IWU-FI Declaration, 3 December 2025
The far-right Donald Trump announced on 2 December: “We will begin attacking on the ground as well,” referring to Venezuela and raising the possibility that he will also attack Colombia. He did so with the false argument of drug trafficking: “Colombia has entire cocaine factories (…) Anyone who does that and sells it to our country is subject to attacks… not just Venezuela,” Trump warned (La Nacion, Argentina, 3 December 2025). Such was the imperialist aggression that Trump “ordered” the closure of Venezuelan airspace to commercial passenger airlines.
From the IWU-FI, as revolutionary socialists, we repudiate these imperialist threats and the missile attacks carried out by the far-right Donald Trump in the Caribbean and the Pacific. Since September, the United States has carried out dozens of bombings, resulting in the deaths of over 80 people, several of them Venezuelans, Colombians, Ecuadorians, and Trinidadians. These are murders on international waters. Family members have identified the people killed as being from Colombia, Venezuela, and as fishers working in their small boats in the waters of the southern Caribbean. This aggressive policy of US imperialism, under the guise of fighting drug trafficking, seeks to intensify the plunder of countries’ natural resources, the overexploitation of the world’s workers, and to halt the mass mobilisation that threatens the entire capitalist/imperialist system, mired in its deepest crisis.
These attacks are part of Trump’s global counteroffensive, seeking to undo the US’s domination and economic woes, rooted in global imperialist capitalism. Trump aims to “Make America Great Again,” as his slogan states, so far without success. Lately, he’s backed Netanyahu’s genocidal rule and ethnic cleansing in Gaza and Palestine, though victory isn’t declared.
For months, the far-right Donald Trump has deployed approximately 10,000 military personnel, destroyers with Tomahawk missiles, F-35 fighter jets, and B-52 strategic bombers, along with his largest aircraft carrier. The USS Gerald Ford, accompanied by a strike group of several warships, has arrived in the Caribbean, close to the coasts of Venezuela and Colombia. Trump made a deal with the Dominican Republic government to use the country for military support.
In reality, this entire military deployment in the Caribbean and the Pacific is not a show of strength; on the contrary, it highlights the weaknesses and crises of imperialism, which has suffered years of setbacks and economic, political, and military failures. These began with the defeat in Vietnam in 1975 and continued with the withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, after 20 years of failed occupation.
Trump also faces difficulties in the United States itself, where recent polls show that over 70 per cent of the population opposes a military invasion of Venezuela or any other country. Several Democratic and Republican members of Congress have questioned the legality of the bombings in international waters. Six Democratic congressional representatives—all veterans of the military or intelligence services—released a video in which they warned that “the military can refuse orders when they are illegal.” Trump accused the Democrats of “seditious behaviour” and wrote: “Everyone of these traitors to our country will be arrested and brought to justice.” He added that their attitude was “punishable by death” (La Nacion, Argentina, 3 December 2025). This comes amid allegations that the US president backed his secretary of defence for an alleged order to kill two survivors in the Caribbean, and said they will launch operations inside Venezuela in the immediate future.
A report by The Washington Post, based on testimony from Pentagon officials, showed that Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth had given the verbal order to kill two survivors clinging to the wreckage of the burning shipwreck. Admiral Frank Bradley, head of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), relayed the order to his forces, and they launched an additional attack, killing the two defenceless survivors.
The IWU-FI and its sections condemn this criminal action by Trump in the Caribbean and the Pacific, his threats of military aggression against Venezuela and Colombia, including any bombing or invasion of their territories. Trump has also included in his threats the demand that Nicolas Maduro relinquish power, a demand we also condemn.
The IWU-FI and the Socialism and Freedom Party (PSL), its Venezuelan section, do not support the Maduro government, which we consider a capitalist dictatorship that, under a false socialist discourse, represses and exploits the working people. However, the Venezuelan people must forge their own destiny, not the genocidal imperialism of the United States. Therefore, we repudiate the imperialist aggression on the Venezuelan coast, as well as any attack or attempted military invasion of the country.
The International Workers’ Union (IWU-FI) calls on Latin America and the world to repudiate and mobilise to reject US warships and troops in the Caribbean and Pacific Oceans. Colombian President Petro has also rejected Trump’s aggressive threats. The IWU-FI proposes he call for a day of repudiation and a continental mobilisation to defeat Trump. We also urge Lula in Brazil to speak out in the same vein, something that has not yet occurred. We call upon political, labour, student, women, and dissident organisations that identify as democratic and anti-imperialist to convene unified mobilisations in the streets or in front of US embassies and consulates in every country. Stop the naval bombardments and assassinations in the Caribbean and the Pacific! No to the interventionist threats of Trump and imperialism against Venezuela and Colombia! Trump out of Latin America!
International Workers’ Unity-Fourth International (IWU-FI)
3 December 2025
