Trump's military threat to Venezuela extends to all of Latin America.

At the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt announced a new interpretation (the Roosevelt Corollary, 1904), reformulating the Monroe Doctrine (1823), which was summarized in the famous phrase "America for the Americans." The president referred to a new and explicit definition of enforcement known as the "Big Stick," the meaning of which became that the United States "could exercise international police power." Thus, Roosevelt enabled the justification of unilateral interventionism throughout the continent, which had already begun in the mid-19th century with the annexation of almost half of what was then Mexico's territory.¹ and continued at the end of that century with the policies of the predecessor most honored by the current president Donald Trump, William McKinley (1897-1901)²This led to the occupation of Puerto Rico as part of the US intervention in the Spanish-American War (1898), which effectively gave new meaning to the Monroe Doctrine, leading to the concept of "Latin America and the Caribbean for the Americans." In this way, the US justified shifting from continental defense against European powers and internal colonization in North America to external colonialism in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Since then, as is happening now with Venezuela, the "democratic" excuse to justify direct US military intervention has not been new. This has been the case, among other events, with:

• Occupation of Cuba (1898-1902) to "liberate the island" which resulted in the imposing Platt Amendment
• Panama's separation from Colombia (1903) was intended to "guarantee independence," but it led to the monopolization of the construction and administration of the canal "for world trade."
• The invasion of Haiti in 1915 was ostensibly "to restore peace and order," when in reality the objective was to protect American interests from the advance of German companies.
• The invasion of Guatemala (1954), to overthrow the nationalist government of Jacobo Arbenz in order to "combat communist infiltration" and prevent agrarian reform
• Bay of Pigs invasion, Cuba (1961), to "support democratic forces"
• Support for Pinochet's coup in Chile (1973), to "defend democracy against totalitarianism"
• Invasion of Panama (1989), To arrest Noriega and "combat drug trafficking" and impose a friendly government, while continuing drug trafficking anyway.
• Occupation of Haiti (2004), to arrest Aristide and generate "an orderly democratic transition", which not only has not come but has worsened.

With a strategic tax-based approach, our region continues to be viewed in a subordinate capacity, merely as a reserve of labor and natural resources. As is evident, resistance has been suppressed through invasions, coups, sanctions, blockades, the establishment of military bases, financial pressure, the actions of intelligence services, and the control of allied governments to oppose those that are distant or dissenting.

This has been the history of our region, transformed into an “area of ​​influence” for the United States. Throughout the 20th century, the US exercised its supremacist and imperialist superpower status over Latin America and the Caribbean. During the first 25 years of the 21st century, the already declining US superpower has sought to reaffirm its self-granted leadership.

Latin American and Caribbean resistance movements throughout the 20th century were significant: Jacobo Árbenz in Guatemala, the Cuban Revolution, Salvador Allende in Chile, and the nationalist governments of Lázaro Cárdenas, Juan Perón, and Getúlio Vargas, among others. It should not be forgotten that Latin Americanist thought was formulated in the 19th century by historical figures such as Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín, José Martí, José Artigas, Francisco de Miranda, and others. Bolívar, with the Congress of Panama (1826), sought to lay the foundations for the unity of Spanish America, but the interference of the United States thwarted this project, paving the way for the so-called Pan-American Conferences (1889-1954), which led to the founding of the OAS in 1948—an instrument with repeated evidence of geopolitical control of the Americas from Washington.

It is therefore essential to emphasize that in our region, despite everything, we have continued to uphold our own way of thinking in the search for common alternatives in the political, economic, and social spheres. Within the defense of respect for the fundamental right of peoples to determine their own destiny, recognized contributions to international law generated in our region remain fully relevant.
countries (Calvo, Juárez, Drago and Estrada doctrines) foundations for the incorporation of the principle of non-intervention established in the Charter of the United Nations.

In the 21st century, our nations must continue to face the enormous challenge of advancing regional unity and integration. Not only have we witnessed a cycle of progressive governments with limited progress, but we have also seen the development of distinct positions between these experiences and conservative-neoliberal governments that not only reject but even pathetically endorse and promote dependent subordination. In a new cycle during the current decade, marked by increasing global geopolitical polarization, the United States is inciting intraregional disputes that, if alternatives are not considered, could lead to a dangerous regional fracture.

With the new administration of Donald Trump, unilateral impositions (ideological, commercial, and immigration-related) have been added against the progressive governments of Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, and others. In the immediate future, the most serious threat is the direct military intervention against Venezuela to install a friendly government. It smells of oil.

Governments that accept subordination aspire to the support of the United States government, assuming that in doing so they will be privileged, even if their sovereignty is usurped and their people mistreated. This obsequiousness can explain the extreme political radicalism of governments like those of Bolsonaro in Brazil, Milei in Argentina, Noboa in Ecuador, and Bukele in El Salvador. US actions are harmfully disrupting the regional perspective with decisions based on "America First." The presence of US warships in the Caribbean Sea and off the coast of Venezuela is an extremely threatening provocation not only against Venezuela's sovereignty but also against the sovereignty of all Latin American and Caribbean countries.

We therefore understand that the broadest possible unified support for Venezuela against overt or clandestine interventionist actions is essential. Likewise, the continuation of the strangling sanctions and blockades against nations like those suffered by Cuba for over 50 years and Venezuela for a decade must be rejected.

It is necessary to denounce the perverse accusations against Venezuela for "collusion with drug trafficking", when the proliferation and business of drugs is central and allowed precisely by the wide unchecked distribution in the United States, the largest consumer country.

It is clear that for the Donald Trump administration, there is no international law, no treaties, and no international and regional institutions that it has or should respect. Its position at this historical juncture is openly provocative and threatening. It is essential that our countries take a unified stance. In this context, the joint declaration by 21 of the 33 countries to maintain Latin America and the Caribbean "as a land of peace" in the face of the threat of war should be highlighted.³.

We must stop this thuggish warmongering. We cannot remain indifferent.

02th October 2025
CLACSO Working Group Proposal for regional integration

This text expresses the position of the aforementioned Working Group and not necessarily that of the centers and institutions that make up the CLACSO international network, its Steering Committee or its Executive Secretariat.

1. Texas (1845): 695.000 km2. Transfer by Guadalupe Hidalgo (1848): ~2.000.000 km2. Purchase of La Mesilla (1853-54): 76.800 km2. ↩︎
2. https://www-newyorker-com.translate.goog/magazine/2025/06/23/why-donald-trump-is-obsessed-with-william-mckinley?_x_tr_sl=en&_x_tr_tl=es&_x_tr_hl=es&_x_tr_pto=tc ↩︎
3. The following countries endorsed the document, which originated from the initiative of the pro-tempore presidency of CELAC: Colombia, Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Dominica, Grenada, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Dominican Republic, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Uruguay, and Venezuela. Argentina, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Jamaica, Paraguay, Peru, and Trinidad and Tobago did not endorse it. ↩︎