This is not neutral cooperation. It is political conditionality.
By Freddie Ponton | 21st Century Wire | December 15, 2025
Foreign influence in the Global South rarely arrives in uniform. It comes disguised as ethics, stability, and shared values, only revealing its true cost once the rules are set. In Latin America, such a transformation is now underway. A new architecture of alignment is being quietly assembled, presented as moral course correction but functioning as a geopolitical filter. At its core lie the Isaac Accords, a project deliberately modelled on the Abraham Accords. Where the latter normalised Israel’s position in the Middle East through elite deals brokered by Washington, the Isaac Accords aim to reorder Latin American politics by locking governments, economies, and security institutions into Israeli and U.S. strategic orbit.
The Accords are not simply about Israel’s image or diplomatic isolation. They operate as a filter of legitimacy: governments that align are embraced, financed, and promoted; those that resist are marginalised, sanctioned, or framed as moral outliers. Venezuela, long aligned with Palestine and the broader Axis of Non-Alignment, sits squarely in the crosshairs.
This article examines how the Isaac Accords function in practice, why figures such as Javier Milei and María Corina Machado have become central to their rollout, and what this strategy reveals about Israel’s ambitions in South America, not as a neutral partner, but as an active geopolitical actor working in tandem with U.S. power.
The Isaac Accords: A Latin American Reboot of the Abraham Model
The Isaac Accords did not emerge in a vacuum. They are consciously modelled on the Abraham Accords, which rebranded Israel’s regional integration in the Middle East as “peace” while bypassing Palestinian self-determination entirely. The lesson Israeli and U.S. policymakers appear to have drawn is simple: normalisation works best when imposed from above, through elite alignment, financial incentives, and security integration.
The Accords are administered through a U.S.-based nonprofit, American Friends of the Isaac Accords, and financially seeded through institutions closely linked to Israeli state and diaspora networks. Their stated aim is to counter antisemitism and hostility toward Israel. Their operational requirements, however, reveal a far broader ambition.
Countries seeking entry are expected to:
Israel’s own diplomats have described the Isaac Accords as a way to pull “undecided” Latin American states into Israel’s orbit at a moment when European public opinion has become less reliable. In other words, the Global South is being repositioned as Israel’s strategic rear guard.
The role of Javier Milei in Argentina illustrates how this model operates. Milei has not merely improved relations with Israel; he has embraced it as an ideological reference point. He has pledged to move Argentina’s embassy to Jerusalem, framed Israel as a civilisational ally, and positioned himself as the Isaac Accords’ flagship political figure.
That role was formalised in 2025 when Milei became the Genesis Prize Laureate, an award frequently described as the “Jewish Nobel Prize.” The Genesis Prize is not politically neutral. It is explicitly awarded to figures who strengthen Israel’s global standing and its ties with the diaspora. Milei’s decision to donate the prize money directly back into the Isaac Accords ecosystem symbolised how moral recognition, political allegiance, and financing now operate as a single circuit.
This is alignment rewarded, visibly, materially, and publicly.
As reported by AP in August, the Isaac Accords are set to extend to Brazil, Colombia, Chile, and potentially El Salvador by 2026, as stated by the organizers, the American Friends of the Isaac Accords.
Recent New York Times reporting situates Brad Parscale’s involvement in the Honduran election within Numen, a Buenos Aires–based political consultancy he co-founded with Argentine strategist Fernando Cerimedo, highlighting how transnational firms operate beyond traditional regulatory scrutiny. Critics warn that Numen’s methods reflect a broader global political influence ecosystem that often draws on data-driven targeting, psychological profiling, and digital amplification techniques associated with Israeli-linked political technology and messaging firms that have operated in elections worldwide.
When combined with U.S. political endorsements, strategic pardons, and offshore consulting structures, this model raises serious concerns about how advanced data analytics and covert messaging infrastructures are used to shape voter behavior in vulnerable democracies, eroding electoral sovereignty while remaining largely insulated from accountability.
Venezuela, Palestine, and the Manufacturing of Illegitimacy
If the Isaac Accords require a moral antagonist, Venezuela fulfils that role perfectly.
