwing up unending roadblocks to clean energy development. A US intervention in Venezuela, and subsequent exploitation of its oil and water resources, would be ecologically devastating.
There are also equally simplistic voices that are dismissive of solidarity with Venezuela because they do not care for the nation’s president. For those of us who are not Venezuelans, what we think about Nicolas Maduro and the Venezuelan government is simply not the point. Our responsibility is to unite together to unwaveringly demand an end to the blockade, sanctions, and all foreign interference in Venezuela’s sovereign affairs. We must especially unite together to oppose an invasion or full-on war.
The Eco-Solidarity Project has maintained a position since our formation in 2011 that the best way to defend the Earth is to end capitalist and imperialist wars and liberate the planet from the stranglehold of Empire. At this juncture, Venezuela and Brazil may be two of this hemisphere’s nations best suited to stand up to and challenge the advances of Empire. We started out by saying, “The threat of war against Venezuela is bad for myriad reasons.” Likewise, there are myriad reasons to stand in solidarity with Venezuela. One of those is that here and now, today, by standing with Venezuela we are helping defend the Amazon region, aka the “lungs of the Earth,” from an Empire that wants nothing more than to suck the air out of those lungs for the benefit of the few – the 1%.
This alert is produced by the Eco-Solidarity Project, an effort that originated with the Alliance for Global Justice
More ways to show solidarity with Venezuela:
Sign the Zone of Peace Campaign’s statement: U.S. Out of Venezuela, the Caribbean, and Our Americas!