The illegal kidnapping of President Maduro of Venezuela by US imperialism, on 3 January 2026, and continuing threats of violence against the Venezuelan government, have forced it into negotiating with the US’s demands. This is the culmination of more than a quarter of a century of unceasing and vicious attacks upon the Venezuelan people’s democratic efforts to build a political system independent of US imperialism.
Despite serious economic and political concessions to US threats, the aim of the Venezuelan Socialist Unity Party (PSUV) remains the transformation of the living conditions of the masses using the country’s own resources, despite the wholesale theft of oil that is now in process. Despite being forced to negotiate at the barrel of the US imperialist gun, the Venezuelan government aims to continue its 2024–2030 development plan known as the ‘Seven Transformations’ (7T Plan), which targets key areas for economic and social development.
This report – with links to all previous FRFI articles on Venezuela – summarises the succession of continuous assaults against the Bolivarian republic and its leaders by US imperialism, culminating in 2026 with its desperate and brutal military assault on the country. President Trump’s immoral and illegal assault is not a political aberration; rather he is the most recent and transparent face of US imperialism’s long standing global terror campaign.
Relentless threat: 26 years of US imperialist aggression
Directly after entering office in 2000, President Hugo Chávez was confronted by US imperialism which, despite his initial diplomatic references to a ‘third way’ between capitalism and socialism, immediately prepared to remove him.
In 2000, Venezuela, in an act of solidarity, stepped in to support Cuba after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Venezuela agreed to provide Cuba with a third of its oil needs, at a 40% discount supplemented by a subsidised loan. Conscious of the necessity for economic relations free from the control of imperialism, Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez proposed the ‘Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas’ (now known as the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America or ALBA) in December 2001, to build international solidarity between nations systematically under developed and exploited by imperialism.
Between 11-13 April 2002: a business-inspired military coup took place. Maria Corina Machado (the now-infamous Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2026) was a signatory to the 12 April 2002 ‘Carmona decree’ which abolished the democratic 1999 constitution and replaced it with a plunderer’s charter. Welcomed by the US, the coup was defeated in four days by the infuriated masses, who surrounded the presidential offices at Miraflores, trapping the coup leaders and successfully demanding the release of President Chávez from the island prison in which Pedro Carmona and his Chamber of Commerce business friends and military sympathisers had put him. In the 4 days of confrontations with coup forces across the country, 66 workers were killed and over 437 wounded. A sustained opposition attempt to provoke public disorder continued afterwards.
On 13 September 2002 Chávez criticised neoliberal policies at the UN, arguing for a new global economic order. Attacks by the private media, bombings of foreign embassies, and incidents with the Caracas Metropolitan Police (part of which opposed Chávez) occurred throughout 2002, all were attempts to destabilise the country and unseat the government. At least two thwarted assassination attempts were made during October, with arrests. In November several military officers called for rebellion.
From 2 December 2002 to 3 February 2003 the managers of the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela. S.A. (PDVSA), supported by the Chambers of Commerce and sections of privileged oil and gas workers from three unions (membership about 67,000 workers) closed the oil fields, protesting against Chávez’s rejection of its sale to US interests. From Houston US, Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), locked down and paralysed PDVSA’s computerised oil storage and distribution system, run by SAIC’s subsidiary, Intesa (Informática, Negocios y Tecnología, SA). Oil tankers were also seized. As part of the attack on the government, on 4–5 December the captain of the PVDSA ship Pilin Leon anchored in the Lake Maracaibo shipping channel and threatened to blow it up to destroy the canal. After two weeks, the government were able to unlock the computerised oil distribution system and once the strike was defeated re-crewed the tanker and dismissed many of the management culprits. The cost to the government, and so the people, was $20bn.
Between 27 February and 7 March 2004 the first wave of ‘guarimbas’ – violent confrontations with the authorities and attacks on public infrastructure to provoke the authorities – were organised by the ruthless opposition as it prepared for the 15 August presidential recall referendum, which it had demanded, in the hope of removing President Hugo Chávez from office. Barricades were thrown up in wealthier areas of Caracas from which shots into the pro-government counter protests killed 10.
On 12 May 2004, 153 Colombian (including 28 ex-military) paramilitaries were captured at the ‘Daktari’ ranch outside Caracas, owned by Roberto Alonso, a Cuban exile and prominent leader in the Venezuelan opposition. The elite group had planned to assassinate Chávez during a dinner with bankers in La Casona on 12 May and storm the Miraflores Palace while others would break into the weapons depots located in the Regional Command No. 5 of the National Guard and the La Carlota air base. A hijacked aircraft would bomb the government headquarters.
In the 15 August 2004 Revocatory Referendum Chávez won 59% votes to stay in office, confirmed as fair by the Carter Centre and the Organisation of American State (OAS), but the opposition, including Maria Corina Machado, made the usual denunciations of ‘fraud’ and instigated protests in several towns, with looting and clashes with the authorities. In the 31 October 2004 regional elections, the opposition refused to stand for fear of public rejection.