Since Hugo Chávez severed diplomatic relations with Israel in 2009, in response to Israel’s assault on Gaza, Venezuela has positioned itself as one of Palestine’s most consistent supporters in the Western Hemisphere. Chávez, and later Nicolás Maduro, framed Palestinian resistance not as terrorism but as an anti-colonial struggle, aligning Venezuela with much of the Global South rather than the Atlantic bloc.
Under the Isaac Accords’ logic, this position is intolerable.
Opposition to Israel is no longer treated as a political stance but as evidence of extremism or antisemitism. Zionism and Judaism are deliberately conflated, allowing criticism of Israeli state policy to be reframed as hatred. This narrative provides the moral justification for isolation, sanctions, and, potentially, regime change.
Into this context steps María Corina Machado, the Venezuelan opposition figure most warmly received by Israeli and U.S. political networks. Machado’s alignment with Israel is not rhetorical or recent. In 2020, her party, Vente Venezuela, signed a formal inter-party cooperation agreement with Israel’s ruling Likud Party, led by Benjamin Netanyahu. The agreement committed both parties to shared political values, strategic cooperation, and ideological alignment.
This is a remarkable document. It ties a Venezuelan opposition movement directly to a foreign ruling party, well before any democratic transition, and signals how a post-Maduro Venezuela is expected to orient itself internationally.
DOCUMENT: Vente Venezuela signs cooperation agreement with Israel’s Likud party – Agreement signed by María Corina Machado and Eli Vered Hazan, representing Likud’s Foreign Relations Division (Source: Vente Venezuela)
Machado has since gone further, pledging to:
Her narrative rests on a crucial claim: that Venezuela itself is not anti-Israel, only its government is. According to this framing, Venezuelans are inherently pro-Israel and pro-West, their “true” preferences suppressed by an illegitimate regime.
In a November interview with Israel Hayom, Machado asserted that “The Venezuelan people deeply admire Israel.”
This argument is politically useful and historically thin. Venezuelan solidarity with Palestine predates Maduro and reflects a wider Latin American tradition of identifying with colonised peoples. To erase that history is to deny Venezuelans their own political agency.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has repeatedly accused the Venezuelan government of fomenting “anti-Israel” and anti-Semitic rhetoric. Yet, a closer look tells a different story. Caracas’ statements are largely expressions of solidarity with the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination, combined with pointed criticism of Israeli state policies. By framing these positions as attacks on Jews or Israel itself, the ADL distorts the narrative, turning principled political stances into a perceived moral failing. This tactic underscores a broader pattern in which international organizations can paint Global South governments as rogue actors whenever they resist the gravitational pull of Israeli and U.S. influence, subtly laying the groundwork for diplomatic pressure or intervention.
DOCUMENT: Mini report from the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, accuses Venezuela of fuelling an incendiary anti-Israel and anti-Semitic environment.(Source (ADL)
Security, Economics, and the Cost of Obedience
Beneath the moral language of the Isaac Accords lies a familiar architecture of control: security integration, economic restructuring, and ideological discipline.
Israel is a leading exporter of surveillance technologies, border systems, cyber-intelligence platforms, and urban security tools, many developed under conditions of occupation and internal repression. In South America, these systems are marketed as solutions to crime and narcotrafficking, but their real function is often political: expanding state surveillance capacity during periods of transition.
Security cooperation creates dependency. Once intelligence-sharing, training, and doctrine are integrated, political autonomy narrows. Policy divergence, particularly toward China, BRICS, or non-aligned partners, becomes risky.
The economic dimension is equally strategic. Israeli firms are deeply involved in water rights, desalination, agrotechnology, digital governance, and infrastructure, sectors that determine long-term sovereignty. These investments are typically tied to privatisation, deregulation, and long-term concessions, transferring control of strategic resources away from the public sphere.
Venezuela is the ultimate prize. A post-sanctions transition would open one of the world’s most resource-rich economies to restructuring. Machado’s commitment to rapid privatisation aligns seamlessly with this vision, raising an unavoidable question: who benefits from “democracy” when it arrives pre-packaged with foreign economic priorities?
