In brazen violation of international law and abandonment of even the illusion of legitimacy, the U.S. has launched a war of aggression against the Latin American nation of Venezuela. The operation included missile strikes and the bombing of targets across the country as well as the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces, who have since delivered him to New York, where he is being put through a show trial.
This attack represents the culmination of a decades-long project aimed at dismantling Venezuela, reasserting Washington’s hegemony over the Western Hemisphere , all while escalating its war against emerging multipolarism worldwide.
Drugs as “weapons of mass destruction”
The justification for military intervention centers on U.S. President Donald Trump’s January 3 characterization of President Maduro as “the kingpin of a vast criminal network responsible for trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the U.S.”
Trump has gone so far as to equate drug trafficking with using weapons of mass destruction, recycling the same false pretext used to sell the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the American and global publics.
However, Washington’s own internal documentation contradicts this narrative. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) 80-page 2025 National Drug Threat Assessment mentions Venezuela only six times. To put this in perspective, Mexico is mentioned 70 times, China 17 times, and even Canadaa close U.S. ally –– is mentioned seven times.
If Venezuela’s government was indeed responsible for “trafficking colossal amounts of deadly and illicit drugs into the U.S.,” on a scale justifying military intervention, it would more likely have been one of the centerpieces of the DEA’s report.
Instead, the report only mentions Venezuela under a section titled, “other violent transnational criminal organizations” and describes “Tren de Aragua” (TDA) as a street-level gang whose drug activities are “small-scale” and limited to the distribution of Pink Cocaine, also known as Tusi, recreational drug most commonly made from a combination ketamine and MDMA, not the shipments of fentanyl or cocaine Washington accused the Venezuelan state of orchestrating. In fact, the DEA report does not mention the Venezuelan government or President Maduro even once in the report.
The disparity between the administration’s rhetoric and the DEA’s own documented findings reveals the pretext of drugs flowing from Venezuela no more a reality than weapons of mass destruction in Iraq –– both deliberate lies told to sell otherwise unprovoked wars of aggression.
Beyond just an oil grab …
The true objectives of this war were laid bare during a recent White House press conference following the military strikes.
In a transcript of the conference, the word “drug” or “drugs” was mentioned only nine times. In contrast, the word “oil” was mentioned 27 times. President Trump’s rhetoric shifted rapidly from the supposed drug threat to the logistical details of seizing Venezuela’s natural resources.
President Trump declared the U.S. would “run” Venezuela and that American oil companies would take over energy production in the seized nation.
Beyond a brazen resource grab, the attack on and toppling of Venezuela’s government fits into a much larger global war the U.S. is waging both against the concept of multipolarism and its chief proponents, namely China and Russia.
At the same time the U.S. declares control over Venezuela, it is fomenting deadly violence in the streets of Iran after having carried out direct military strikes on it mid-last year.
Recent reports in the New York Times reveal the U.S. has also been carrying out strikes on Russian energy production deep inside Russian territory itself (via the CIA) as well as conducting maritime drone strikes on tankers exporting Russian energy.
Venezuela, Iran and Russia all share common characteristics –– they are partners of and major oil exporters to China.
Venezuela shipped over 80 percent of its oil to China. In the middle of the U.S. military buildup and subsequent blockade of Venezuelan maritime shipping, at least one tanker bound for China was outright seized by the U.S.
Zooming out of the Western Hemisphere and looking also at ongoing U.S. war and proxy war worldwide, a larger strategy emerges. Washington is in the process of implementing a long-desired, global energy blockade on China.
A 2018 policy paper from the U.S. Naval War College Review titled A Maritime Oil Blockade Against China discussed the process of closing maritime chokepoints as part of a “distant blockade” just beyond the range of the majority of China’s military capabilities.
It also noted that China had worked to diversify away from overdependence on these maritime chokepoints, including through the construction of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The paper proposed that BRI routes be targeted and cut.
Using the Myanmar-China pipeline as an example, the 2018 paper noted that if Myanmar’s government refused to close the pipeline during a U.S.-China conflict, the U.S. could disable it “via air strikes, aerial mining, or other kinetic action. ”
Since the paper’s publication, the U.S. has backed armed militants in Myanmar who have targeted, damaged, and at one point seized a section of the pipeline, jeopardizing one of
China’s alternative land-based energy routes. The U.S. has also promoted similar terrorism targeting Chinese BRI infrastructure in Pakistan in 2011. Similar forms of terrorism continue to this day.
The 2018 paper also mentioned Russia’s ability to help sustain China even if a maritime blockade and the cutting of BRI infrastructure were successful. Although no recommendations were presented in the paper, the U.S. is now in the middle of degrading Russian energy production and exports.
All of this taken together demonstrates how dangerously far this strategy has come to taking full shape.
A Wake-up call
A particularly flawed theme has emerged across commentary circles, citing the U.S. strike on Venezuela as a “retreat” to the Western Hemisphere, where it seeks to carve out a “sphere of influence” rather than continuing to pursue global dominance.
The attack on Venezuela did indeed take place in the Western Hemisphere, and the U.S. has indeed declared it seeks to dominate the entire Western Hemisphere. However, at the same time, the U.S. continues waging a proxy war against Russia, destabilizing Iran, backing militants striking at China’s BRI infrastructure, and all while U.S. forces based in the Asia-Pacific region continue threatening maritime routes vital to China. The U.S. maintains tens of thousands of troops in bases dotting the planet–– located closer to the borders of Russia, Iran and China than to America’s own shores.
This does not add up to “retreating” nor does it equate to creating a “sphere of influence” just because the U.S.has attacked yet another nation elsewhere. Instead, it clearly constitutes a continued attempt to influence –– and indeed dominate –– the entire planet.
The future will depend on the world’s awareness of the persistent danger the U.S.poses, its ability to protect itself from it, and multipolarism’s ability to build the world up faster than the U.S. is demonstrably threatening and destroying it. –The Daily Mail-Beijing Review news exchange item
