Harry Targ
|
|
|
|
|
|
At least 87 Venezuelans have been murdered by
the US military in recent air strikes on boats in the Caribbean and Eastern
Pacific. More recently the US captured a Venezuelan tanker carrying oil to
overseas customers. President Trump has threatened direct military attacks on
Venezuela and added similar verbal threats against Colombia. No commentator outside
the administration believes the lies that the boats had anything to do with
drug trafficking. Many liken the claim to President George Walker Bush’s claim
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. The real reason for the US
aggression has been articulated in the recently released National Security
Strategy document
The "Trump
Corollary" Articulated in the Newly Released National Security Strategy
(November 2025)
"We want to ensure
that the Western Hemisphere remains reasonably stable and well-governed enough
to prevent and discourage mass migration to the United States; we want a
Hemisphere whose governments cooperate with us against narco-terrorists, cartels,
and other transnational criminal organizations; we want a Hemisphere that
remains free of hostile foreign incursion or ownership of key assets, and that
supports critical supply chains; and we want to ensure our continued access to
key strategic locations. In other words, we will assert and enforce a “Trump
Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine;"
https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf
Congress has mandated that each new administration
articulate its foreign policy views and priorities for the years ahead. The
document referred to above illuminates and describes the visions and policies
of the Trump Administration. The document articulates an "American
First" foreign policy of military projection and the reassertion of US
hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
As to the Western Hemisphere the document says:
-"We must look to expand our network in the
region"
-The National Security Council will "immediately begin
a robust interagency process to task agencies...to identify strategic points
and resources..."
-"Non-Hemispheric competitors have made major inroads
in our Hemisphere..."
-Prior administrations have allowed the imposition of
outside influence to happen: "another great American strategic mistake of
recent decades."
-To rollback outside influence in the Hemisphere as to
"espionage, cybersecurity, debt-traps, and other ways" the U.S.
should "leverage in finance and technology to induce countries to reject
such assistance."
-In Latin America and around the world the US "should
make clear that American goods, services, and technologies are a far better buy
in the long run...requiring closer collaboration between the U.S. Government
and the American private sector."
The Bolivarian
Revolution
The Bolivarian Revolution, initiated by former Venezuelan
President Hugo Chvez in the 1990s, stimulated political change throughout Latin
American based on varying degrees of grassroots democratization, the
construction of workers’ cooperatives, and a shift from neoliberal economic
policies to economic populism. And now the Trump administration is committed
to:
-destroying the Bolivarian Revolution
-Crushing movements of Latin American countries who seek
solidarity with the countries of the Global South
-Opposing Latin American countries that seek to increase their
commercial relations with China
-Reasserting white supremacy and American Exceptionalism, the spirit of the US policy in the Western Hemisphere articulated by James
Monroe, Theodore Roosevelt, and Donald Trump
