Hands Off Latin America

Transcript

[MUSIC]

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]: We’re there now. We’re ready to go again if we have to. We’re going to run the country right. It’s going to run very judiciously, very fairly. It’s going to make a lot of money. We’re going to give money to the people. We’re going to reimburse people that were taken advantage of.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s US President Donald Trump, in a press conference the morning after the January 3 US invasion of Venezuela. 

Just hours after the United States broke international law, kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and his wife to be sent to the United States to stand trial on drug trafficking charges.

That invasion was the first unilateral military attack by the United States on a country in Latin America since the 1989 US invasion of Panama. 

Trump said many things that January 3 Saturday morning. How the US would run the country. How they would sell Venezuelan oil and make a lot of money. But one thing, in particular, stood out.

“We’re ready to go again if we have to.”

The US attack, he’s saying, was not just a one-off. And that warning is not just for Venezuela. Trump and his administration have also threatened many of Venezuela’s neighbors: Colombia, Mexico, Cuba. Even threatening more military intervention.

MARCO RUBIO [CLIP]: So, yeah, look, if I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I’d be concerned.

STEVE ELLNER: We should be concerned.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Steve Ellner is an associate managing editor of the journal Latin American Perspectives. He taught for decades at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela.

STEVE ELLNER: And we should be concerned because this is meant to send a message way beyond Venezuela, not only way beyond Venezuela in the region, but worldwide.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: But people across the region are pushing back. They’re standing up against the US invasion of Venezuela. Against the US military’s deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean and Pacific, and the US imperial intentions across the Western Hemisphere.

“If ever we needed a reminder of how unstable, and how dangerous this world that we live in is, and how vulnerable our Caribbean region is, it’s now with us facing a multiplicity of threats.”

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: The question is… is that resistance enough?

This is Under the Shadow — an investigative narrative podcast series that looks at the role of the United States abroad, in the past and the very present.

This podcast is a co-production in partnership with The Real News and NACLA.

I’m your host, Michael Fox — longtime radio reporter, editor, journalist. The producer and host of the podcasts Brazil on Fire and Stories of Resistance. I’ve spent the better part of the last 20 years in Latin America.

I’ve seen firsthand the role of the US government abroad. And most often, sadly, it is not for the better: Invasions, coups, sanctions. Support for authoritarian regimes. Politically and economically, the United States has cast a long shadow over Latin America for the past 200 years. It still does.

This is Season 2 of Under the Shadow: Trump’s attack.

If you listened to Season 1 about the US role in Central America, you know that in each episode I take you to a location where something historic happened, diving into the past to try and decipher what it means today. I’ll still do that here. But Season 2 is also going to be a little different. Because my goal is to respond in real time to the Trump administration’s onslaught in Latin America.

Just in recent months, we’ve seen the boat strikes, threats — and the execution — of a US invasion of Venezuela, the seizure of multiple tankers carrying Venezuelan crude, US intervention in the Honduran election, tariff war and so much more. 

That’s not to mention everything happening IN the United States. The ICE raids have detained tens of thousands of people. And they’ve largely targeted Latin American workers and families, among other immigrant groups. 2025 was the deadliest year for people in ICE detention in two decades. The shooting of activist Renee Good in Minneapolis has sparked protests in outrage across the country.

In this podcast series, I look at it all. I walk back in time to understand the present. 

Today…. I look at the response around the world to Trump’s invasion of Venezuela. I also take a deep dive into Trump’s threats elsewhere across the region.… And introduce you to some of the leaders and the people standing up to him both inside the United States and far beyond.

This is Episode 3 — Hands off Latin America. We begin today on the streets. 

These are the voices of crowds in the United States responding to the US invasion of Venezuela. 

Anti-war activists have marched. They have chanted. They have carried banners: No war on Venezuela. No blood for oil. Leave Venezuela alone! They’ve waved Venezuelan flags.

People have marched in the US, Europe, and across Latin America.

In Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, protesters burned the American flag.

In Mexico, people have protested in numerous cities. In Mexico City, a week after the attack, thousands marched, led by a huge banner painted in Venezuelan colors: yellow, blue and red. It read “Down with the Monroe Doctrine.”