This strategy is inseparable from U.S. power. The Trump administration’s framing of global politics as a permanent war on terror and narcotrafficking, a framing echoed by figures like Marco Rubio, has provided cover for sanctions, covert operations, and extrajudicial violence across the Caribbean and Pacific. Israel’s partnership reinforces this logic, supplying both technology and moral framing.
Conclusion: The Global South and the Right to Choose
The Isaac Accords are not simply about Israel’s diplomatic standing. They are about reordering South America’s political horizon at a moment when the Global South is rediscovering multipolarity.
Israel’s role in this process is active, strategic, and consequential. Through political patronage, economic leverage, security integration, and narrative control, it is shaping which governments are deemed legitimate and which are disposable.
For South America, and the wider Global South, the warning is familiar. When alignment is framed as morality, dissent becomes deviance. When sovereignty is conditional, development serves external interests. When history is rewritten, intervention soon follows.
Non-alignment was never about isolation. It was about the right to choose. That very right, today, is being quietly renegotiated, and the cost of refusing may soon become very clear.
Al Mayadeen | December 3, 2025
United States President Donald Trump’s suggestion of an imminent land strike against Venezuela has jolted the America First movement he built on avoiding foreign entanglements, sparking divisions among his supporters and reviving debates reminiscent of the war on Iraq, part of what supporters describe as “forever wars”.
On Tuesday, Trump hinted not only at an intervention in Venezuela but also at possible attacks against other countries. The remarks rattled anti-interventionists, a core Make America Great Again (MAGA) constituency, who fear that toppling Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro could mire the US in a years-long conflict, destabilize the region, and damage both Trump’s legacy and the movement’s political brand.
Republicans redraw the lines on intervention
Despite his long-standing criticism of US interventions, some Republican allies are now defending the possibility of military action. They argue that operations within the Western Hemisphere are more defensible than the West Asia wars they once denounced, and contend that the US is not seeking “regime change” but an adjustment in Venezuelan leadership without reshaping its political structure.
“He’s not trying to play God with what regime is in which country,” said Alex Gray, former National Security Council chief of staff.
Gray argued the move represents a refocusing of US strategy toward “core American interests,” describing Venezuela as central to hemispheric security.
Pressure mounts as US military presence grows
The administration insists it is not pursuing regime change; instead, it continues to level baseless accusations against the Venezuelan president, describing him as a leader of a “drug cartel”.
Still, the scale of US deployments, including a carrier strike group and roughly 15,000 troops, and Trump’s reported private ultimatum to Maduro last week, have amplified expectations of imminent action. Two people familiar with the call said Trump threatened Maduro, demanding he step down or face the “consequences.”
“No one is more bullish than the president on this,” another individual familiar with internal discussions told Politico, adding that the initiative “comes from the top.”
MAGA skeptics warn of Iraq-style pitfalls
For anti-interventionist MAGA figures, the moment represents a deep ideological test. Many had hoped for an administration focused exclusively on domestic priorities. Now they hope any action resembles the recent limited aggression on Iran, where the US bombed three Iranian nuclear facilities in June.
“Let’s not turn into George W. Bush and before you know it, we’re in charge of Venezuela,” said a former senior Trump advisor.
Boots on the ground and nation-building remain “red lines” for the America First movement.
Vice President JD Vance, once a fierce critic of foreign interventions, has shifted as well, defending limited strikes on Iran while framing any action in Venezuela as essential to combating “narco terrorists in our own hemisphere.”
Concerns over fallout, regional stability
Opponents of interference in Venezuela argue that Maduro’s removal could spark migration surges, empower criminal networks, or disrupt global energy markets, consequences that evoke the results of the US invasion of Iraq.
Ian Bremmer of the Eurasia Group noted Trump never campaigned on regime change, calling unilateral intervention “a NeoCon idea… discredited around the world.”
Still, some conservative realists believe Trump may ultimately avoid escalation. Curt Mills of The American Conservative said Trump may yet decide a full-scale conflict would be “a disaster in the making.”
At a Cabinet meeting, top officials emphasized a simple America First litmus test. As Secretary of State Marco Rubio, a staunch backer of military action in the Latin American country, stated, “Is it going to make us richer? Is it going to make us safer? If it is, he is for it.”
