World Socialist Web Site: US imperialism rings in the New Year with a new war

The World Socialist Web Site, the Socialist Equality Party in the US and the International Committee of the Fourth International unequivocally denounce the invasion of Venezuela and the criminal abduction of President Nicolás Maduro in the early hours of Saturday morning. We demand the immediate release of Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, and the full withdrawal of all US troops and military forces from the region.

The invasion, which included the killing of at least 40 people, is a total repudiation by the Trump regime of any semblance of legality. It is an unprovoked war of aggression launched in flagrant violation of international law and carried out to reimpose colonial control over Venezuela and all of Latin America. This imperialist assault must be opposed by the working class in the United States and throughout the world.

Speaking at Saturday’s press conference, Trump’s “Secretary of War,” Pete Hegseth, declared, “Welcome to 2026.” Only three days into the New Year, the assault on Venezuela is an unmistakable signal that the imperialist violence that marked 2025—in the Gaza genocide and the bombings of Lebanon, Syria and Iran—will escalate in 2026. 

There is no concrete wall between foreign and domestic policy. Imperialist gangsterism beyond the borders of the United States will be accompanied by the acceleration of the conspiracy to impose a fascistic presidential dictatorship within the United States.

In his remarks at Saturday’s press conference, Trump declared that the United States would “run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper, and judicious transition.” In the past, American imperialism sought to legitimize its wars with hypocritical invocations of democracy and human rights. Trump dispensed with pretenses. The purpose of the assault on Venezuela, he declared on Saturday, was to seize control of the country and its oil resources.

*****

Above all, the war serves a critical geopolitical purpose. The invasion of Venezuela and the abduction of its president are meant, as Trump put it on Saturday, as a “warning” to “anyone who would threaten American sovereignty.”

Referring to his new National Security Strategy, Trump declared that “American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again.” Invoking the infamous “blood and iron” speech of the nineteenth century Prussian militarist Bismarck, Trump hailed the assault as a reassertion of the “iron laws that have always determined global power.”

*****

The aggressive message to China is unmistakable. Just hours before the assault, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro met with a high-level Chinese delegation led by Beijing’s Special Representative for Latin American and Caribbean Affairs, Qiu Xiaoqi, to discuss joint energy cooperation. The US raid, timed to coincide with this meeting, was an act of aggression aimed at disrupting growing ties between China and Latin America.

The actions taken by the Trump administration are not only criminal, they have the character of sheer madness. In 2003, when the United States invaded Iraq, the World Socialist Web Site warned that American imperialism had entered into a “rendezvous with disaster. It cannot conquer the world. It cannot reimpose colonial shackles upon the masses of the Middle East. … It will not find, through the medium of war, a viable solution to its internal maladies.” 

That warning was confirmed. What is now being set into motion is even more reckless—a rendezvous with catastrophe. 

Trump declared on Saturday the intention to impose a dictatorship over Venezuela, proclaiming that the country will be “run” by Rubio, Hegseth and other officials in the Trump regime, as if a country with 30 million people and which spans over 350,000 square miles can be dictated to by Washington bureaucrats. In reality, such an occupation will require the deployment of hundreds of thousands of US troops and a brutal campaign of urban warfare amid mass resistance. Trump said as much when he said he was not afraid of “boots on the ground.” 

It should be recalled that the 2003 invasion of Iraq required approximately 180,000 coalition troops, including 130,000 from the United States. In total, nearly half a million US personnel were deployed across the region in support of the war effort. And Iraq, with a population smaller than Venezuela’s, was already devastated by a decade of sanctions. The scale of military occupation required to enforce the subjugation of Venezuela will rapidly spiral into a bloody, protracted conflict across all of Latin America, and indeed throughout the world.

The recklessness of the Trump government can only be understood in the context of the crisis of American imperialism. Politically, there are no doubt many unstated motives driving Trump’s actions, including an effort to distract from the explosive revelations surrounding the Epstein sex-trafficking network, which has implicated top figures within the financial aristocracy and state apparatus. 

But more critical interests are at stake. The United States is attempting to reverse the long-term decline of American capitalism through militarism and war. The economic foundations of US global dominance have dramatically eroded. Gold has surged past $4,300 an ounce, a de facto measure of the collapse in confidence in the dollar as a global reserve currency. The national debt has soared past $38 trillion. The seizure of Venezuela’s oil and the reassertion of American control over the Western Hemisphere are seen by the ruling class as essential to the survival of its economic and geopolitical position.

*****

At Saturday’s press conference, Trump’s erratic remarks shifted seamlessly from boasting about the “snatch and grab” abduction of Maduro to threatening major American cities. Praising the National Guard deployments to Washington D.C., Los Angeles, Memphis and New Orleans, he declared, “They should do it with more cities.” The same “iron laws” of violence that govern US conduct abroad will be imposed on the population at home.

It is necessary to understand that Trump does not act as an individual. He is the chosen instrument of the American ruling class, a gangster vomited up by the oligarchy to enforce policies that can no longer be pursued through democratic or legal means.

In 2025, US billionaires—roughly 900 individuals—amassed an 18 percent increase in their net worth, bringing their combined holdings to nearly $7 trillion. Ten individuals alone accounted for $750 billion of this total. The German ruling class brought Hitler to power in 1933 to implement policies that could not be carried out except through dictatorship. Trump serves the same function.

*****

The Democratic Party represents the same class and defends the same system as Trump. There will be no serious opposition from its ranks. Their differences with Trump are purely tactical, not strategic. This was made clear in the muted response to the assault on Venezuela. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries grumbled about the lack of congressional notification, while reaffirming that Maduro was “not the legitimate head of government.” 

Just weeks ago, Democrats and Republicans joined together to pass a $900 billion military spending bill, in an unambiguous endorsement of the imperialist agenda now being ruthlessly enforced.

*****

Demonstrations broke out within hours of the assault on Venezuela, an initial indication of popular opposition that will expand and grow. However, the experience of the mass protests against the Gaza genocide has shown that appeals to Washington will have no impact whatsoever on government policy. Without a program and leadership, popular outrage is funneled back into the political structures of the capitalist state.

What is required is the conscious intervention of the working class into political struggle on the basis of a socialist program. Denunciations of war that ignore its roots in the capitalist system and the interests of the oligarchy that rules the country will lead only to defeat and demoralization.

The conditions for such a struggle are now far advanced. The war abroad is inseparable from a social counterrevolution at home—soaring inflation, AI-driven job destruction, deepening poverty, and the systematic dismantling of every democratic and social right. 

*****

In Europe, the major capitalist governments are undertaking the most massive rearmament campaigns since the Second World War as they clamor for war against Russia and destroy social programs. For British, French and their imperialist partners in NATO, Trump’s onslaught against Venezuela is seen as a signal to recover their old colonial empires. The German ruling class, engaged in a massive military buildup, is nurturing dreams of a Fourth Reich, asserting its military power across the continent and beyond.

The ruling class has made clear what they want 2026 to be: a year of unrestrained military violence. The answer must be to make 2026 a year of class struggle and the development of a mass movement for socialism. 

*****

The Socialist Equality Party and the International Committee of the Fourth International call on workers, students, and young people across the United States, throughout Latin America, and internationally: Join our ranks. Build the Socialist Equality Party in the US and the sections of the ICFI around the world. Take up the fight to unify the working class across all borders, to abolish capitalism, and to establish socialism as the foundation of a new society.