“Trump shouldn’t get involved in something that doesn’t belong to him, but rather to the people of Venezuela,” one man with a plaid shirt and greying hair told a news outlet. …Other governments have no right to come in and get involved in issues of other countries.”

TAMARA PEARSON: What I felt at that protest was an intense furiousness, an intense anger that the US would dare to do this. not just to Venezuela, but it’s perceived as an attack directed at Latin America, particularly given what Trump commented regarding his attitude towards Colombia and to Mexico as well.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Tamara Pearson is a Mexico-based journalist who attended a protest in Puebla following the US invasion.

TAMARA PEARSON: I think it’s crossed a line, because previously here in Mexico there was rejection of the strikes against the boats, the sanctions on Cuba, of course, and on Venezuela, but the rejection was more passive or theoretical or not expressed. But I think that Trump’s actions in Venezuela have crossed a line and aroused an anger that was perhaps simmering, and people are trembling with outrage.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Leaders across Latin America have also spoken up.

“We categorically reject intervention in internal affairs of other countries,” said Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum. “The history of Latin America is clear and forceful. Intervention has never brought democracy, it has never generated well-being or lasting stability. Only peoples can build their own future, decide their path, exercise sovereignty over their natural resources, and freely define their form of government.” 

The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Colombia, and Cuba all denounced the attack. On X, former Bolivian president Evo Morales called Trump the, quote, “new Hitler of the world.”

“There must be sovereign equality between countries,” said Uruguayan president Yamandu Orsi. “It is the only way to maintain balance and ensure that the superpowers are not overpowering the others. And we must defend international law.”

And, in Venezuela, thousands took to the streets in the days after the invasion. 

“International institutions have to stand up,” said one woman in Caracas. She wore a t-shirt with the colors of the Venezuelan flag. “Because the North American government is not the police of the world. And us Venezuelans will show it. Because this is not about a president. This is about a dignified people and we’re not going anywhere.”

“This is a call to the international community,” said another woman in a video shared on social media. “Be alert, communities, because they aren’t coming to help us. They are coming for our oil, and they are coming for you too.”

“They want our lands so they can feed their war,” she said. “They are not an army of peace. And this people supports the only legitimately elected president, Nicolás Maduro Moros.”

Now, let’s be clear: many Venezuelans applauded Trump’s invasion, chief among them opposition leader Maria Corina Machado. She recently won a Nobel Peace Prize, despite her support for violent action inside Venezuela and out to overthrow the Maduro government. Other Venezuelans, especially many living outside the country, cheered the arrival of US troops. 

But in Venezuela, the invasion has hit people hard, as we will hear firsthand in the next episode. And countries up and down the hemisphere have opposed the attack. More than two-thirds of US citizens are against it. A majority of Mexicans condemn it. These responses build on months of protests and pushback against recent US actions in the region.

Back in early December, thousands of people marched in more than 65 cities across the US against the threat of US intervention in Venezuela.

Around the same time, numerous leaders in the region were also already condemning Trump’s militaristic intentions, including Colombia’s Gustavo Petro, Mexico’s Claudia Sheinbaum, and Brazil’s Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.

“After more than four decades since the Malvinas War, the South American continent is once again haunted by the military presence of an extra-regional power,” Lula said at a summit of the South American trading bloc Mercosur in Foz de Iguaçu, Brazil, in mid December. 

He said an armed intervention in Venezuela would set, quote, “a dangerous precedent for the world.”

Of course, the US invasion was an undefinable shock. It rocked Venezuela. It’s shaken the region. It was also the culmination of four months of US threats, military buildup, lethal raids, and strikes on boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific. 

In order to understand where we are now, I want to take a step back to before the January 3 US invasion of Venezuela to understand the US military escalation. Because it’s clear that Trump’s threats have weight. He’s willing to take action. 

And as for the resistance to those threats, it has been led by some unexpected individuals.

That in a minute.

CLIP: You cannot be bombing people boats, you know? Like that, you know? And saying international waters and saying narco trafficking. And where’s your proof? You know? Where’s your proof?

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Where is your proof. 

