The U.S. Is Lying About Venezuela

The false accusations are being driven by neo-con war hawk Marco Rubio, who carries the U.S tradition of supporting only far-right leaders in Latin America

Screenshot of a declassified video showing the U.S. Navy killing boaters off the coast of Venezuela

Recent allegations made by the Trump administration have drawn little scrutiny from the public at large, as a seemingly nonpartisan coalition of people on social media suddenly believes tales woven by a president who lied more in his first term than any other president in history. Nearly everything the U.S. government has said about Venezuela for 25 years has been manufactured to create a consensus around invading Venezuela and forcibly taking its resources.

The U.S. has, over time, made its motivations abundantly clear. From John Bolton to Erik Prince to Commander of the U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), General Laura Richardson has told the world what it’s about: resources. In 2022, at the Aspen Security Conference, Gen. Richardson told Washington Post columnist and associate editor that Latin America's resources are of vital importance to the United States. She wasn’t just talking about the oil and gold most people mention in these discussions, but also many other resources, including freshwater.

When high-ranking government officials refer to Latin America as “our back yard” or the Caribbean as “our third border,” they are claiming ownership of the region without any concern for its citizens. Considering the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary on the heels of Manifest Destiny (the idea that Anglos were “chosen” by god to colonize the Americas), it all becomes clearer. As far-right pundits and the Heritage Foundation push for Trump to create his own America First corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, they only solidify these motivations.

Enter Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Maduro is on the back-end of more than 25 years of the U.S. trying to overthrow the Venezuelan government through rigged elections, failed coups, and U.S.-backed terrorist attacks. Since none of that has worked, and despite Maduro having much more support than they’d like you to believe, the U.S. under Trump, then Biden, and now Trump again, has come to alleging that Maduro runs and has control of a prison gang that he’s been targeting for years. Many of whom Venezuelan forces have killed. Maduro uses Bukele-style tactics, which, somehow, the U.S. supports in El Salvador, but not Venezuela.

United States intelligence services have clarified for years that Maduro is nothing like what the last three administrations have claimed. According to them, he has no control over a menial prison gang, and that prison gang doesn’t smuggle drugs on a large scale. In the last two National Drug Threat Assessment reports from the DEA, Venezuela is not implicated at all.

The reports highlight drug trafficking corridors and neither mentions Venezuela. In fact, the only foreign government officials identified in the DEA documents are low-ranking security officials in Mexico, Colombia, and parts of Central America. The documents allege those officials are involved in corruption linked to drug trafficking into the U.S. Venezuela is again not mentioned.

“Mexican cartels obtain multi-ton shipments of cocaine powder and cocaine base from South American traffickers, then smuggle them by land or coastal river routes through Central America, or by sea to Caribbean islands such as Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, before bringing them into the United States,” reads the 2024 NDTA.

The Trump administration is creating a false narrative to manufacture consent to invade a country where its leader has enough support that when he called for the people of the country to defend themselves against the U.S., millions of Venezuelans responded by enlisting. Over the last two decades, it has become abundantly clear that Venezuelans, like Cubans and other Latin Americans, aren’t interested in fighting a civil war on behalf of U.S. interests, especially with the U.S. being an aggressor in what has been referred to as a “Zone of Peace” since 2014.

Something Latin American leaders are proud of, as it emphasizes diplomacy over violence.

Meanwhile, in just the last year, Venezuela has thwarted multiple terrorist attacks that were backed by the U.S. Evidence shows many U.S military-specific weapons and ammunition were intercepted in September, and several U.S. citizens, along with citizens of other countries, like Spain, were detained in connection with those shipments.

The last of those detained in Venezuela for these acts against the Venezuelan government were recently released in an exchange that freed hundreds of Venezuelans in El Salvador’s CECOT prison. One of the men involved in the weapons shipments and freed in the deal is a triple murderer from Spain who was released into Texas. Where he is now is anyone’s guess, but we can be confident that he’s not in Spain and likely still roaming the streets in the United States.

That all of this happened as military contractor and war criminal Erik Prince was recruiting and fundraising for a violent coup in Venezuela should not be ignored. Senator Rick Scott and then-Senator Marco Rubio were assisting Prince by lobbying President Joe Biden for the funds ($100 million) to finance the overthrow of the Venezuelan government. Now, after the Trump administration raised the bounty for Maduro to what Prince was asking for, many questions should be asked about what the White House is doing.

The attack on a civilian boat off the coast of Venezuela is an escalation that people like Prince, Scott, and Rubio are undoubtedly salivating over. Their goal is never about freedom or democracy but about colonization and imperialism. It’s about power and greed built on a superiority complex they all share, and that one day will return to haunt Marco Rubio. Because racist colonizers do what they do: inevitably turn on the nonwhite people who support them.

The United States has been on a war path against Venezuela ever since the country took control of its resources and put Venezuelans first. Many, if not most, of its struggles are directly related to U.S. sanctions, which, as a petro state, make it especially vulnerable to pressure from foreign influence. With Chevron now shipping oil out of Venezuela (thanks to Trump), its economic prospects are set to improve on the four-year economic recovery the country has experienced since 2020.

However, the U.S. can’t let Venezuela succeed. If U.S.voters see a successful socialist state so close to home, they might start making demands for better healthcare, housing, and education. Rather than let nonwhite countries succeed based on their addressing their own needs however they see fit, the U.S. is once again opting for war over diplomacy without any input from the Venezuelan people, whom it will claim to be bringing “freedom” and “democracy” to.

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I’m an independent investigative journalist who enjoys digging deeper into the stories you see on the news. Find my work at Unicorn Riot, The Antagonist Magazine, Latino Rebels, and more. I’m also on TikTok, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and Threads. To support my work, become a paid subscriber or donate via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.