Caracas. Photo: Bill Hackwell.
By JosĂ© RamĂłn Cabañas RodrĂguez – Jan 14, 2026
January 3, 2026, will remain etched in the memory of Venezuelans, Cubans, and many Latin Americans/Caribbeans for various reasons. There are those who were directly impacted by the US attack on Caracas, those who had family members or acquaintances residing in Venezuela, those who had visited the country at some point, and those who had never been there but respect the tranquility and civil peace that all human beings should enjoy.
The media, academics, journalists, and political agnostics have narrated the events in different ways, there has been massive speculation, statements have been made about a new historical moment, and, above all, many predictions about the future.
From the moment the first bombs exploded over Venezuelan territory, we were all invaded in one way or another.
Perhaps the main effect of the shrapnel, apart from claiming the lives of dozens of human beings, has been the amount of content (not information) generated by US sources, or those subservient to Washington’s purposes, which have attempted to create uncertainty in everyone, from those facing the polar cold in Canada (and especially in Greenland) to those fighting fires in Argentine Patagonia and far beyond.
The White House has been constantly generating messages, many of them contradictory, which, thanks to the help of Meta, Google, X, Instagram, YouTube, and everyone else involved in manipulating the content accessed on cell phones, have multiplied rapidly, like waves that do not allow a swimmer to recover from the previous stroke or stabilize in the ebb and flow of the tide.
In a matter of hours, most recipients of these messages have been left with the feeling that “we are all in danger” and that “the United States is omnipotent.” Both impressions have made it impossible for many to remember their own experiences and for younger people to recall what they were taught in school.
The United States’ aggression against the Bolivarian Revolution is nothing new. Long before Hugo Chávez came to power, Washington had been trying to gain access to Venezuelan resources, whether through neoliberal prescriptions or through the support of special services for acts of internal repression, such as the so-called Caracazo (1989). Bolivarian Venezuela suffered the ambitions of various US administrations, both during the failed coup d’état of 2002 and when the guarimbas of 2019 were organized.
In regional terms, there are many examples of endemic US interventionism, including Cuba (1961), the Dominican Republic (1964), Grenada (1983), and Panama (1989). It is true that the type of military operation that was directly orchestrated against President Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores is very unusual, blurring the sense of relative peace that has prevailed in the region in recent years, if we leave out of the list of shocking events the succession of coups in which US federal agencies, from the CIA and the DEA to the Southern Command and USAID, have been involved in some way.
In other words, there is sufficient evidence to corroborate that those of us who have lived in geographical proximity to the United States have had sufficient reasons to be concerned about our security in one way or another for many years.
For example, when the movement of U.S. military naval assets in the Caribbean is highlighted as something relevant (and it is), the recurring presence of these assets (some of them with nuclear capabilities) at the illegal Guantanamo Naval Base on the eastern tip of Cuba is hardly mentioned.
The second issue we must reflect on is the supposed ability that the current misgovernment team in the United States claims to have to change the state of affairs anywhere in the hemisphere or the world. There is no doubt that they still possess immense military power, that they have the technical means to orchestrate wars without putting the lives of their military agents at risk, and that they can wipe out a significant part of animal and human life on the planet with the push of a button.
But we are obliged, amid the storm of bytes, sounds, likes, and reposts, to observe other qualitative changes that are happening before our eyes on the part of the world stage that we do not pay attention to because we spend most of our time consuming what was already pre-prepared in the cognitive warfare manuals of the Pentagon, think tanks, and other practitioners.
After nearly 20 years of waging a supposed war on terrorism at a cost of trillions of dollars, the United States staged a disorderly withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan in order, among other priorities, to reallocate the limited resources at its disposal to confront the advance of the country it considers its main enemy in all respects: the People’s Republic of China.
In a short time, star U.S. strategists came up with two recipes for solving the challenge, which were named “decoupling” and “derisking.” The first involved disconnecting existing major bilateral economic projects that, according to them, China had unfairly used to its advantage. As this was and proved to be impractical, it was then decided to do so only in those areas that could have a direct impact on military or technological competition. But this was not possible either.
What the United States has been doing in our region, even under the presidency of Joe Biden, has been to bring its military forces and the main political institutions subordinate to it as close as possible to the most precious resources of Latin America and the Caribbean, whether it be drinking water, land, rare minerals, or, finally, oil.
They have tried to impress us all with the presence of the Chinese dragon, when that competitor’s main presence in the region is precisely within the US economy. We must study and draw on reliable sources before taking a position on any issue.
What really appears to be a watershed between two eras since January 3 is that the United States has stripped itself of its traditional suits of political influence in an attempt to dominate the rest. Gone are the days of selling canned democracy, of convenient human rights sausages, of forcing multilateral consensus to impose its agenda, of spending on supposed development aid to buy consciences. We have wondered why, in the era of Trump 2.0, no one designed a GuaidĂł Plan, or why the expenses involved in the tedious meetings of what was once called the Lima Group have been saved.
In fact, the current Multipurpose Secretary of State has explicitly stated, “I don’t care what the United Nations says.” Amid the whirlwind of news in recent days, the United States withdrew from dozens of international organizations in one fell swoop. To save money? No, to redirect it to the defense budget.
The United States is telling us that its “leadership” power will no longer depend on setting an example of independent powers, economic efficiency or productivity, or the capacity for innovation. The force of blackmail or pressure will be applied equally against indigenous leaders in Africa and the gaping leaders of what was once the North Atlantic alliance.
The loss of resources of all kinds by the United States is particularly evident at this time in the country’s internal situation. The use of direct and constant force against citizens, whether they are illegal immigrants or not; the massive destruction of state institutions that until now were functional to the imperial appetite; the application of gangster methods against any enemy of the Trumpist truth, be it a judge, a senator, or a religious leader.
Inter-party negotiations and institutional consultative processes have disappeared from the headlines.
And speaking of headlines, it should also be noted that these have been days in which Republican discipline and line has buried several meters deep what was once called the independent press or freedom of expression. The few remaining examples within the so-called corporate press that showed some professionalism and respect for news standards now lie in their respective coffins. Those who do not repeat the messages coming from the government without the slightest questioning are sent home, given early retirement, or simply forced to change their children’s schools to avoid bullying.
These days, we have observed that there will no longer even be attempts to fabricate more or less serious arguments to expose and demonize third parties. The Cartel de los Soles campaign will go down in history as one of the most ridiculous pretexts that has ever existed, and its authors as hominids of limited imagination. And how will all this influence the need/interest that the United States may have in creating or not creating political “opposition” in our countries, in continuing with what has so far been known as “regime change” policies? It seems that they are wondering why they should incur multimillion-dollar expenses and events to promote pseudo-leaders when they consider it is cheaper to intimidate and pressure those who are already in their positions, to have entire populations in a state of panic, people crying at the thought of future threats.
Now, as in the past, the success or failure of the United States in its aims against third parties will depend on the alternatives, on our ability to resist and assist each other, even counting on the contribution of important sectors of American society. We will have to spend less time commenting and repeating among ourselves what their leaders said in front of the cameras or on their cell phone screens, in order to assess what they are really capable of doing, for how long, and with what resources. In Caracas, Trump supporters may have left behind traces of their current uncertainties.
(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)
JosĂ© RamĂłn Cabañas RodrĂguez
JosĂ© RamĂłn Cabañas RodrĂguez is Director of the International Policy Research Center (CIPI) in Havana, Cuba and former Cuban Ambassador to the US.