In the Caribbean, people have been dying. The lethal blasts are not from gang warfare or narcotraffickers. But from the United States. Killed in cold blood without trial or conviction. Killed in international waters. An extrajudicial death sentence at the hands of the US military. 

Since September, the US military has hit and destroyed 36 alleged drug boats, killing more than 120 people. 

Just to put this into perspective with other terror attacks: 

NEWS CLIP: “Good morning. We’re following breaking news right now in Orange County, where police have confirmed there’s been a shooting in downtown Orlando.”

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s more than double the number of people killed in the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida, in 2016.

That’s shocking. And the United States has provided no proof that these boats are actually transporting so-called narco-terrorists, or even carrying drugs. On the contrary, family members of the victims say they were just fishermen.

CLIP: There’s no evidence. You cannot just kill people and then talk about it in a loose term. These are people that someone loves, someone gave birth to and raised.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: One small island nation in the Caribbean has been taking the lead in standing up to the US boat strikes in recent months. It’s about half the size of New York City. But with a population of only a quarter of a million people—about half the size of Miami.

It is an unlikely hero, but Barbados has been vocal. 

BARBADOS PRIME MINISTER MIA MOTTLEY: We don’t need to look any further than a menacing vessels, military vessels from the United States across the Caribbean Sea, including what is reputed to be the world’s largest warship. These are not times of pirates anymore. This is 2025 and we have cause to be duly concerned.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley. She said those words at a conference in late October 2025.

BARBADOS PRIME MINISTER MIA MOTTLEY: We are facing, my friends, an extremely dangerous and untenable situation in Southern Caribbean. And as a people with a tragic history of being subjected to centuries of big power, orchestrated genocide, terrorism, and warfare. And as a small state, we have invested tremendous time and energy and effort in establishing and maintaining our region as a zone of peace. Peace is critical to all that we do in this region, and now that peace is being threatened, we have to speak up.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Mottley is the head of the Barbados Labour Party. She was elected back in 2018, becoming the country’s first female prime minister. Her Labour Party controls every seat in the lower house of the Barbados parliament.

BARBADOS PRIME MINISTER MIA MOTTLEY: I believe that the time has come for us, therefore, to be able to ensure that we do not accept that any entity has the right to engage in extrajudicial killings of persons that they suspect of being involved in criminal activities. We equally do not accept that any nation in our region or the greater Caribbean should be the subject of an imposition upon them of any unilateral expression of force and violence by any third party or nation.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: In mid October 2025, Mottley met with the leaders of the other member countries of CARICOM—the Caribbean Community. They released a joint statement reaffirming the need for peace, dialogue, and the, quote, “unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of countries in the region.”

SOYINI GREY: The Caribbean has been very vocal in not supporting it.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: I spoke with Trinidadian journalist Soyini Grey in November, about the Caribbean’s strong resistance to the Trump administration’s use of the region as a staging ground for these boat strikes. 

SOYINI GREY: Roosevelt Skerritt, the prime minister of Dominica, was also taking part in that two-day conference. He was extremely vocal that the Caribbean should not be used… And then, of course, there was the statement from the former prime ministers of the Caribbean, an initiative led by PJ Patterson. And PJ Patterson told me, because I interviewed him about it, said that they really feel that they had to bring their years of experience, knowledge of Caribbean history… And how this region should not be a place of war.  So no, the Caribbean is absolutely not okay with that.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Alexander Main is the director of international policy at the Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research.

ALEXANDER MAIN: The fact that they’re speaking up is highly significant. These Caribbean governments are very reliant on the US in a number of ways, economically, and have been in a vulnerable position, particularly since the passage of Hurricane Melissa in that area where US help is badly needed.

NEWS CLIP: Hurricane Melissa has just made landfall in Jamaica… One meter of rain is expected to fall in the mountains. And a storm surge of four meters will hit the coast. All the ingredients for the most powerful storm to make landfall in Jamaica since records began.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: In November, the US State Department said the United States would provide $24 million in assistance to the Bahamas, Cuba, Haiti, and Jamaica, following Hurricane Melissa’s destruction in the region.

