Graffiti in Mexico City showing a crossed-out US flag with a swastika. Photo: Camilo Ocampo.
By Matías Bosch Carcuro – Jan 11, 2026
It’s not that the “rules-based world order” has collapsed. No one who remembers Patrice Lumumba’s kidnapping and subsequent acid dissolution in the Congo in 1961 can believe that such an “order” ever existed beyond a myth. What can be said with certainty today is that there has been a full-throttle acceleration.
This wasn’t about democracy or drug trafficking. The support for electoral fraud by Noboa in Ecuador and Asfura in Honduras, the backing of Bukele’s dictatorship in El Salvador, the pardon of narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández—who placed more than 400 tons of cocaine “right under the noses of the gringos,” as he declared in court—the direct intervention in Argentina’s parliamentary elections to ensure Milei’s victory, all while 80% of the cocaine flows into the U.S. via the Pacific and land borders, make it clear this was never about the “liberation” of countries, popular sovereignty, ballot counting, credible elections, or controlling illicit drug trafficking.
This wasn’t about democracy or drug trafficking. The support for electoral fraud by Noboa in Ecuador and Asfura in Honduras, the backing of Bukele’s dictatorship in El Salvador, the pardon of narco-dictator Juan Orlando Hernández—who placed more than 400 tons of cocaine “right under the noses of the gringos,” as he declared in court—the direct intervention in Argentina’s parliamentary elections to ensure Milei’s victory, all while 80% of the cocaine flows into the U.S. via the Pacific and land borders, make it clear this was never about the “liberation” of countries, popular sovereignty, ballot counting, credible elections, or controlling illicit drug trafficking.
Trump announced that the U.S. would “run Venezuela” and put its infrastructure to work producing oil—even to sell it to China or Russia. The data speaks for itself: by 2023, the United States was already importing about 9 million barrels of crude oil per day, almost half from Canada, and its dependence on heavy crude reached 60% by 2024. Venezuela holds the world’s largest oil reserves—more than 300 billion barrels—with 80% primarily sold to China. Under the pretext of recovering “stolen” infrastructure and technology, they aim to secure a reliable oil source to offset dependence and become the supplier to the world’s main competitor.
‘Don’t play games’
If Trump escaped conviction for the Capitol storming in January 2021 thanks to the immunity granted by the presidency, on January 3 history repeated itself, with congressmen posting heatedly about how all legality had been violated to authorize an act of war that the Executive cannot carry out on its own.
“Don’t play games,” Marco Rubio said repeatedly, warning live on air that the threat remains in place for anyone who stands in their way of not handing over what they demand, be it Colombia, Mexico, or any of the Caribbean countries they currently use as bases of operation under subservient governments. Meanwhile, María Corina Machado, the “opposition leader” and self-important Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was publicly vilified, just as Trump and Vance did to Zelensky in the Oval Office in February 2025, warning her that her “peace” was in exchange for surrender, land, and resources, and that next time she should dress better.
It’s not that the “rules-based world order” has been broken. No one who recalls Lumumba’s fate—or the phantom “weapons of mass destruction” in Iraq—can believe such an “order” ever truly existed. What we see today is a full-throttle acceleration.
‘Home region’
If the Monroe Doctrine of 1823 barred decadent European powers from the Americas, and the Roosevelt Corollary of 1904 legitimized U.S. economic and military intervention to protect its interests, then 121 years later, the Trump Corollary enshrines what Luciano Anzelini calls “informal imperialism”: Latin America is not merely a zone of influence—it is territory where the U.S. admits no competitors.
Trump called it his “home region,” the closest thing to the Nazi concept of “Lebensraum”—the “living space” that fascism claimed as racially legitimate. Here, Southern Command can now deploy, extort, and threaten governments without UN or Congressional approval—and, officially, will “reward and encourage the region’s governments, political parties, and movements broadly aligned with our principles and strategy,” per the 2025 National Security Strategy.
The praise for Kast and Milei—one promising an “Emergency Government,” the other vowing to “drive the final nail into the coffin of Kirchnerism”—as their “good guys” in the Southern Cone reflects this logic: the Venezuela invasion seeks direct possession and administration of its riches, undisguised, alongside a broader offensive to install the far-right international across every corner of the region—with the most fanatical, functional, and servile factions in power.
Step by step, the goal has been territorial and economic dominance—and the reversal of nearly three decades of transformative governments and popular resistance to neoliberalism and plunder. The January 3 action struck precisely where, in 1998, the wave of regional transformation began—ultimately leading to progressive rule across much of Latin America.
Celebrate the punisher
The obscenity spilled onto screens with the “celebration” of Caracas bombed and Nicolás Maduro and his wife kidnapped. Never in Latin American history have so-called “opposition leaders against tyranny” openly clamored for foreign invasion as the path to “freedom”—let alone offered their nation’s riches in public. Nor have “democratic” allies—politicians, journalists, intellectuals, or public figures—so eagerly framed themselves as part of an epic moment, even under the flimsy guise of “there was no other way.” Something this brazen only occurs when fascism triumphs.
Never before have exiled communities celebrated a foreign power bombing their capital as if it were a World Cup victory. On the contrary, the Venezuelan diaspora—regardless of their views on the government—has every reason to condemn the interference of the Obama, Biden, and Trump administrations (I and II) in Venezuela’s economy and politics.
According to a CEPR report (2025), between 2012 and 2020 Venezuela suffered a 71% collapse in GDP per capita—the largest peacetime economic contraction in modern history, equivalent to three Great Depressions. More than half of this decline stems directly from U.S. sanctions, worsened by falling oil prices. In this context, 4.1 million of the 7 million Venezuelans who emigrated did so as a direct result of these measures under the “maximum pressure” strategy.
An earlier study by Mark Weisbrot and Jeffrey Sachs (2019) showed that sanctions imposed since August 2017 reduced caloric intake, increased illness and death, and deepened depression and hyperinflation—fueling mass exodus. The authors estimate these policies contributed to over 40,000 deaths between 2017 and 2018, amounting to systematic harm that fits the definition of “collective punishment”—prohibited by the Geneva and Hague Conventions and contrary to both international law and U.S. legislation.
The wait
Far from condemning this illegal collective punishment, media portrayals highlight the most right-wing segment of Venezuelan migrants—those supportive of foreign intervention—and quickly showcase their celebrations. The utility of this crisis is clear: for a decade, no Latin American election—and even contests in Spain and the U.S.—has gone unmarked by “the Venezuela threat,” with mass migration enabling radical right-wing rhetoric that would otherwise lack foundation.
What will become of María Corina Machado’s call for Venezuelans to await her orders—”we need you mobilized”? Will they take to the streets to “celebrate” and enact regime change as urged, or remain anxious about the next bombing? Are violent protests being primed for a “final assault,” echoing Baghdad in 2003?
Meanwhile, this Sunday—with Maduro reportedly kidnapped by the DEA in Brooklyn and citizens protesting in Times Square—a veteran doctor wrote to me from Caracas: “Yesterday, the master of the North uttered words that take your breath away—words that seek to erase our existence and turn it into a chapter of his history. When Trump mentions Venezuela, he speaks of plunder; he doesn’t come to ask permission—he comes to decree ownership not only of our land, rivers, and seas, but of our very existence. For him, we are not a people, let alone dignified beings; we are simply a space to be exploited. The magnitude of what he said yesterday is horrifying. Difficult times lie ahead. We must prepare not only to survive—but to resist with dignity.”
Translation: Orinoco Tribune
OT/JB/SH
