Aggression Against Venezuela: MAGA is a Global Threat, Not Just a Domestic One
“[W]hen Theodore Roosevelt asked Attorney General Philander Knox to concoct a legal justification for the unsavory U.S. measures that enabled construction of the Panama Canal, Knox replied, ‘Oh, Mr. President, do not let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality. Trump goes monster-hunting untainted by a whiff of legality’.”—George F. Will, Washington Post, January 4, 2026
Washington, D.C. – Standing for Democracy (SFD) condemns the recent U.S. seizure of Venezuela’s president and first-lady. This brazenly imperial venture raises many unanswered questions, but some facts are beyond dispute, as George Will posits in the Washington Post. Saturday’s attack and ongoing U.S. operations in Venezuela are criminal acts of war, in clear violation of international law, and evidence that MAGA represents a global authoritarian threat, not merely a domestic political movement.
“Regardless of one’s view of the Maduro administration in Venezuela, no country has the right to wage an offensive attack against another country, let alone kidnap its leadership. If such an attack had been carried out by any other nation against the United States in response to Donald Trump’s multiple, egregious violations of international and domestic law, the entire world would be united in treating it as an act of war,” said Bill Fletcher, co-founder of Standing for Democracy and past president of TransAfrica Forum.
These actions belie Trump’s promises of isolationism, and demonstrate instead that his willingness to dismantle constitutional democracy at home extends equally to the rule of law and democratic rights abroad. The actions taken against Venezuela, including the bombing of boats, the seizure of ships, and statements asserting control over Venezuela’s oil industry to facilitate its exploitation by U.S. corporations, are tantamount to piracy and de facto annexation.
MAGA is an authoritarian movement backed by powerful business interests, with plans to fundamentally change how the U.S. government works both at home and abroad. The changes in progress include increasingly explicit recognition of spheres of influence belonging to major world powers and their ruling oligarchs, expressed not only by the recent U.S. attack on Venezeula and its collateral threats to Cuba’s economy and China’s oil supplies, but also by the Trump administration’s support for annexations (e.g., Western Sahara); pressure on Ukraine to submit to Russian domination; promotion of peace agreements that hold either personal gain or gain for Trump allies (e.g., Democratic Republic of the Congo); and continuing support for Israeli genocide in Gaza. There are, in addition, efforts by MAGA to link with other neofascist and right-wing populist formations around the world to shift the balance of power in various countries in favor of rightwing authoritarianism. Together, these actions threaten a grave intensification of imperial aggressions and inter-imperial rivalries, with potentially disastrous effects on the economy, the ecology, and working people’s lives worldwide.
It is a disservice for the media to portray the attacks on Venezuela solely in terms of Maduro’s conduct in office or the effectiveness of U.S. military action. They must be seen as nothing less than an extension of the criminality of the entire Trumpist enterprise. Defending the interests of working people means opposing the complementary parts of MAGA’s policies both at home and abroad. We cannot simply pick and choose, or pretend that there are “good” parts of Trump’s policy agenda that can be assessed without taking the agenda as a whole into account.
We call on the media, our elected officials, and all Americans to avoid uncritically adopting MAGA’s framing of these attacks outside of the full context of Trump’s complete set of disastrous domestic and foreign policies.
We call equally on organizations and leaders with a history of promoting global peace and justice initiatives – and especially unions and the broader labor movement – to take the lead in convening an emergency strategy group to analyze and respond to the emerging contours of MAGA foreign policy manifest in the recent attacks against Venezuela, aggression and threats towards Nigeria, the Yemeni Houthis, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Canada, and Greenland, and the threat of heightened imperial aggressions and inter-imperial rivalries to which these actions will give rise.
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