By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 2, 2025
The growing tension between Washington and Caracas once again sheds light on the role of the United States in the continent and on the nature of the hybrid threats employed by the White House when it faces governments that reject its strategic dominance. Although a direct military operation against Venezuela has not yet been confirmed, there are clear indications that the U.S. keeps this possibility open — or at least uses it as an element of geopolitical coercion. To understand the current scenario, it is essential to examine the interaction between structural factors, such as the Monroe Doctrine, and contextual variables linked to the present orientation of U.S. foreign policy.
Objectively, one cannot rule out that the U.S. may consider specific, even if limited, military actions against Venezuela. Closing the airspace, increasing electronic warfare operations, or intensifying airstrikes against vessels near Venezuelan waters may function as preparatory steps within a typical hybrid war model. However, a large-scale ground incursion would be extremely unlikely. Venezuela’s geography — marked by dense jungles, mountains, and vast areas that are difficult to access — makes any prolonged occupation a strategic gamble of high cost and low probability of success. Moreover, the existence of a civilian militia numbering in the millions would act as a force multiplier of resistance, raising the political and military price of an intervention.
Thus, if Washington does in fact opt for military measures, it would likely take the form of selective airstrikes, limited amphibious operations in the Caribbean, or acts of sabotage against critical infrastructure. It would be less a conventional war and more a calibrated effort of attrition — typical of U.S.-supported regime change campaigns since the post–Cold War era.
However, the current pressure on Caracas cannot be interpreted merely as an automatic continuation of the Monroe Doctrine, as many mainstream analysts often claim. Although this principle — which historically legitimized U.S. domination over the hemisphere — remains an ideological backdrop, the contemporary context demands a different analytical lens. The international system is undergoing an accelerated transition toward multipolarity, and Trump’s United States, aware of its relative loss of influence, has begun to recalibrate its strategic priorities.
In this scenario, Latin America reemerges as a zone of “geopolitical compensation.” Faced with the relative decline of U.S. influence in Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and even the Asia–Pacific, Washington seeks to reaffirm its dominance in the Americas as a way to maintain internal cohesion and external relevance. The hostility toward Venezuela must be understood within this strategy: it is not primarily about oil, nor ideology, but about structural repositioning in a world where the monopoly of Western power is eroding.
This move also directly serves the interests of the U.S. military–industrial complex, which requires permanent tension hotspots to justify high levels of funding. By reinforcing the narrative that “threats” are emerging within the western hemisphere itself, Washington legitimizes expenditures, mobilizes regional allies, and attempts to prevent Latin American countries from deepening ties with Eurasian powers.
Yet this posture may generate the opposite effect. The U.S. insistence on treating Latin America as its “strategic backyard” tends to accelerate the region’s search for autonomy. There is already an observable rise in South–South cooperation, integration efforts among Latin American states, and the growing willingness of local governments to diversify their geopolitical partnerships.
Venezuela, despite its internal difficulties, symbolizes part of this process. Resisting external pressure has become not only a matter of state survival but also a sign of the new distribution of power in the international system. The aggressive U.S. stance reveals, paradoxically, not its strength, but its difficulty in accepting the emerging multipolar configuration that is consolidating across all continents.
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 1, 2025
On a phone call held between Donald Trump and Nicolas Maduro, the President ordered the Venezuelan leader to flee his country. Following leaks about the phone call, Maduro issued a defiant public address.
The Miami Herald reported on Sunday that during the phone call held last week, Trump told Maduro, “You can save yourself and those closest to you, but you must leave the country now.” The sources said Trump offered Maduro and his family safe passage from Venezuela only if he offered his immediate resignation.
The Venezuelan leader appears to have rejected Trump’s deal. On Sunday, at the end of his public remarks, Maduro chanted that Venezuela is “indestructible, untouchable, unbeatable.”
Over the past week, the concerns that the US could begin military operations inside Venezuela have peaked. Washington has engaged in a massive military buildup in the Caribbean. The Pentagon has destroyed about two dozen boats in the region, claiming the vessels were carrying narcotics.
Multiple outlets have reported that the White House is discussing expanding operations into Venezuela. Trump added to the fear of a new war when he told troops on Thanksgiving the operations inside Venezuela would “begin soon” and posted on Truth Social that Venezuelan airspace was closed.
