“A broad coalition can be assembled internationally to halt an increasingly open march towards war.”
By Ben Hayes
In addition to a series of intensifying sanctions against Venezuela over recent years, 2025 has seen a further step taken in the US’s targeting of Venezuela, with the Trump administration deploying warships in the Caribbean Sea in a purported anti-narcotics operation and carrying out at least six incidents of strikes on boats in Venezuelan waters to date.
Venezuela has strongly refuted the US’s drug-trafficking accusations, labelling them as propaganda to fuel the US’s ‘regime change’ narrative. These developments have also been met with opposition and concern by numerous other governments and leading political figures from across the region, highlighting that such measures not only amount to an unacceptable use of aggression but also pose a danger to the stability of Latin America and the Caribbean more widely.
The ALBA bloc of countries issued a statement strongly condemning the escalation: “These maneuvers not only constitute a direct attack on the independence of Venezuela, but also a threat to the stability and self-determination of all the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean (…) We categorically reject the orders from the United States government to deploy military forces under false pretexts, with the clear intention of imposing illegal, interventionist policies that are contrary to the constitutional order of the States of Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Brazilian President Lula da Silva, addressing a recent virtual BRICS summit, also discussed the threat posed to the region as a whole, contrasting the US’s belligerent course of action with the overwhelming sentiment of the countries around it: “Latin America and the Caribbean chose to become nuclear-weapon-free in 1968. For almost 40 years, we have been a Zone of Peace and Cooperation. The presence of armed forces from the world’s greatest power in the Caribbean Sea is a source of tension that is incompatible with the region’s peaceful vocation.”
Cuba, itself having existed under a US-imposed blockade for over 65 years, has taken a strong position against this escalation, with the country’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel stating that “military aggression must stop to preserve peace in Latin America and the Caribbean”, and warning that “direct military aggression against Venezuela would trigger an armed conflict that would have incalculable consequences for the peace, security, and stability of Our America.”
Representing another nation facing a vicious US sanctions regime, Nicaragua’s Minister for Foreign Affairs Denis Moncada made his country’s position on US aggression towards both Venezuela and Cuba clear at the General Assembly of the United Nations, declaring: “We denounce and condemn all the insulting and vulgar aggression, verbal, political, economic and commercial along with the bellicose outrages, which also constitute crimes against humanity, crimes against security, tranquillity, justice and peace, the supreme assets of our peoples, which they cannot, and should not abuse or snatch away.”
Xiomara Castro, the President of Honduras (which experienced a US-backed coup in 2009), expressed solidarity with Venezuela against the threat of military aggression and reaffirmed “our unrestricted respect for the self-determination of peoples and for international law.”
President of Colombia Gustavo Petro called for a clear stance from governments across Latin America: “Latin America, which owns the Caribbean, cannot tolerate this and remain silent, because then the bombs will fall on Bogota, Rio de Janeiro, Manaus, and other cities in the region”, also pledging that he would refuse to cooperate with any attack: “Colombia will not lend its territory to an invasion by any neighbouring country or its citizens”.
Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum made it clear that her administration would be taking a similar position: “We are never going to support the intervention by a foreign government in a sovereign country. And I repeat, it is not only out of personal conviction, but because this must be the position of any Mexican president since it is in the Constitution.”
Ralph Gonsalves, Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, called for the US to engage in dialogue “without any preconditions” to “resolve any problems” rather than going down the path of military conflict, arguing that “No one serious can think that Venezuela, with 30 million people, or Cuba, with ten million, are a threat to the United States.”
Here in Britain, Secretary of the Venezuela Solidarity Campaign Francisco Dominguez outlined the organisation’s commitment to opposing any military action: “It should, of course, never be forgotten that Venezuela has the largest reserves of oil in the world. These constant and dangerous military aggressions against Venezuela must stop. We will join with forces across the British labour, peace and solidarity movements to express maximum opposition to US military aggression in the weeks and months ahead.”
With Trump and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio (widely considered to be one of Washington’s most hawkish figures on Latin America policy) signalling their intention to continue this militaristic direction of travel, the role of other states in the region may prove crucial in pushing for an approach based on de-escalation, peace and respect for sovereignty. These initial responses indicate that a broad coalition can be assembled internationally to halt an increasingly open march towards war.
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