But not every CARICOM country has gotten on board with denouncing the US buildup and threats in the region. Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar has openly backed Trump’s  actions. In fact, it’s one of a handful of right-wing countries in the region that have signed security agreements with the United States in recent months.

Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar says Trinidad has been impacted by drug violence and Trump’s attacks are trying to make their country safe. She was outspoken on this point during the UN General Assembly in September 2025.

PRIME MINISTER KAMLA PERSAD-BISSESSAR: Trinidad and Tobago is particularly grateful for the US military presence in the southern Caribbean. This has been very effective in inhibiting the numerous activities of drug cartels within our country.

While there have been objections to the US military action against drug cartels in the southern Caribbean, some objections from some countries, I state today Trinidad and Tobago reminds the international community that unless forceful and aggressive actions are taken, these evil drug cartels will continue their societal destruction.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: The island of Trinidad is just off the coast of Venezuela—only 6.8 miles at its closest point. When I spoke with Trinidadian journalist Soyini Grey, she said the atmosphere in Trinidad was “tense.” It still is.

SOYINI GREY: We’re not accustomed to this type of war-like language and these actions. So, narco strikes in the Caribbean is odd and bodies washing up on shores or citizens being killed—we had two of our citizens killed in, I believe, strike five. So, that has been very disquieting. And then, when we reach out to the prime minister for comment, she’s very evasive.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Let me just pause real quick here. Because I want to put this moment into context. 

You have the United States attempting to stretch out its reach and control of the region like it hasn’t done since the end of the Cold War. And on the flip side, you have people pushing back across the Caribbean, Latin America and elsewhere.

The January 3 US invasion of Venezuela is, right now, the most visible symbol of the US overstretch. And I believe that it will mark a before and after in terms of US foreign policy in the region. But the US attack is also the culmination of years, decades, and centuries of US intervention. In other words, it is both shocking, terrifying, and new—the first US invasion of a South American country, ever.

And it is also on par with the long road of US interventions and invasions carried out by the United States over the last 200 years and justified by the Monroe Doctrine.

Now, Trump has given Monroe an upgrade with his new “Trump Corollary,” as we discussed in the first episode of this season. Trump is now calling this his new “Don-roe Doctrine”—Donald plus Monroe. 

That term was actually coined by the right-wing New York Post. The paper led with a front page two weeks before Trump’s January 2025 inauguration showing the incoming president in front of a re-written map of the Western Hemisphere. The title read: “The Donroe Doctrine: Trump’s vision for hemisphere.”

Trump says he’s taking Monroe to a whole new level.

DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]: The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot. They now call it the Donroe Doctrine. I don’t know. It’s a Monroe Doctrine. We sort of forgot about it. It was very important, but we forgot about it. We don’t forget about it anymore.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Trump speaking at that same press conference, just hours after the US invaded Venezuela.

DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]: Under our new national security strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. It won’t happen. So just in concluding, for decades, other administrations have neglected or even contributed to these growing security threats in the Western Hemisphere. Under the Trump administration, we are reasserting American power in a very powerful way. In our home region and our home region is very different than it was just a short while ago. The future will be and we did this in my first term. We had great dominance in my first term and we have far greater dominance right now. Everyone’s coming back to us. The future will be determined by the ability to protect commerce and territory and resources that are core to national security.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That is Trump’s vision. Venezuela is just one piece of the puzzle. One key country with the largest reserves of oil in the world that must be brought under US control. 

Rafael Ioris is an associate professor of Latin American history at the University of Denver.

RAFAEL IORIS: So, in that sense, he sees that the world is a world of unequal powers and the powerful ones have this unique, you know, almost right to act, to defend their own interests in the world.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: It doesn’t matter if those interests are someone else’s resources.

Ioris says this fits into Trump’s vision of a world that repudiates the international order set in place in the wake of World War II, with multinationalism and the United Nations.

RAFAEL IORIS: He really only thinks in terms of a very 19th century perception of spheres of influence and that only the, you know, the big countries, the powerful countries, namely Russia, China, that matter. And they are in a way, you know, entitled to have their own spheres of influence.