Officials told the Miami Herald that the call was a last ditch effort to avoid a war in Venezuela.
The strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean and Eastern Pacific are unconstitutional, illegal, and war crimes. Expanding the strikes to inside Venezuela, or conducting a regime change in Caracas, would shatter the constraints the Constitution places on Presidential war powers.
Sputnik – 29.11.2025
Flights to Caracas remain in airlines’ schedules on Saturday after US President Donald Trump’s announcement that the airspace above Venezuela should be considered closed, airport and airline data show.
Thus, several Turkish Airlines planes from Havana, Copa Airlines planes from Panama and Wingo planes from Bogota are scheduled to depart to Caracas soon.
Earlier in the day, Trump called on all air carriers to consider the airspace above and around Venezuela closed without providing any reasons.
Al Mayadeen | November 29, 2025
The US is facing renewed scrutiny after reports emerged that US forces carried out a second strike on a disabled boat in the Caribbean, extrajudicially killing people who survived an initial missile attack.
Accounts published by the Washington Post, CNN, and earlier by The Intercept indicate that the September 2 attack unfolded under a direct instruction from War Secretary Pete Hegseth to ensure no one on the vessel remained alive.
Citing individuals familiar with the mission, the Washington Post reported that personnel were told “the order was to kill everybody.” The strike formed part of a wider campaign targeting boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific that Washington claims were transporting narcotics through international waters. Publicly released figures compiled by AFP suggest that at least 83 people have been killed since these operations began, though the administration has not provided evidence substantiating its allegations against the vessels.
Illegal orders
According to the Washington Post, US forces saw two people clinging to the burning wreckage after the first strike and then hit the vessel again. Following this episode, internal rules were revised to require rescuing any survivors. CNN noted that it remains unclear whether Hegseth had been informed about survivors before the follow-up attack.
Hegseth, addressing criticism on social media on Friday, insisted that “current operations in the Caribbean are lawful under both US and international law” and dismissed reports on the incident as “fake news,” though he did not mention the September strike specifically.
The Justice Department has meanwhile maintained that the campaign complies with the laws governing armed conflict. The Pentagon has told lawmakers that the United States is engaged in an “armed conflict” with Latin American drug cartels and has categorized suspected smugglers as “unlawful combatants.”
War crimes
The allegations have triggered political backlash in Washington. Democratic congressman Seth Moulton wrote on X that the “killing of survivors is blatantly illegal” and warned, “Mark my words: It may take some time, but Americans will be prosecuted for this, either as a war crime or outright murder.”
The revelations surface amid controversy over a video released this month by Democratic lawmakers reminding military personnel that they may refuse illegal orders, a message that prompted Donald Trump to brand them “traitors.”
International pressure is also mounting. UN Human Rights chief Volker Turk urged the United States to examine the legality of the strikes, stating that there is “strong evidence” they amount to “extrajudicial” killings.
John Mearsheimer | November 22, 2025
The Monroe Doctrine is DEAD. Russian warships in Venezuelan waters just shattered 200 years of American hemispheric dominance. Prof. John Mearsheimer breaks down how Washington’s own policies created this historic shift.
John Mearsheimer | November 23, 2025
Russian hypersonic anti-ship missiles are now targeting U.S. Navy warships in the Caribbean. Prof. John Mearsheimer reveals how America’s own sanctions policy created this deadly threat in our own hemisphere.
Sputnik – 23.11.2025
The US has deployed more assets to the Caribbean than are needed for drummed-up counter-narcotics operations, yet still nowhere near enough for an attack on Venezuela, says Venezuelan lawmaker Juan Romero, a member of parliament from the ruling United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).
From a strictly military standpoint, the US operation is “far too small for a broader offensive,” Juan Romero told Sputnik.
Romero argued that Venezuela—unlike Grenada or Panama, which the US invaded in 1989—is a vast country with an extensive coastline, making any attempt to establish control extremely difficult.
He added that pinpoint strikes on targets inside Venezuela, similar to US and Israeli actions against Iran, would do nothing to solve the problem of holding the territory afterward.
In response to the US military buildup in the Caribbean, he said the Venezuelan government has activated a comprehensive territorial-defense system, claiming eight million combat-ready fighters in addition to 250,000 regular army troops.
