On 5 January — two days after U.S. bombs fell on Caracas and US special forces kidnapped Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro — the United States’ Department of State posted a graphic to its social media accounts. Over a black-and-white image of Donald Trump, it declared: “This is OUR hemisphere.”
Three days later, Trump announced that the United States would “start now” launching land attacks inside Mexico, under the pretext of targeting drug cartels — extending the same doctrine of force beyond Venezuela’s borders and making clear that no nation in the region is exempt.
The message was meant to intimidate. But it should serve as a rallying cry for all who know that, in Cuban poet Jose Martí’s words, a “just cause, even from the depths of a cave, can do more than an army.”
Under the banner of the ‘Donroe Doctrine’ — Trump’s grotesque renovation of the two-century-old Monroe Doctrine — the United States has escalated from violence administered by spreadsheets to violence delivered by missiles, announcing its intention to rule the Americas by force.
These actions are not subtle, nor are they dressed in the language of law or shared morality. Trump has been explicit: the assault on Venezuela is about oil, calling it “one of the most precise attacks on sovereignty.” His Vice President, JD Vance, went further still, boasting that beyond “controlling the incredible natural resources of Venezuela,” the attack was meant to “make people afraid to cross us.”
This is what “Our Hemisphere” means: fear, force, and plunder.
From Caracas to Havana, Mexico City to Bogotá, the White House is advancing a project as old as empire itself: to subordinate the peoples of the hemisphere, seize their resources, and crush any political movement that dares to place human need above private profit. What began with sanctions and blockades now proceeds through bombs, abductions, and open threats of invasion. Today it is Venezuela. Tomorrow it is Mexico. Cuba, Colombia, and any nation that refuses submission are already in Washington’s sights.
When the United States government claims the hemisphere as its own, it is not speaking for its people. It is capital speaking — against workers, peasants, Indigenous peoples, and popular majorities struggling for sovereignty, dignity, and democratic control over their futures. As the Latin American liberator Simón Bolívar foresaw nearly two centuries ago, “The United States seems destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.”
Against this vision of possession stands another: Nuestra América.
As Gustavo Petro has warned, “Latin America must once again emancipate itself.” His words echo a long and unfinished tradition of continental resistance — from Bolívar, to Mexico’s Benito Juárez, who insisted that peace requires respect for the rights of others, to Cuba’s José Martí, who gave this struggle its most enduring name.
In his 1891 essay Nuestra América, Martí warned that “the disdain of the formidable neighbour [the United States]… is the greatest danger that faces our America.” He urged the peoples of the continent “to muster and march in unison” in ranks “as compact as the veins of silver in the depths of the Andes.”
What we are witnessing today is class struggle played out through imperial violence. The United States stands as the political and military instrument of capital: Big Oil bankrolling politics; arms manufacturers profiting from destruction; and financial power thriving on plunder and permanent war. These sections of capital pay for the policies they desire and are richly rewarded. The share prices of US oil majors soared around 10% following Maduro’s kidnapping, representing a return of around $100 billion on an investment of $450 million in the last US elections.
The government serves its donors, so aggression can proceed without consent. Public opinion has repeatedly shown opposition to U.S. military action in Venezuela — a gap between elite appetite and popular will bridged by force, not democracy.
Venezuela — like many nations before it — represents a different possibility: that the popular classes might govern themselves, control their resources, and chart a future beyond imperial command. And that possibility represents an existential threat to empire.
Under Hugo Chávez, poverty and unemployment were halved, school enrolment surged, undernourishment was virtually eliminated, and millions gained access to pensions and healthcare for the first time. As Chávez himself put it, “We are not threatening the world; we are threatening privilege.” Worse still, from the perspective of empire, Venezuela dared to promote regional integration and international solidarity — demonstrating that another path was not only possible, but achievable.
This is why Venezuela has been targeted for 25 years. And this is why the stakes of Trump’s escalating intervention in Latin America are truly global.
Reactionary forces are cohering rapidly around a renewed doctrine of domination. In Ecuador, President Daniel Noboa welcomed Maduro’s abduction by declaring that “all the criminal narco-Chavistas will have their moment,” predicting that the progressive movement would “collapse across the continent.” In Chile, far-right President-elect José Antonio Kast hailed the U.S. attack as “great news for the region.” In Argentina and El Salvador, Javier Milei and Nayib Bukele took to social media to mock those condemning the flagrant breach of the UN Charter. This Reactionary International is already forming — and it stands ready to serve Washington’s corporate and strategic interests.
Yet forces of peace, democracy, and sovereignty remain fragmented. There are joint statements — most notably from Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Uruguay, and Spain — but no joint strategy. Words without coordination cannot match a doctrine backed by force. That imbalance has allowed imperial aggression to advance faster than the solidarities required to stop it.
That is why the Progressive International is returning to Bogotá to organise [an emergency convening of governments, political leaders and movements to defend Nuestra América. On 24 and 25 January, we will honour the legacies of Bolívar, Juárez, and Martí not with ceremony, but with commitment — by articulating a common plan of action to defend the unity of the Americas and the liberty of its peoples from the tyranny of foreign domination.
Sign up now to tune in from across the world — and to stand with those who refuse to live in *their* hemisphere, and instead continue the long struggle to build our America.
From the story of the British women who stopped the supply of Hawker fighter jets to East Timor to the establishment of the East India Company, the 2026 Internationalism Calendar features 12 chapters of struggle, victory and defeat. Order your stunning 2026 wall calendar today.
Israel’s deadly violence against the Palestinians despite the so-called “ceasefire” in place. The new year in Gaza was met with heavy rains, the continued closure of the Rafah crossing, deadly airstrikes and Israel banning 37 aid organisations from operating in the Strip. In the West Bank, Israeli forces launched a military raid on Birzeit University campus, firing live ammunition and tear gas. At least 11 Palestinian students were wounded by live ammunition, while dozens choked on tear gas.
PI members the Democratic Socialists of America and the Palestinian Youth Movement have joined forces with other organisations to call a [National Day of Action](http://dsausa.us/vz-one-page) against Washington's war on Venezuela on Saturday 10 January. Join them.
[Applications close on Sunday for Comet](https://www.climatevanguard.org/comet), a 4.5-month training programme for youth organisers in Britain who are seeking to understand the world and how to change it, run by PI member Climate Vanguard. Comet aims to develop the political capacities that we need to advance our struggle for revolutionary change.
Participants will learn about systems analysis, liberatory strategy, and effective organising with leading popular intellectuals, including Jason Hickel, Peter Mertens, Jess Spear, Shahram Azhar, Alyson Escalante, James Schneider, Lizzy Oh, Kai Heron, and more.
Click [here](https://www.climatevanguard.org/comet) for more information on the programme and how to apply.