And in terms of the United States, that region is, of course, the Western hemisphere, which does not bode well for Latin America… So it’s not entirely surprising given the extreme right logic, but it’s somewhat surprising because it hasn’t really been seen in the 21st century. But in this bizarro world that we are living today. I’m a little bit surprised in terms of how quick his increasing actions in the Caribbean and against Venezuela and I think think those are going to continue to increase.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: And Venezuela is not the only country Trump is aiming at… 

RAFAEL IORIS: The fact that the military incursion and invasion in Venezuela unfolded the way it did — which means largely ’clean’ and successful, at least for the purposes of what it was said to achieve — that will give Trump — which I rethink otherwise would be hesitant to do more operations, if it had been a disaster, like Somalia… but the fact that it was successfulish, he could see that similar things could be unfolding in the future.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: In Trump’s press conference after the invasion, it was clear that Cuba is also on their radar. 

PRESS: Is there a message you for Cuba and Díaz-Canel?

DONALD TRUMP: Well, Cuba is an interesting case. Cuba is, you know, not doing very well right now. That system has not been a very good one for Cuba. The people there have suffered for many, many years. And I think Cuba is going to be something we’ll end up talking about, because Cuba is a failing nation right now, very badly failing nation. And we want to help the people. It’s very similar in the sense that we want to help the people in Cuba, but we want to also help the people that were forced out of Cuba and living in this country. Do you want to say something about that Marco…”

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That’s Marco Rubio. Trump’s Cuban-American Secretary of State.

MARCO RUBIO: Well, I mean, I just gave you a statement a few minutes ago about, you know, when the president speaks, you should take him seriously… So, yeah, look, if I lived in Havana and I was in the government. I’d be concerned, at least a little bit. Well, the president already announced a week ago that anything that’s sanctioned, it’s sanctioned oil, it’s not going to be allowed to get there. So, that’s a pre-existing issue. The answer is yes.

STEVE ELLNER: And I mean, this was meant to convey a message.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Latin American Perspectives‘s Steve Ellner.

STEVE ELLNER: It was meant to convey a message throughout the world, that you know what happened in Venezuela can happen to any president. And the fact of the matter is that Rubio and Trump both made specific references to Cuba and other politicians, at least in the Republican party, Lindsey Grahame for instance, just came out with a statement this is like breaking news… he stated you know we have to overthrow the government in Cuba. Cuba has to be next.  and you said that explicitly so that is also that also represents somewhat of a change in the in the past. These hawks talked about regime change in Cuba, but not as an immediate proposition, but something that will take place eventually, the Cuban people suffering, democracy and all that…. But now they’re saying, Cuba is going to be next.

And why? Because the tiny island has been a symbol of resistance against US empire in the region for more than 65 years. Cuba has been the biggest thorn in the side of the United States in Latin America since Fidel Castro led a revolution and overthrew the country’s dictator Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: And it’s only 90 miles from the US coast. The Cuban-American lobby is large, and it includes several members of Trump’s administration, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

But Cuba isn’t the only country in the US sights.

CLIP: Have you considered talking to the President of Colombia, who you call a drug leader? No, I haven’t really thought too much about him. He’s been fairly hostile to the United States.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Trump is aiming at  Colombia, too. There, leftist president Gustavo Petro has been one of the most outspoken critics of Trump’s actions in the region.

DONALD TRUMP [CLIP]: He’s going to have himself some big problems if he doesn’t wise up. Colombia is producing a lot of drugs. They have cocaine factories that make cocaine, as you know, and they sell it right into the United States. So he better wise up, or he’ll be next. He’ll be next, too. I hope he’s listening. He’s going to be next.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That was in mid-December. But in early January, amid heightening tensions following the US invasion of Venezuela, the two presidents spoke over the phone. They seem to have made progress in lowering the pressure. They now plan to meet in February. 

That’s quite a shift in tone. 

In September, the Trump administration revoked President Petro’s US visa. It came after Petro spoke to protesters in New York City, where he was attending the UN General Assembly, and encouraged US soldiers to refuse to follow orders from Trump.

“From here, from New York,” he told pro-Palestine protesters near the UN General Assembly. “I ask all of the soldiers of the US military not to point their guns at humanity. Disobey the orders of Trump. Obey the orders of humanity,” he said.