On 20 February 2005, Chávez reported US plans to assassinate him and threatened an immediate cessation of US bound Venezuelan petroleum shipments if this happened. Chávez’s public friendship and significant trade relationship with Cuba undermined the US policy of isolating Cuba. The US military had prepared a contingency plan, Plan Balboa, to invade Venezuela if ordered to do so. On 15 September 2005, President Bush designated Venezuela as a country that has ‘failed demonstrably during the previous 12 months to adhere to their obligations under international counternarcotics agreements,’ but Bush chose to pursue a path of funding opposition groups in Venezuela, not impose sanctions, while working in the OAS to isolate Venezuela.
In January 2006, Venezuela expelled US naval attaché John Correa, for collecting information from some low-ranking Venezuelan military officers. In March 2006 a White House report characterized Chávez as a ‘demagogue who uses Venezuela’s oil wealth to destabilise democracy in the region’. From May 2006, the Department of State prohibited the sale of weapons to Venezuela claiming ‘lack of cooperation on anti-terrorism efforts’.
In December 2006 Chávez defeated Zulia Governor Manuel Rosales, in a landslide re-election to a third term with 63% of the vote, the largest margin for a Venezuelan president since 1947.
In April 2007 the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) was formed with a founding congress in January 2008. Then, when on 28 May 2007, the private RCTV TV concession licence was not renewed, upper and middle class ‘students’ used this as an excuse to create a ‘clean hands’ (manos blancas) movement which promoted violent anti-government protests, lyingly claiming state control of the media, despite approximately 70% to 95% of radio and television stations respectively, being in private hands.
On 5 August 2007 President Chávez proposed a referendum on 2 December which would ask whether or not to change 69 articles in the 1999 Constitution. The ‘clean hands’ used this to renew their desperate ‘guarimbas’, burning buildings and property, setting up street blockades, disturbances, physical attacks and confrontations with the security forces. Such disgusting episodes continue for the rest of the year. The CIA’s ‘Operation Tenaza [Pliers]’, (20 November 2007) which provided $8m financing the reactionaries through USAID, set up fraudulent polls, distorted information about the referendum in the private media and arranged further violent street protests to create a climate of ‘ungovernability’ in order to provoke military intervention. All of these activities were reported in the imperialist press as examples of government repression.
These plots led to a narrow defeat for the PSUV in the constitutional referendum due to large scale abstentions fostered by the overwhelmingly anti-government media campaign – 80% of all broadcasting and nearly all 118 papers were privately owned – and the threats of private industrialists, whose tactics included creating severe food shortages by hoarding. The reactionary RCTV, whose domestic license had expired, was still received by satellite and cable from Mexico. However, President Chávez and his supporters had now won 13 of 14 national elections and referenda held since 1998 and with uncontested legitimacy remained firmly in power.
In July 2008, the US Fourth Naval Fleet, disbanded in 1950, was re-established by US president Bush, specifically ‘to back counter-terrorism operations’ in the Caribbean and along the length of Latin America.
The 23 November 2008 regional and local elections resulted in significant success for the Venezuelan government. The level of democratic choice and debate in Venezuela is much higher than elsewhere in Latin America, with 17,308 candidates competing for the 603 positions. Around 295 political parties participated. 134 observers from Latin American states observed 100% computerised voting, more advanced than across the US, with every voter getting a receipt.
In January 2009 President Barack Obama lyingly called Chávez ‘a force that has interrupted progress in the region’ of exporting terrorism and supporting Colombian guerrillas. Venezuela severed diplomatic relations with Israel in January 2009, ‘given the inhumane persecution of the Palestinian people.’ On 9 January 2009 over 40 PSUV supporters were injured by members of the opposition hurling missiles and explosives during the swearing in of the newly elected governor of Tachira state. Three PSUV members of the regional assembly were wounded. Meanwhile, anti-government ‘students’ launched protests against a further constitutional referendum following the narrow 2007 defeat of the previous. Held on 15 February 2009, this was a successful campaign to abolish term limits for all elected officials, including president, governors, mayors, and deputies. With a 70% turnout, 54% of voters approved the changes, allowing indefinite re-election (there are no limits either in e.g. Britain, Canada, Australia, Germany, Italy and Scandinavian states).
In April 2010, eight former Colombian soldiers were detained on suspicion of spying; they possessed satellite equipment and camera images of electricity stations, transmission lines and transport infrastructure in Venezuela. There were three fires in the central electricity plant in Carabobo state. The 21 March 36-hour transport ‘strike’ in Caracas was a bosses’ lockout, where the owners of private transportation tried to shut down travel, but barely 5% of the employees struck.
