War With Venezuela Imminent, Latin America Enters the Chat

Several Latin American countries are also boycotting the upcoming Summit of the Americas due to the exclusion of Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela

Photo by Steve Harvey on Unsplash

The drums of war are beating loudly. Several Latin American countries, including Venezuela and much of the world, have reached out diplomatically to the White House to avert a potential U.S. attack on Venezuela. The Trump administration rebuffed those efforts and cut off communication with Caracas, the first of many signs that war is imminent. President Donald Trump later escalated tensions by publicly stating that the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was conducting operations in Venezuela, putting the nation on high alert and any U.S. agents in the country at risk.

It’s worth noting that the CIA has been a permanent fixture in Latin America for decades.

Attempted coups, terrorist attacks, and threats by war criminals like Erik Prince, of Blackwater fame, meant to stoke an uprising in just the last year alone (among the many attempts over several decades), are evidence of the CIA’s presence. Smuggling U.S. military weapons into Venezuela isn’t easy to do, even for the United States, which is routinely caught doing so. These are not guns and ammo that can be purchased at the local gun store; they are weapons typically found on U.S. military bases and in war zones. Alongside those weapons, several foreigners have been caught smuggling them, including Americans.

All Signs Point to War

Recently, Alan McLeod of Mint Press News highlighted in a Twitter thread that the search term “human rights Venezuela” spiked to an all-time high, according to Google Trends. McLeod noted that in the lead-up to the attack on Libya, “Libya human rights” also peaked in March 2011, just hours before military strikes began. This is yet another sign that war is imminent. McLeod closed his thread by saying, “The point of this thread is to highlight how the language of humanitarianism is so often used as a cover for war and regime change.”

The term “Human Rights” attached to any country has historically become a major topic before a war begins to justify attacks. It’s a concerted effort to shift public discourse; to manufacture consent for war. We saw it with the war in Iraq when, despite all their efforts, they couldn’t link Saddam Hussein to the 9/11 attacks, the lead-up to the Vietnam War, the invasion of Panama, and nearly every other war in modern history.

In Latin America, as in most other cases, the true motivations are regime change and installing leaders who are more friendly to U.S. corporate interests; imperialism. For Venezuela, that’s Maria Corina Machado’s crew, a far-right political party. Machado has aligned herself with many anti-immigrant and racist Christian nationalist groups globally, and due to the fragmented nature of Venezuelan politics, has little support in Venezuela. Machado also aligned herself with Trump and supported his false claims about Venezuelan migrants being tied to Tren de Aragua. She also echoed much of the rhetoric from Europe that argues migration is destabilizing the region, in her case, “the Americas.”

She is also the source of the lie alleging that Maduro is the leader of Tren de Aragua in February, after meeting with newly appointed State Department special envoy Richard Grenell.

But despite the widely controversial positions held by Machado, including boycotting elections through the years, then suddenly asking everyone to vote in the last presidential election, only to backtrack again and call for boycotting the most recent parliamentary elections in May, she is still praised in the U.S. as a hero of democracy. These duplicitous inconsistencies make her no different than Juan Guaido, who was also broadly unpopular when the Trump White House tried to install him as president in 2019. Now, the current Trump administration plans on forcing Machado on Venezuelans in a similar fashion, only with military action this time.

Meanwhile, in yet another sign that war is imminent, legacy media is pushing a narrative that suggests Machado is “in hiding” in a top-secret location. However, it appears she is still in the Argentine embassy, where she has been since March 2024. Her cohorts have since left and are in the United States. Her location has been widely known, as have her public appearances on the streets of Caracas. In the U.S., however, this narrative of suppression helps drive the push for war. Again, to manufacture consent from the public with only her version of events, glossing over the violent nature of her supporters and her rhetoric.

This is why Machado is so broadly liked by far-right groups around the world and Trump’s white Christian nationalist cabinet, along with his Religious Liberty Commission and Homeland Security Advisory Council, which reek of the authoritarian Christian nationalism in politics that has been sweeping Latin America. The targeting of speech, immigrants, Latinos, and Black communities in the U.S. is directly connected to the revival of the imperialist Monroe Doctrine, something mentioned frequently by administration officials under Trump.

Machado’s camp fits right in with that agenda.

Latin America Enters the Chat

Meanwhile, pro-war advocates have taken Trump’s hardline stance on Venezuela to call for the same in Cuba, using the appropriated #SOSCuba. The hashtag was originally meant as a non-political call to the international community to help Cuba with COVID after the United States blocked the island from access to COVID vaccines, medical equipment, and medicine. It’s a story I was covering in 2021 as I witnessed the evolution and appropriation of a peaceful protest seeking help. That appropriation later led to much misinformation and propaganda in the U.S. to gloss over the harm the U.S. was actively causing during a pandemic.

As the U.S. calls for war with Venezuela, it has also ramped up efforts to financially starve Cuba and seek regime change after two failed terrorist attacks backed by the U.S. in 2024. That stance echoes the rhetoric and positions of Cuban hardliners in Congress who pushed for tougher sanctions on an already blockaded nation that would lead to mass starvation and suffering. By targeting Venezuela, the U.S. will also cut off a major supporter and pipeline to needed resources, food, medicine, and aid. This is leading many anti-Cuba users on social media to believe that Cuba is next on Trump’s list.

Further, the United States did not invite Cuba, Venezuela, or Nicaragua to the upcoming Summit of the Americas, leading several Latin American leaders to boycott the meeting. Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum is not attending the event, a similar position held by her predecessor, Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Bolivian President Luis Arce and Colombian President Gustavo Petro have also declared they will be boycotting the summit.

The Summit of the Americas has been held every three years by the Organization of American States (OAS). Despite the three countries not being official members, they have participated in previous summits throughout the last several decades. The U.S. stance and the boycotts by Latin American leaders, which have only become more frequent in recent years, show a broadening divide between the United States and much of Latin America. This comes as the U.S. shows more support for far-right leaders than people-powered governments.

The same leaders refusing to attend the Summit of the Americas have also been vocal about preventing a war in Venezuela, as have many world leaders. The Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) will not support military action, as the region has been declared a zone of peace by all neighboring nations except for the United States. Trump’s White House is not only ignoring the efforts of Venezuela and Latin American countries, but of most leaders around the world, as noted by Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s rhetoric.

“I don’t care what the UN says,” said Rubio in September. “The UN doesn’t know what they’re talking about.”

The destabilization mechanism that the U.S. relies on to steal a country’s resources will be broadly visible to the world if it attacks Venezuela. The impacts across the region will be felt for decades to come. The administration isn’t bothered by this because, as laid out in the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary, it’s about political, economic, and social control of countries and people who have been deemed inferior by the white ruling class in the West.

As of this writing, all signs point to a U.S. attack on Venezuela.

NOTE: CELAC nations include Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

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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, consider becoming a paid subscriber or making a donation via Venmo, PayPal, or Cash App.