In October, the United States further sanctioned Petro and his family. Trump promised to cut off all US aid to Colombia.

It’s important to remember that many of the supposed drug boats hit by US strikes have  actually been in the eastern Pacific, not the Caribbean. So, far from Venezuela and closer to Colombia’s Pacific coast. In fact, based on data as of late December 2025, roughly two-thirds of the boats hit were in the Pacific.

In mid October, Gustavo Petro posted on social media that, quote, “US government officials have committed a murder and violated our sovereignty in territorial water.”

He named one Colombian man, Alejandro Carranza, who was killed in a US attack, calling him a “lifelong fisherman.”

“What does freedom mean today? What does democracy mean today?” Petro asked representatives at a regional summit in November. “When bombs fall in Gaza, and bombs still fall today… And now missiles fall in the Caribbean. Bombs with the same manufacturing as the ones that fall in Gaza fall here on poor people, all of them poor. In this city of [Santa Marta] one person died. But he died by a missile in the waters of the Caribbean Sea. And I visited his family to find out more, because they accused him, and his death is based on the idea that he is a narco-terrorist. A new concept.

“And in the light of the treaties we have signed, also in the light of democracy and freedom in the world, he was simply murdered. An extrajudicial execution,” President Petro said. 

Over social media, Petro has called on Latin American countries to, quote, “unite now to reject and react, beyond mere rhetoric, against any aggression against the homeland of Bolívar and the Latin American and Caribbean territory. Venezuela belongs to Venezuelans,” he said.

Alexander Aviña is an associate professor of Latin American history at Arizona State University and an expert on the drug war,

ALEXANDER AVIÑA: We’ve seen some really promising rhetoric and arguments expressed by Petro, but it’s not enough. Historically, the only way that Latin America has managed to stave off catastrophic US intervention is to come together as a region, and we haven’t seen enough of that beyond rhetoric. I think also Mexico needs to be a lot stronger, more forceful in pushing back against what the US is planning to do in the Caribbean, because eventually, it’s going to boomerang on them.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: That may already be in the works.

NEWS CLIP: Tonight, president Trump’s war on drugs potentially expanding after US strikes on alleged drug boats near Venezuela. The Trump administration has now begun detailed planning to send US troops and intelligence officers to Mexico.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: On November 3, news outlets reported the Trump administration was drawing up blueprints to send US troops to combat drug cartels in Mexico—with or without the support of the Mexican government.

President Claudia Sheinbaum previously denounced such a scenario during a public address in August. Sheinbaum took office in October 2024 after winning a landslide electoral victory that June.

“The United States is not going to come to Mexico with the military,” she said. “We cooperate, we collaborate, but there is not going to be an invasion. That is ruled out, absolutely ruled out.”

Sheinbaum has also denounced the US boat attacks, some of which have been hitting closer to Mexico. On October 28, US forces killed 14 people in four alleged “drug boat” strikes in the Eastern Pacific, roughly 400 miles from the Mexican city of Acapulco. Sheinbaum dispatched the Mexican navy. They rescued one survivor.

“We do not agree with these attacks,” she said during her regular morning press conference. “We want all international treaties to be respected.”

But CEPR’s Alexander Main says Mexico is in a complicated place.

ALEXANDER MAIN: Sheinbaum has definitely expressed her strong disagreement with these extrajudicial killings in the region. But they’re in a difficult situation. Mexico, they’re about to enter into renegotiation of the USMCA agreement. They’re also negotiating the security cooperation with the US and doing everything they can to avoid the US violating their sovereignty in a significant way.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: USMCA is the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement—Trump’s renegotiation of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement. USMCA rolled out in 2020, but the trade deal goes under review every six years, and analysts say Trump is likely pushing for a hefty renegotiation ahead of the July 2026 deadline.

Regardless, president Sheinbaum has also continued to denounce U.S. military intentions in Venezuela.

“We are not in agreement with US intervention, and even less military intervention,” she said during her daily press briefing in December. 

“This goes beyond the government of Maduro in Venezuela,” she said. “We don’t agree with interventionism and interference. And we are in favor of peaceful resolutions to conflicts. If there is a conflict, the United Nations has established all of the necessary mechanisms for there to be a peaceful resolution to any dispute.”