On 1 July 2010, the Salvadoran Francisco Chavez Abarca was detained and extradited to Cuba. He confessed to being contracted by Luis Posada Carriles and the Miami-based counter-revolutionary Cuban American National Foundation to carry out bombings to damage the island’s tourist industry. A hotel bombing killed an Italian tourist. In Venezuela he had similar intentions. When interviewed, Abarca responded that he was planning ‘Riots…tyre burning… riots in the street…the other thing that could be done is attack one political party…so the [pro-Chávez] parties start fighting’ before the Venezuelan National Assembly elections.
In September 2010, National Assembly elections were won by the Chávez government with a reduced majority. At the time, 623 programmes in Venezuela were being funded by USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy, the European Commission and others; between $40-50m was invested by international agencies that year alone. More than 150 Venezuelan journalists had been trained by US agencies with $4m of this. Pro-opposition newspapers and channels publicised gory images of bleeding bodies on a daily basis. On 28 August more than a thousand opposition supporters marched through the streets of Caracas with lying propaganda placards reading ‘No More Deaths’ and ‘Socialism Brings Death’.
In 2011, the BBC and British Press maintained their campaign of cynical denigration against the Venezuelan Government, in alliance with the main media of all the imperialist states.
On 7 October 2012, Hugo Chávez won the presidential election against Henrique Capriles, which Capriles conceded.
In 2013, Venezuelan Vice President Nicolás Maduro expelled two U.S. military attaches from the country, saying they were plotting against Venezuela by attempting to recruit Venezuelan military personnel to destabilize Venezuela.
On 5 March 2013 Hugo Chavez died, and the attack on Venezuelan socialism was renewed, as the opposition seized the opportunity to make further destabilisation efforts.
After a brief and bitter campaign presidential election on 14 April, a 78% turnout chose Nicolás Maduro as Chávez’s successor, to complete the new six-year term Chavez won in October, but Henrique Capriles rejected the count, undoubtedly unjustifiably, and called for his voters to ‘discharge their anger’, a right-wing mantra also then used in Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. For five days attacks and sieges were launched against 35 ‘Barrio Adentro’ sites, hospitals, state institutions, PSUV offices, alternative media locations and CNE (Consejo Nacional Electoral) the National Electoral Council of Venezuela: 11 persons were killed (including two children) and 140+ injured. These disturbances were built on the shortages and inflation that had arisen with the US ‘Cuba’ playbook.
In June 2013, a well-organised and reactionary plan by USAID to destabilise Venezuela – ‘Strategic Plan Venezuela’- was revealed to ‘provoke social discontent,’ ‘increase problems with supply of basic consumer products’, and ‘maintain and increase sabotages that affect public services’ and ensure deaths occurred. Maria Corina Machado was a signatory. In the following period mutual expulsions of diplomats between the two states took place.
In the face of these ongoing serious attacks, on 19 November 2013, Venezuelan President Máduro secured the votes he needed from the National Assembly to empower him to legislate by decree for 12 months. This ‘Enabling Law’, as he explained, gave the Bolivarian Revolution vital powers to ‘fight corruption, usury, money-laundering and the economic war unleashed in recent times against the country by the national oligarchy’.
From 12 Feb to 24 March 2014, an opposition campaign called ‘La Salida’ attempted to generate a civil war through a ‘colour revolution’ (mimicking the subversive campaigns waged in Eastern Europe 1980 to 2014, planned, directed and funded by US imperialism). Violent protests were called by Leopoldo Lopez, Maria Corina Machado and Antonio Ledezma, which led to 43 deaths and over 800 injured. Lopez was arrested.
On 25 March 2014, a group of Air Force generals were arrested for making links with the opposition, after being denounced by junior officers.
On 12 Feb 2015, two plots, ‘Golpe Azul’ and ‘Operación Jericó’, were dismantled. A Tucano aircraft was to attack the Miraflores Presidential Palace during ‘Dia del Juventud’ (Youth Day) celebrations with President Maduro present.
On 8 March 2015, President Obama issued his ridiculous yet ominous Executive Order 13692 designating Venezuela as an ‘unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States’ and cleared the decks for any sort of unrestrained unilateral action that US imperialism could take. The statement itself showed the deep fear that the US imperialists have of the Latin American masses fighting for their own future. In 2015, a financial blockade process was initiated to increase the difficulty and expense of purchases abroad and other transactions when carried out by the Venezuelan Government and institutions. The aim was to strangle the development of socialism in Venezuela.
In the December 2015 elections, the opposition, refused to concede that three of its Members of Parliament were fraudulently elected. Despite their suspension by the Supreme Court, on 5 January 2016 the opposition-dominated National Assembly – for the first time in 17 years – opened provocatively with the three seated. Its 109 seats, along with three pro-opposition indigenous representatives, gave it a two-thirds ‘super-majority’ over Chavista forces, who had won only 55 seats. Despite this success, the opposition continued to assault the republic. The new majority party shamelessly presented an amnesty law for Leopoldo Lopez and ‘political prisoners’, many of whom were properly convicted for their part in the violent protests orchestrated by the opposition itself since 2014, which resulted in deaths and the destruction of public property.
