IBON International stands with the Venezuelan people and their allies in condemning the January 3 military invasion by the United States (US), leading to the illegal abduction of the country’s President Nicolas Maduro and the First Lady Cilia Flores. US President Trump’s operation, from the airstrikes to the abduction of Maduro, killed at least 80 people and was a brazen violation of national sovereignty, people’s rights, and international law.
We call on the international community to stand on the side of the Venezuelan people who are out in the streets to assert their right to self-determination over the destiny of their country. We urge support for the demand to free Maduro from his illegal captivity.
US interests lie in their corporations’ access to Venezuelan natural wealth after centuries of bleeding Latin America’s open veins. The country’s proven oil reserves are equivalent to around 303 billion barrels. It is rich in rare earths and minerals such as gold, iron ore, nickel, and copper. We condemn the attacks as a monopoly capitalist bid over such natural wealth; the US seeks economic pillage as it tries to stem global crisis, slow down its strategic decline, and win against China in economic, industrial, military, and technological hegemony.
The US invasion is part of long-running attempts at regime change in Venezuela and in the region. It was an application of the Monroe Doctrine, a century-old US policy treating Latin America as a US backyard, that Trump re-affirmed in his 2025 “America First” National Security Strategy. US military spending doubled to USD 1.06 trillion in the same year, from USD 531 billion twenty-five years ago.
The immediate aftermath mainly serves US multinational corporations. Stock market shares in US and European arms companies have increased. The same is the case for the shares in US oil corporations; the US has already gained increased access to exploit Venezuela’s oil reserves. . Wall Street finance capitalists expressed eagerness for new investment opportunities.
Decisions over Venezuela’s oil, minerals, and its development model should be in the hands of the Venezuelan people. Neither the US nor its right-wing allies have any right to unilaterally “run the country.” The terrible attacks point to the urgency and necessity of ending all forms of US economic, political, and military interventions, including sanctions that have strangled the Venezuelan people and economy.
The US attack on Venezuela should be condemned as an attack on social movements and countries aspiring for sovereignty, economic democracy, and for peace based on social justice. In the last 25 years Venezuela has implemented measures contrary to US economic dogma: it nationalised oil extraction. It exited from the US-led IMF-World Bank and rejected their policy impositions. It attempted to weaken the hegemony of the US dollar by increasingly using the Chinese yuan in oil sales.
After decades of supporting coups, regime change, and assassinations, the attack on Venezuela sends the message that efforts to construct an economy opposed to US monopoly capital, and measures that aim to break from US dictates, will be repressed by an iron hand.
Coercive foreign policy has once again trumped any US respect for international law, exposing the double standards in the current international order. The US has so far wielded with impunity the power to intervene in sovereign countries’ affairs and absolve itself from accountability. The multilateral system is truly in crisis due to hegemonic powers’ own making.
The path of justice requires condemning the US attack, standing with Venezuela, and working to reject all pretexts for US invasion and intervention anywhere else in the world. We call on the international community to strengthen solidarity for Venezuela and all peoples aspiring for their full sovereignty, as well as liberation from all forms of colonialism and neocolonialism. #