She called on the UN to stand up to take a more active role in responding to the US actions.

There has also been increasing pushback by members of Congress in Washington. They are moving to vote over a war powers resolution to block Trump’s ability to act militarily in the region. Even some Republicans are speaking out.

THOMAS MASSIE [CLIP]: Previous presidents told us to go to war over WMDs, weapons of mass destruction, that did not exist. Now it’s the same playbook except we’re told that drugs are the WMDs.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Thomas Massie is a Republican Congressman from Kentucky who denounced the US push for war in Venezuela in December.

THOMAS MASSIE [CLIP]: If it were about drugs, we’d bomb Mexico or China or Colombia and the president would not have pardoned Juan Orlando Hernandez. This is about oil and regime change and when it comes to regime change, we’ve already been down this road with Venezuela with nothing to show for it.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: But Trump and his administration are plowing ahead.

One thing is clear. It is not by accident that Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia are the four Latin American countries that Trump has threatened militarily—and near whose shores the boat strikes have been concentrated. These countries are all governed by outspoken leftist presidents who are not ideologically aligned with Trump and who are not willing to bow to Washington’s interests in the region. And they are all in the sights of the administration and Trump’s so-called “Donroe Doctrine.”

In other words, either get on board or we will threaten to punish you and push you out of the way.

As historian Alexander Aviña told me in Episode 1:

ALEXANDER AVIÑA: This is about sheer revanchism and power. And if you don’t do what we tell you to do, we’re going to make you pay.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Here’s the problem: Latin America is in a complicated position for the forces looking to push back on US imperial intentions. The region is far from united. Trump allies like Argentina’s Javier Milei, El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, and Ecuador’s Daniel Noboa have staunchly backed the US lethal attacks on supposed “drug boats.”

In March, Chile will swear in its next president. José Antonio Kast was elected in November.. He’s staunchly anti-immigrant, an admirer of dictator Augusto Pinochet, and the son of a former Nazi party member. Bolivia and Honduras have also both shifted to the right in their latest elections. 

I spoke with Camila Feix Vidal about all of this not long ago. She’s an international relations professor at the Federal University of Santa Catarina, in Brazil. Much of her research focuses on the United States and its role in the region.

“The problem is that, unlike the Pink Tide at the beginning of the 2000s, we now we have a South America that is not so ideologically cohesive,” she says. “So, it will be very difficult to have regional unity to denounce this type of action. In terms of the relationship of the United States with Latin America… once again, as we have seen throughout history, this shows that the United States is not reliable, and that it acts by force for its own ends.”

There’s something else she said that I think is really important.

First off, as we dug into in the first episode of this season, clearly this whole drug war excuse on Venezuela is totally bogus—just like weapons of mass destruction was a bogus excuse for invading Iraq.

Camila says the whole goal in Venezuela was to get rid of the Maduro government, which was unwilling to bow to Trump, and replace it with a government that is subservient to the United States. That seems to be happening.

Just over the last week, Venezuela’s former vice president, interim President Delcy Rodriguez, agreed to give the United States as much as 50 million barrels of oil, according to Trump. She also reportedly asked for the US military to help her government return an unauthorized oil tanker to port. And Venezuela has begun to release some prisoners that the opposition has been calling for for some time. 

Trump says he has called off another round of bombing raids in Venezuela, in return. But the US push into the region is happening as the United States is losing prominence in the world.

“It’s is a delicate situation,” Camila Feix Vidal says, “because we are seeing the fall of the US hegemony, with the rise of China, economically and militarily. So, it is the fall of the US hegemon, which now needs to operate by force, because the US policies and practices of the past no longer work effectively, as another powerful nation is on the rise.”

And, Camila says, “Trump’s actions are even expediting this fall of the hegemony of the United States.”

Pushing it over the edge.  

There may be cracks in the empire, but Trump’s United States has no qualms about taking down everything else with it. Destroying the relative peaceful status quo that has reigned over Latin America for decades.

And in the meantime, the US is clinging to its old power dominance by any means necessary. 