Between 12-13 February 2016, the Government dismantled plans to launch an air attack on state institutions and civilians. A military coup was foiled, leading to the arrest of the organiser of previous violent protests, Antonio Ledezma.
From 2016 onwards, European imperialism began to turn on the screws. In April 2016, because of US financial restrictions, financial institutions began to stop receiving payments in dollars made by Venezuelan institutions. In May, Commerzbank (Germany) closed the accounts of Venezuelan banks and the PDVSA. In July, Citibank closed correspondent accounts of Venezuelan banks and institutions, including the Central Bank of Venezuela, reducing the capacity to make payments in dollars, thus imposing extra costs for making transactions in other currencies. In August Banco Novo in Portugal followed suit.
The continued assassinations of PSUV and social reformers continued throughout the year, as the reactionary parties in the National Assembly tried to force out President Maduro.
In the first three months of 2017 there took place the capture of members of operation ‘Sword of God’ including Ángel Vivas and Raúl Baduel, ex-generals who had recruited subordinates with the aim of assassinating Maduro after seizing Fort Tiuna (Military HQ) and creating a junta.
From March to April 2017, another operation, named ‘Escudo Zamorano’ planned by ex-functionaries and a colonel, was frustrated, revealing 32kg of C4 explosives and weapons to be used in a coup attempt. The politicians Roberto Enríquez, Oswaldo Alvatez and Julio Borges, were involved.
Between 1 April to 31 July 2017, planned insurrections using ‘hybrid war’ methods, a standard procedure of the opposition, were carried out. In three months, 160 people were killed and 2,000 injured. Such civil disruption, actively promoted by US agencies and domestic reactionaries, combined cyber-attacks, ‘disinformation’, externally prepared armed attacks, paid protesters and anti-government paramilitaries.
In March 2017 the Supreme Court suspended the National Assembly’s powers, after months during which it had attempted to block President Nicolás Maduro’s executive actions and continued to accept the three improperly elected MPs. After a review ordered by President Maduro the Court reversed its ruling on 1 April 2017, but the political crisis and protests continued. In these opposition supporters seized Orlando Figuera, a black Venezuelan Chavista, stabbed him and set him alight. The 24 April ‘national sit-in’ by the opposition blocked the main roads in the country. By 25 April 2017, after three weeks of protests, 48 people had been killed (13 by random shooting and fires), most of them supporters of the government as they confronted violent anti-government elements. These disturbances organised by the opposition, despite its majority in the National Assembly, led the government executive to propose a new Constituent Assembly, with an election for members on 30 July. This was boycotted by the opposition. The Constituent Assembly was inaugurated on 4 August and the governing coalition parties now sat to legislate. A situation of ‘dual power’ thus nominally existed since the rump opposition, while defeated, claimed continued authority in the now electorally superseded National Assembly caucus. The opposition now vowed to ‘stay on the streets’ until presidential elections, due to be held at the end of 2018, were brought forward.
At this stage (with Donald Trump now US president) open and direct external interference was viewed as necessary by the imperialist powers to overthrow the obviously still popular Maduro government. The opposition constantly and shamelessly pleaded for outside intervention by the US. In July 2017, the US Treasury sanctioned 13 senior officials of the Venezuelan government associated with the 2017 Venezuelan Constituent Assembly elections. Fascist groups launched a campaign of street violence, resulting again in more than 100 deaths, dozens of injuries, and damage to infrastructure. All this was accompanied by an intense private media campaign, driven by the domestic far right, which combined with the sanctions-induced economic crisis to cause mass outward migration—a phenomenon unprecedented in the country’s history.
On 11 August 2017, President Trump said that he was ‘not going to rule out a military option’ to confront the government of Nicolás Maduro and the deepening crisis in Venezuela.
The then deeply reactionary Colombian government kept a list of 200 (at Jan 2019) Venezuelans with a ‘close relationship and support for the Nicolás Maduro regime’, banned from entering Colombia or subject to expulsion.
External financial strangulation
The imperialists’ financial attack intensified in 2017. US companies and banks refused to accept payments from Venezuela. That July, Citibank refused to accept Venezuelan funds to import 300,000 doses of insulin. US pressure on Russia and China also had an effect. In May, Russian contractors had withdrawn from Venezuela’s new blockchain ‘Petro’ cyber-currency due to pressure by the US Security Exchange Commission. In August, Chinese and Russian banks reported that they could not carry out foreign currency operations for Venezuela under pressure from the US Treasury Department.