“To invade Venezuela, the US would have to pull in soldiers from its African, European, and North American commands—not just Southern Command,” Romero said.
Romero also noted that the current operation—mixed in its results and involving the blowing up of several boats allegedly used to transport drugs—is extremely expensive, costing the US some $50 million a day.
The US has justified its military presence in the Caribbean as part of the fight against drug trafficking, without providing any proof.
Donald Trump continues to keep open the possibility of military action against Venezuela, saying he would “probably talk to” Maduro but emphasizing that he was “not ruling out anything.”
Meanwhile, airlines like Iberia, TAP, LATAM, Avianca, GOL, and Caribbean have suspended operations after the Federal Aviation Administration warned of “heightened military activity” in Venezuelan airspace.
Reports have suggested an imminent new phase of the US operations soon.
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – November 18, 2025
Washington’s new militarized campaign against Venezuela, framed as a drug war, is in reality a risky attempt to blunt China’s rising influence in Latin America—and it may only accelerate the region’s shift away from the United States.
Trump vowed to end America’s endless wars. Yet he is now starting another and doing it in Latin America, the very ground where US power is already slipping. The administration’s militarised “drug war” against Venezuela is less about cartels than about toppling Maduro to blunt China’s rise in the hemisphere. But it’s a gamble that exposes Washington’s deeper weakness: the US no longer has an economic playbook to compete with Beijing’s money, markets, and infrastructure. And Latin America knows it.
America’s Worry
It’s not about drugs. Washington has a long history of using the “war on narcotics” as cover for covert operations, and in Venezuela today, the real source of alarm is China. Beijing has become Caracas’s most dependable lifeline, underwriting more than US$60 billion in loans, running oil-for-credit schemes, building joint ventures, infrastructure, and even a satellite ground station, all coming together to cement a long-term strategic presence. In 2024 alone, bilateral trade hit US$6.4 billion, with China importing US$1.6 billion in Venezuelan oil and minerals and exporting US$4.8 billion in manufactured goods.
Venezuela is far from an outlier. Across Latin America, Sino-regional trade surged to US$518 billion, with direct investment totaling US$14.7 billion, creating a sprawling parallel economic architecture of ports, refineries, mines, 5G networks, and credit lines that regional governments now treat as indispensable. Even though the US still dominates the region in cumulative FDI—over US$1 trillion—China is rapidly eroding American influence, winning leverage not through ideology or coercion, but through markets, capital, and sustained economic engagement.
For Washington, this is not commerce; it is geopolitical encroachment that directly pushes against the so-called Monroe Doctrine, turning the US “backyard” into a zone where Washington’s influence is not decisive anymore. The Monroe Doctrine, declared by President James Monroe in 1823, held that the Americas were under US influence and off-limits to outside, i.e., European, interference. Over time, it became the foundation of Washington’s dominance in the Western Hemisphere. Today, China’s deep economic and strategic footprint in Latin America is quietly—but surely—undermining that century-old principle, challenging US control in its own backyard.
Yet instead of matching Beijing’s patient economic game, the US is increasingly relying on force—missiles, warships, and military threats—to reassert influence in its own hemisphere. In Venezuela, that approach is especially dangerous: every escalation risks doing exactly what Washington fears most, driving Latin America further into China’s orbit and underscoring the stark reality that America no longer wins with markets.
The zero-sum American Mindset
That China is the real target is not irrelevant. China’s successes are seen, in a zero-sum manner, as Washington’s loses. It was always known, although it gets little mention in the ongoing US official discourse about Venezuela. Perhaps the US does not wish to complicate its ongoing trade talks with China to ‘end’ the trade war that Washington has lost. However, elements of the current US administration had already made clear, even before capturing power in the latest presidential elections, that China cannot be allowed to expand its presence in the region.
In 2024, The Economist spotlighted China’s “dramatically” growing footprint across Latin America—a shift that seems to have triggered alarm bells in Washington. The US Secretary of State (and National Security Advisor) Rubio had warned, even before assuming his current positions, that America “can’t afford to let the Chinese Communist Party expand its influence and absorb Latin America … into its private political-economic bloc.” Yet, he lamented, many regional leaders have merely shrugged. Now, Rubio appears determined to turn up the pressure—and he’s starting with Venezuela.
