Venezuela and the return of imperialism

Donald Trump has been clear.

That he will take control of Venezuelan oil.

That U.S. oil companies will enter to repair the infrastructure in order to manage and export the crude.

That this — according to his account — will allow the U.S. to be compensated for the oil Venezuela “stole” from an industry developed with U.S. capital, technology, and expertise, and nationalized in 1976 by the Venezuelan state, now reframed as socialist expropriation.

Anyone who, after listening to Trump’s press conference on Saturday, claims that the U.S. military attack in Caracas and the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife for trial are good news — or an imperial action in favor of democracy — is mistaken. They are misrepresenting what happened.

And while some may argue that it is possible to condemn Trump while celebrating the fall of a tyrant — who he indeed was — the truth is that what occurred represents something different: an open rupture with international law, the disregard of multilateral agreements, and the violation of basic principles such as sovereignty, non-intervention, and the peaceful resolution of disputes.

Those who celebrate today will have to explain themselves tomorrow. The 20th century stands as evidence. History does not repeat itself, Mark Twain said, but it often rhymes.

In Mexico, some political actors and public voices have preferred to ignore that past. Others, however, have clearly condemned what happened.

The message sent by these events is unmistakable and signals an accelerated reshuffling of the regional landscape.

Trump — as many warned — is not merely a rhetorical provocateur. He embodies a form of imperialism willing to intervene directly when it considers its strategic interests are at stake.

This is especially concerning news for countries seeking to preserve margins of autonomy or the sovereign control of their resources.

Mexico, Brazil, Colombia. Cuba. Especially Cuba. There, the clock has started ticking.

In this new regional scenario, the response of the Mexican government also comes into play, and that of President Claudia Sheinbaum says more than it seems.

In his bombastic speech yesterday, Trump invoked the Monroe Doctrine — the old slogan “America for the Americans” — to justify keeping strategic resources in this hemisphere.

But the signs were there long before yesterday. From the controversial Nobel Peace Prize awarded to María Corina Machado to the U.S. strikes on boats, extrajudicial killings, Trump’s new National Security Strategy, and the U.S. blockade of oil tankers, everything pointed in the same direction.

The pattern was visible to anyone who wanted to look beyond the noise.

Sheinbaum saw it. She saw it in October, when she responded with a curt “no comment” to a question about the Nobel Peace Prize. For some, it was ambiguous; with time, it reveals itself more as the defense of an uncomfortable but enduring principle: the sovereignty of others. Others, today. Her own, tomorrow.

Sheinbaum did not defend Maduro.

She was defending something different. Something more important.

That principle requires separating political judgment from the construction of accusations.

In Venezuela, that difference is key: Maduro was a dictator and systematically violated human rights. But tyranny doesn’t turn lies into evidence, nor justice into vengeance. The charge of narcoterrorism is flimsy. The accusation of a plot to flood the United States with drugs lacks foundation. The so-called Cartel de los Soles has never been proven.

Accepting these fictions under the logic that the ends justify the means sets a dangerous precedent: it normalizes the exception and erodes the limits that once restrained the use of force. That is what allows decisions that would once have been unthinkable to begin to be presented as inevitable.

The scene has changed for all of Latin America. The return of imperialism is already redefining what until yesterday seemed unacceptable.

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