On 6 August 2017 in ‘Operation David’, a paramilitary attack on Fort Paramacay in Carabobo state was quashed by government forces. Frustrated by this failure on 24 August 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13808, imposing broad financial sanctions. It prohibited US persons and entities dealing in new PDVSA debt of longer than 90 days, or Venezuelan government debts with maturity greater than 30 days, stopped US persons trading in Venezuelan company shares, and banned payment of dividends or profits to the government of Venezuela by any US based companies, which especially affected PDVSA’s three US CITGO refineries. Medicines, food and essential resources for the Agriculture Plan (Plan de Siembra) have been key targets of the blockade. The ports of Venezuela were cynically classified as Ports of War, causing a higher payment for freight and insurance for imports and exports.
In August, the EU’s Euroclear retained $1.2bn of Venezuela’s dollars. In October, Deutsche Bank closed correspondent accounts of Chinese Citibank for processing PDVSA payments. At the same time, entry of vaccines into Venezuela was delayed for four months because it was impossible to make payments at the Swiss Bank UBS. In September 2017 Canada sanctioned 40 Venezuelan officials ‘in response to the government of Venezuela’s deepening descent into dictatorship’. Canadians were banned from transactions with the 40 individuals, whose Canadian assets were frozen.
In November, Venezuela paid to acquire primaquine and chloroquine (for antimalarial treatment), from BSN Medical laboratory in Colombia. The Colombian Government blocked their delivery. In December, $29.7m in payments to food suppliers through the CLAP food programme were returned by European Banks, and the Colombian president Juan Manuel Santos prevented the transfer to Venezuela of more than 1,700 tons of pork, deliberately to exacerbate shortages.
Luis Almagro, President of the Organisation of American States, demanded a total oil blockade of Venezuela, and the EU declared an arms embargo and sanctions on Venezuelan politicians. Despite all of this, the PSUV won in the regional elections of October 2017. The opposition boycotted the municipal elections in December, again for fear of losing.
On 18 January 2018, the EU sanctioned seven Venezuela officials, accusing them of human rights abuses or breaching the rule of law. The sanctioned individuals were prohibited from entering the nations of the EU, and their assets were frozen. In March 2018, Panama sanctioned 55 public officials. On 20 April 2018, the Mexican Senate froze the assets of officials of the Maduro administration and prohibited them from entering Mexico. This public pressure was no surprise given that Venezuelan presidential elections were scheduled for 20 May.
On 20 May 2018, Nicolás Maduro of the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) was re-elected with 67% of the vote. In May the government had dismantled two other operations ‘Constitution’, to sabotage the 2018 presidential elections with advice from US and Colombian officials, and ‘Armageddon’, aimed at assassinating President Maduro with US funding. Three months later, on 4 August 2018, an attempt was made to kill Maduro and senior leaders at an open-air address in Caracas using drones. This ‘Operation David v Goliath’ was a plot trailed back to Colombia. Seven attendees were wounded.
In May, the US prohibited international creditors to renegotiate any debt issued before August 2017, banned any US citizen or financial institution from making transactions in the Venezuelan ‘Petro’ crypto currency, and totally prohibited investment in Venezuelan assets by US citizens or on US soil. In May, a payment of $9m dollars was blocked by international banks for the acquisition of dialysis supplies for approximately 15,000 haemodialysis patients.
In November 2018 the Bank of England confiscated $1.2bn dollars’ worth of gold that the Venezuelan Government had deposited there. Eight years later, on 5 January 2026, the British foreign secretary Yvette Cooper (who as Home Secretary proscribed Palestine Action) shamelessly told MPs in the House of Commons that Britain continued not to officially recognise the Venezuelan administration (even though the US in practice had by now) and so would not return the stolen gold, because it was ‘important that we (sic) have the pressure in place to have a transition to a democracy’.
On 10 January 2019, following Maduro’s inauguration for a second term (re-elected in 2018) the opposition-led National Assembly declared his election invalid. On 21 January 2019, a small-scale attempted military mutiny occurred in the Cotiza neighbourhood, Caracas, where 27 military officials kidnapped security and stole weapons, trying to march on Miraflores, then fought against and were apprehended by authorities in the early hours.
On 23 January 2019, supported by other right-wing members in the previously replaced National Assembly, Juan Guaidó declared himself acting president, bolstered by the imperialist assaults in Venezuela. The US and a dozen other imperialist countries including Britain recognised his claim.
On 28 January 2019, the US administration directly attacked PDVSA with Executive Order 13850, freezing all of PDVSA’s assets within US jurisdiction, estimated at approximately $7bn, and prohibited U.S. companies from making payments to the ‘Maduro-controlled company’ for oil imports. These funds were to be held in blocked accounts, aimed at eventually transferring them to the interim government.