Beijing’s inroads stretch far beyond Caracas. Earlier this year, left‑leaning Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva joined a Latin American summit in Beijing, signaling his willingness to coordinate on key geopolitical issues, including backing China’s position on Ukraine. At the same time, China quietly opened its first major deep‑water, “smart” port in Latin America: the $3.5 billion Chancay megaport in Peru, operated by COSCO and equipped with unmanned cranes, 5G networks, and driverless trucks. Xi Jinping praised the port as a “new land-sea corridor” linking Latin America and Asia. According to Chinese state media, Chancay can cut shipping times between Peru and China by nearly 12 days while reducing logistics costs by 20%. Diplomatically too, Beijing is undeterred. When pressed on US interventionism, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Lin Jian retorted in September that Latin America is “no one’s backyard,” an explicit rebuke to American regional dominance. Accordingly, in November, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning condemned Washington’s “excessive force” against boats in the Caribbean and insisted that “cooperation between China and Venezuela is the cooperation between two sovereign states, which does not target any third party.”
The Possibility of Backfire
America’s strategy therefore can—and will—backfire. It will only make regional states more open towards Beijing and more apprehensive towards the US (interventionism and unpredictability). At the 2025 China–CELAC Forum, Gustavo Petro, President of Colombia, called for a “dialogue of civilizations” and said China and Latin America should forge a new model of cooperation—not one imposed by external powers. This sentiment exists across Latin American states, including, for instance, Brazil.
What Washington must understand is that China’s patient, capital-driven strategy, combining trade, investment, infrastructure, and diplomacy, has created a durable foothold that the US cannot simply displace with missiles or threats, although it can introduce temporary disruptions only through a military approach. Still, every escalation in Venezuela risks cementing the very outcome Washington fears: a hemisphere where American influence is conditional and secondary. If the US hopes to reclaim strategic authority, it must first confront the uncomfortable truth that power in the 21st century is won with markets, credit lines, and long-term partnerships, not just force. Until it does, the Monroe Doctrine will remain a relic, and Latin America a proving ground for China’s quiet but decisive ascendancy.
Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | November 14, 2025
Since September, the presidential administration of Donald Trump has been directing the United States military to blow up boats and kill their occupants in the Caribbean and Pacific, claiming to be thus countering Venezuela government supported “narco-terrorism.” At the same time, it has been building up a large US military force off the Venezuela shore. And the Trump administration has made clear that these actions go hand in hand with seeking to achieve its goal of removing Venezuela President Nicolás Maduro from office.
It looks like the US government is pursuing a regime change effort against the South America nation. But, the American people do not seem to be happy with this situation. According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted November 7 – 12, Americans are rejecting both the ongoing US military action against the boats and the threatened US military action to overthrow Maduro.
In a Friday Reuters article discussing the poll results, Jason Lange and Matt Spetalnick detailed that only 29 percent of polled Americans answered that the US government should “kill suspected drug traffickers abroad without judicial process” — what is occurring with the US military’s serial blowing up of boats and killing of their occupants. Even fewer polled Americans — 21 percent — answered that the US government should “use military force to remove Venezuela’s president.” Substantially more polled Americans — 51 percent and 47 percent respectively — declared their opposition to the ongoing US military campaign to blow up boats and the potential use of US military force to remove Maduro from office.
By Jacob G. Hornberger | The Future of Freedom Foundation | November 13, 2025
In federal criminal cases, U.S. District Judges issue the following types of instruction to jurors:
“The indictment is not evidence of any kind. It is simply the formal method of accusing a person of a crime. It has no bearing on the defendant’s guilt or innocence, and you must not consider it in your deliberations except as an accusation. You must not assume the defendant is guilty just because he or she has been indicted. The defendant begins this trial with a clean slate.The burden is entirely on the government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.”
In other words, an indictment carries absolutely no evidentiary weight whatsoever. It is simply an accusation. It is not proof. It is not evidence. The jury is prohibited from considering it when deciding guilt or innocence.
This principle applies to any person accused of violating federal criminal statutes.