But some say that by invading Venezuela Trump has gone too far. And it could come back to bite him.

GILMA CAMARGO: Time has changed. People have changed; the geopolitical moment that has taken place in the world has its mind elsewhere.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Gilma Camargo is a Panamanian lawyer. In 2018, she won a lawsuit on behalf of victims against the United States in the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for its invasion of Panama. We spoke about this in the end of Season 1 of Under the Shadow.

There are many parallels between the January 3 US invasion of Venezuela and the 1989 US invasion of Panama. Both were carried out overnight during the holiday season. Both were done under the guise of detaining the country’s leaders on charges of drug trafficking. Both sought to show off US military strength and to threaten potential adversaries. Both were a means of shoring up US control over key assets. In Panama, that meant the Canal. In Venezuela, it’s oil.

But there are also major differences. 

GILMA CAMARGO: Nicolás Maduro is not Noriega. And the people of Venezuela are far from what Panama was in 1989.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: In Panama, US troops occupied the country for weeks and installed a puppet government. The death toll spiraled into the hundreds. Gilma Comargo says, in Venezuela, the Bolivarian Revolution remains strong. That’s the movement which Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez founded in the early 2000s.

She says the country’s far more organized than Panama ever was, with working-class leadership and international solidarity. 

People are protesting against the invasion in Venezuela, in the United States, and around the world.

GILMA CAMARGO: As Trump does once, twice, three mistakes about bringing the Monroe Doctrine and raw colonization back, he’s awakening the jaguar, like Colombian President Gustavo Petro has said, because people resent that and they feel that they’ve had enough. Enough is enough. We really want a better world. We want people to live in peace.

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: “Don’t awaken the Jaguar,” Colombian President Gustavo Petro said in November. “That’s what I would tell [Marco] Rubio and [Donald] Trump. You are crossing the Caribbean of the liberators. You are messing with the homeland of [Simon] Bolívar.”

People are saying enough is enough. But the United States’ actions have already shattered lives. The death toll in Venezuela from the US invasion is over 100. And in villages and towns near the Caribbean and Pacific coasts, there are empty seats at dinner tables.

Like this family. They live in a pink concrete block home on a lush hillside on the island of Trinidad. They are mourning the death of 26-year-old fisherman Chad Joseph, who was killed by a US boat strike. 

FAMILY MEMBER: Donald Trump take a father, a brother, an uncle and nephew from families.

Oficia Clement was Joseph’s cousin. She spoke to an international news agency.

FAMILY MEMBER: Donald Trump don’t care what he’s doing. He’s just targeting one thing in Venezuela and he’s saying it’s drug cartel. It’s not that. It’s not that. Donald Trump. You need to stop your shit. And stop killing innocent people. 

MICHAEL FOX [NARRATION]: Next time, we go back to Venezuela to see the impact of the US invasion—the true impact of the bombs and the missiles, and the latest US intervention of so so many across Latin America. 

That’s next time on Under the Shadow. 

I’m your host Michael Fox. 

I hope you enjoyed today’s episode. A couple of things to mention.

First, much of today’s episode is based on a number of articles I’ve written recently for Truthout. I’ll add links in the show notes. Many thanks to Truthout for their ongoing coverage of this situation. They are rolling out numerous articles a week on Trump and his onslaught in Latin America. Please check them out.

The same, of course, goes for The Real News and NACLA. In fact, NACLA has created a Curated Guide to the US Invasion of Venezuela. That includes this podcast. I’ll add links in the show notes.

Second, if you are new to this podcast series, you might want to consider checking out the first season of Under the Shadow. It looks at US intervention in Central America, in particular throughout the 1980s. I highly recommend you go back and give it a listen. It’s still super relevant today. I’ll add links in the show notes or you can find that by searching for Under the Shadow wherever you get your podcasts. 

Finally, if you like what you hear, please head over to my Patreon page: Patreon.com/mfox. There you can support my work, become a monthly sustainer, or sign up to stay abreast of the latest on this podcast and my other reporting across Latin America. This really helps me to continue to do this important work.

Under the Shadow is a co-production of The Real News and NACLA.

This episode script was edited by Heather Gies.

Thanks for listening. See you next time.