On 22 February 2019, objectively as part of a propaganda attack on the Venezuelan government, the British billionaire Richard Branson and Colombian businessman Bruno Ocampo organised a live concert headed ‘Music for Venezuela: Aid and Freedom’ in Cúcuta on the border between Colombia and Venezuela. In 2017 Colombia had blocked exports of food to Venezuela! Now attempts were made to force ‘humanitarian aid’ across the Colombian border by USAID, the so-called ‘battle of the two bridges’. Venezuela prevented this media stunt. At the same time, Guaidó made repeated calls for the military to join him in the fight against Maduro’s ‘dictatorship’. The government’s opponents ‘besieged’ some barracks and fighting broke out in Urena (a major crossing point and commercial centre between Venezuela and Colombia) between militant reactionaries and the police. There were dozens of wounded and four people died.
On 30 April 2019 there was a failed attempt by Juan Guaidó and Leopoldo Lopez to provoke a military uprising (Operation Liberty), a failed putsch, at the Carlotta airbase outside Caracas. The US Department of State was caught off guard by Guaidó’s decision to launch his ‘coup’ a day earlier than expected. Guaidó called for his supporters and the country’s armed forces to take to the streets again the following day. On 1 May, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo stated ‘Military action is possible. If that’s what’s required, that’s what the United States will do’. Guaidó said he would consider a U.S. military intervention should the time arise. On 2 May, there were 230 wounded and four people killed in clashes between opposition supporters and government forces. Maduro expelled 54 members from the military and the head of intelligence who publicly backed Guaidó. At least 25 military men who opposed Maduro sought asylum at the Brazilian embassy in Caracas. Meanwhile Lopez escaped from house arrest and took refuge first in the Chilean embassy, then the Spanish embassy until October 2020, when he fled to Spain. Other embassies sheltered other putschists. On 11 May, still allowed to work freely, Guaidó organised another march in Caracas. Guaidó was not arrested, but eventually fled into Colombia in 2023, which immediately expelled him to the US.
The US economic campaign against the country had brought about scarcity and a consequent hyperinflation that certainly fed discontent. All this caused a split within the opposition, as one sector distanced itself from the fascist wing and came to agreements with the Bolivarian government, seemingly willing to bring about a peaceful political process. The government then announced legislative elections in December 2020 in order to re-establish the National Assembly, a suspended institution, the shadow of which had previously been used as the opposition’s talking shop since 2017, while the Venezuelan National Constituent Assembly (ANC) had been sitting. However, the opposition then again refused to stand in order both to avoid defeat and be able to repeat its slanders of dictatorship against President Maduro.
In August 2019, US President Trump issued Executive Order 13884, which, among other things, prohibited US persons from engaging in transactions with persons who have acted or purported to act directly or even indirectly for or on behalf of PDVSA.
US sanctions and economic restrictions against Venezuela began damaging the country significantly from 2015, when the US cut off Venezuela’s access to the credit market, repeating its Cuban recipe of commercial and financial asphyxia. An oil export dependent country, without a net inflow of dollars to finance the productive process, the economy fluctuates with the rhythm of the scarcity of foreign currency. Any country that buys or sells oil has to obtain the dollars to make the transaction. So cruel was the effect of the block on international financing, aimed at creating a rebellion against the government, that from 2015 to 2022, 20% of the population had emigrated, with a major intensification occurring between 2017 and 2019.
Between 2014 and 2017, Venezuela paid $68.653bn interest on its foreign debt. Despite the fact that the country did not default on its payments, it was given the worst ratings by risk rating agencies such as Moody’s and Standard and Poors, undermining confidence by any economic partner in the country, and intentionally raising borrowing costs where loans could be accessed. This is financial warfare. Despite all this the communal movement continued to resist these attacks and maintain support for communities and the government.
In December 2019 FRFI wrote:
‘The US has interfered with governments in Latin America since the 19th century and is as active today as ever. The most recent examples – in addition to the continuous and open economic warfare and political subversion directed at Venezuela for nearly 20 years, and against Cuba for 60 years – are its support for November’s expulsion of Morales in Bolivia, its satisfaction at the imprisonment and consequent removal of Lula from the October 2018 Brazilian elections, its failed attempt to violently remove Ortega in Nicaragua in April 2018, and the subordination of Moreno in Ecuador to its will following his appointment in April 2017’. (FRFI 273)
The pressure continued
Since the US imposed a total oil embargo in 2019, Venezuela’s oil production was slashed in half, decimating foreign currency reserves and pushing down imports by 64% in a year. Venezuela lost a third of its GDP in 2019. On 26 March the United States accused Maduro of ‘narcoterrorism’ and offered a $15 million reward for information leading to his arrest. On 31 March United States said it would lift sanctions if Maduro agreed to organise elections without him in six to twelve months’ time and it reiterated US support for Guaidó.