President Trump and the Pentagon have now attacked and killed more than 70 people on the high seas in the Caribbean and the Pacific Ocean near South America. They justify these killings by claiming that the victims are engaged in a violations of U.S. federal drug laws.
But the fact is that Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claims are nothing more than informal accusations. In fact, their informal accusations don’t even amount to a formal accusation set forth in a grand-jury indictment. That’s because a grand jury cannot issue an indictment unless it sees evidence that establishes that there is “probable cause” that the accused committed the crime. With Trump’s and the Pentagon’s informal accusation, no such burden of proof is required.
Therefore, if a jury is prohibited from using an indictment to convict a person who the feds are accusing of having violated U.S. drug laws, it stands to reason that U.S. officials are prohibited from killing people based simply on their informal accusation that the person has violated the law.
In fact, with the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, our American ancestors expressly prohibited the federal government from depriving any person of life without due process of law. It has been long established that due process in a criminal case means, at a minimum, two things: (1) being formally notified of the specific charges that the defendant is accused of violating; that’s what a grand-jury indictment is for; and (2) a trial where the government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt with relevant and competent evidence that the person actually did commit the crime. The accused, if he elects, can have a jury, not the judge, decide whether or not he is guilty.
There have always been some Americans who hate these provisions. They prefer how things are done in nations run by totalitarian regimes, where the government wields the omnipotent power to kill or punish anyone it suspects of having committed a crime — without having to go through the difficulty and expense of formally accusing people and according them a trial.
Nonetheless, like it or not, that is our system of government, and it remains so unless and until the Constitution is amended to end it.
What about the fact that it is the military that is carrying out these killings? No matter the exalted position that the national-security establishment has come to play in America’s federal governmental system, it doesn’t alter the constitutional principles at all. All it means is that the military is operating in the role of a policeman who is enforcing a federal criminal statute.
For example, suppose that Trump’s military troops that are occupying various U.S. cities begin enforcing federal drug laws by arresting people and then turning them over to the DEA for incarceration and prosecution. The military would simply be operating in a police capacity, not in a war situation.
It’s no different with those killings in the Caribbean. The military, which, by the way, is legally prohibited from enforcing drug laws inside the United States, is simply operating in a police capacity when it is enforcing U.S. drug laws on the high seas. It is essentially standing in the stead of the Drug Enforcement Administration.
What about Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claim that the U.S. is at war and, therefore, it’s okay for soldiers to kill the enemy in war. Clearly that claim is a ruse designed to justify their extra-judicial killings. The concept of war involves conflicts between nation-states, not enforcement of criminal statutes. There is no war between the United States and Venezuela, Columbia, Mexico, or any other Latin American country.
After all, if Trump’s and the Pentagon’s ruse was valid, it would entitle them to use the military to kill drug-war suspects here inside the United States under the claim that enemy drug forces have invaded and occupied the United States and are waging “war” against the United States. In fact, their ruse would enable them to use the military to kill anyone they wanted who they claimed had violated any federal criminal statute.
What about Trump’s and the Pentagon’s claim that the victims are also being accused of violating federal terrorism statutes and, therefore, that it is okay to summarily kill them? Again, it’s just another ruse to justify the extra-judicial killing of people who are accused of violating U.S. criminal laws. After all, terrorism itself is a federal criminal offense. That’s why there are criminal prosecutions for terrorism in federal district court. Trump and the Pentagon are bound by the same principles in federal criminal cases involving terrorism as they are with cases involving alleged federal drug offenses. They are required to secure federal criminal indictments and accord the people with trials, where they bear the burden of proving that the defendants really are guilty of terrorism (or drug offenses) before they can kill them or punish them.
One more point worth noting: The troops carrying out these killings are obviously loyally and blindly obeying orders to commit an illegal act. That’s because, as I have long pointed out, their loyalty is to their commander-in-chief, notwithstanding the oath they take to support and defend the Constitution.
Trump, the Pentagon, and the troops are clearly engaging in illegal conduct with their extra-judicial, unconstitutional drug-war killings. The problem is that given their omnipotent power within America’s federal governmental system, neither the Congress nor the Supreme Court or anyone else will — or can — do anything to stop them.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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