On 21 January 2020 the US sanctioned 15 PDVSA aircraft, claiming bizarrely that they had ‘been involved in the harassment of US military flights in Caribbean airspace’, and had also been used to provide transport to ‘sanctioned individuals’.
On 3 May 2020, the Venezuelan government frustrated a military incursion by mercenaries on the coast of Guaira state, including two former US special forces soldiers, codenamed ‘Operation Gideon’ but remembered derisively as the ‘Bay of Piglets’ invasion. The insurgents were connected to Colombian mercenary recruiter Silvercop – by a $212m contract. Confessions indicated a deal involving the US DEA and narco-traffickers with the backing of Guaidó’s associates to assassinate Maduro. This further discredited Guaidó.
On 12 June 2020 Alex Saab, a Colombian businessman and intermediary for the Venezuelan government, was seized , in Cape Verde after US applications for his arrest for supporting Venezuelan financial exchanges. He was released in December 2023 as part of a prisoner exchange. According to reports, after the US kidnap of President Maduro in January 2026, Saab was apprehended by the US on 4 February after it forced his removal from his post as Venezuelan industry minister, as part of the persecution of key members of the Bolivarian government.
In July 2020, British courts decided to support the British government’s refusal to return 31 tonnes of Venezuela’s gold to its legitimate government. Britain, the US and around 50 other imperialist-aligned nations continued to recognise the puppet Guaidó as ‘interim president’ of Venezuela, although the vast majority of the world’s countries did not.
On 16 September 2020, a ‘Fact-Finding’ Mission of the UN Human Rights Council (set up in 2019) accused state officials, including President Nicolas Maduro, of ordering arbitrary killings, torture and other crimes against humanity. This report, conducted from outside the country, and full of falsehoods, completely failed to mention the suffocating US sanctions against Venezuela, described as crimes against humanity by the former UN rapporteur Alfred de Zayas the year before.
In January 2021 the European Union stopped recognising Juan Guaidó as ‘interim president’ while still not recognising Maduro as legitimate president. Later in the year, the opposition, in the wilderness for years, engaged in negotiations with the government in Mexico.
Starting in March 2021, intense fighting broke out in the border state of Apure between Venezuelan security forces and drug gangs. These clashes led to the displacement of residents, used by the western press to attack the Venezuelan government
By June 2021, the US-led blockade had devastated the Venezuelan economy. GDP had contracted by 70% since 2013, since oil exports were severely restricted by US sanctions.
In October 2021, imperialism’s attempts to isolate Venezuela regionally were undermined by the election of social democratic governments in Mexico, Argentina and Bolivia. The victory of progressive Pedro Castillo in Peru in 2021 effectively disbanded the vicious ‘Lima Group’ which had led the attack on Venezuela. Now more negotiations were on the way as the US, EU and Britain continued to try to get rid of President Maduro and manipulate the PSUV.
In the 21 November 2021 elections for governors, mayors, state legislators and councillors were held, and despite all the attacks it had endured, the government made gains.
In the same month November 2021, after years of pressure (from 2006 to 2017) by the US on its proxies in Colombia and other right wing Latin American governments, the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor announced the opening of a formal investigation into ‘possible’ crimes against humanity in Venezuela. Delcy Rodríguez, then Venezuelan vice president, described the case against Venezuela in the ICC as a great farce.
On 5 March 2022, US envoys travelled to Caracas for the first time in 20 years, driven by Washington’s urgent need to secure oil imports to replace supplies from Russia, previously the third biggest oil exporter to the US after Canada and Mexico. Determined to destroy the Bolivarian process, but anxious for the oil, a violent solution was being more clearly raised in US ruling class circles.
In 2022, a military coup was attempted titled ‘Transition movement for the dignity of the people’, by a group of active reserve officers. On 18 April ‘Operation Gideon II’ was launched by a terrorist cell to create anxiety amongst the population and to block presidential elections set for 20 May, despite which President Maduro was re-elected.
From February-March 2022, US Treasury enacted sanctions against Rosneft subsidiaries (TNK Trading) for trading Venezuelan oil. On 27 September, the EU added seven members of the Venezuelan security and intelligence forces to their sanctions list. On 14 November, the EU renewed sanctions against Venezuela for one year.
The magnitude of suffering imposed on Venezuela cannot be overstated. Since 2014, US, British and EU coercive measures have strangled the Bolivarian revolution’s 20-year struggle to build socialism, severely undermining its ability to fund health, education and housing. Since 2017, an all-out blockade has decimated Venezuela’s oil industry, denying it diluents and spare parts, sanctioning cargo ships and insurance companies and imposing secondary sanctions on third countries and multinationals. 7.7m Venezuelans left the country over these 20 years, seeking respite from the siege. Nevertheless, in 2022 an economic recovery was being achieved, infuriating US imperialism.
In January 2023, opposition parties officially dissolved the ‘interim government’ and stopped ‘recognising’ Juan Guaidó as leader of the country, acknowledging that it had failed to unseat Nicolás Maduro. The failure of the US’s gross interference in Venezuela, despite its hugely damaging effect on the economy, was evident. The opposition now prepared for the July 2024 presidential elections. Colombia and Peru moved to restore diplomatic relations with the Maduro government.
Nevertheless, on 13 November 2023 the EU extended sanctions against Venezuela for six months, and the US government, with no real faith in the opposition, still continued to recognise the 2015 National Assembly.
In April 2023 the US Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) gave the green light to auction off shares of the Venezuelan-owned CITGO Petroleum Corporation sited in the US, with 4,000 petrol stations, worth $10bn, described as the ‘theft of the century’ by Venezuela’s leaders.
On 17 October 2023, after two years of intermittent negotiations, the Barbados Agreement was signed in Bridgetown with Norwegian mediation, drawing the Venezuelan right wing back into the electoral process after their years of failure and their abstention from elections. US imperialism had derailed previous talks in 2021 by seizing Venezuelan financial expert and diplomat Alex Saab. The Barbados Agreement imposed 12 points for elections in the second half of 2024.
In January 2024, a Venezuelan Boeing 747 cargo plane was handed to US authorities by Argentina after being grounded there since 2022, stolen, with the excuse that a member of the crew was suspected of violating US sanctions against Venezuela and Iran. The crew of Venezuelans and Iranians, initially detained, were later released.
In 28 July 2024, President Maduro was re-elected. Maria Corina Machado (always the promoter of a military solution) and opposition presidential candidate Edmundo González claimed fraud and encouraged street violence against the government until 3 August: 25 died and 131 were wounded. Public and private buildings were attacked, including schools and medical facilities. The US and EU states claimed the election results were fabricated, when in fact the central electoral computer system had been attacked by internet assailants from outside the country to sabotage the result and provide the basis for such accusations. On 12 September 2024 the US placed sanctions on 16 officials, officially dubbed by the US as ‘cronies’ of the Venezuelan President. Since 2015 the US has sanctioned over 140 Venezuelan individuals and 100 Venezuelan entities.
In September 2024 US President Joe Biden ordered the seizure of a Venezuelan government Dassault Falcon 900EX in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic that had been used to transport President Maduro on international trips. On 6 February 2025 the US seized a second Venezuelan government aircraft (Dassault Falcon 2000EX) used by PDVSA, in Santo Domingo, because it used US made spare parts, asserting ‘violations of US sanctions, export controls, and money laundering’.
In March 2025, US President Donald Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act of 1798, giving him wartime authority to order the summary arrest and deportation of citizens of a nation that is in a declared war with the US, or which perpetrates, attempts, or threatens an ‘invasion or predatory incursion’. He constructed a useful enemy, a Venezuelan criminal gang ‘Tren de Aragua’, claiming it was invading the United States at the behest of the Venezuelan government. He ordered accused members of Tren de Aragua to be immediately and indefinitely imprisoned without trial and without prison sentences, nor release dates, and deported to El Salvador. No one arrested had time to defend themselves against the accusations that they were gang members. The simultaneous attack on US domestic rights reflects the inevitable consequence of imperialist practices upon oppressed peoples, creating a precedent to apply the same actions to organisations or persons in the domestic context. On 18 June, in a significant political victory, Venezuela secured the release of 252 of its nationals detained in El Salvador.
From September 2025, the US began destroying vessels in the Caribbean, claiming without evidence that they were drug transports, in order to build up a propaganda picture and US domestic atmosphere that would then be concluded with the kidnapping of the Venezuelan president as a ‘drug lord’.
In December 2025 the long-prepared plans to intervene militarily in Venezuela were made clear as a huge US fleet located itself in the southern Caribbean.
The US until now had failed in every effort – economic warfare, open bribery, lies, corrupt funding promoting street confrontations, phoney aid convoys, riots, mercenary incursions, killings of Venezuelan public officials and private citizens, assassination attempts, sabotage of infrastructure, etc – to obtain the election of a Venezuelan government that supported imperialist interests.
Finally, on 3 January 2026, Trump resorted to direct US terrorism. In complete contempt for international law, US forces invaded Venezuela and kidnapped President Maduro and his wife the National Assembly member Cilia Adela Flores, killing at least 80 people and wounding 100 military personnel and civilians. The death toll included 32 Cuban soldiers who died defending Maduro. This is the desperate expression of a complete failure of 25 years of US imperialist lies and manipulation, with the inevitable resort to the bare bones of US policy, ‘might is right’.
The US is now enforcing control over Venezuela’s oil, seizing more than 50% of its value, as British energy companies shore up their own deals
Down with US, British and EU imperialism!
Victory to the Bolivarian revolution!
