Recognizing that United States intervention in Venezuela responds to a colonial logic does not deny in any way the profound harm, the pain, suffering, killings, or violence inflicted by the Maduro regime, nor does it invalidate the other feelings that emerged after the “apparent removal” of that regime or imply defending its continuation in power. Rather, it enables a more rigorous analysis of how sovereignty, justice, and legitimacy are unevenly distributed across global power relations rooted in the historical subordination of Abya Yala, especially to the United States.

Discrediting those of us who raise these concerns by labeling us naïve, “red,” or dreamers, while simultaneously claiming that only U.S. military intervention could have brought about the fall of the Maduro regime, reproduces what thinkers like Aníbal Quijano and Frantz Fanon described as the coloniality of being. This reasoning once again frames us as subordinated bodies, incapable of self-determination and in need of outside intervention, discipline, and correction.

It is easy to see where this reasoning comes from and how it has taken root in part of society. I am referring to the many times throughout history that the United States has attempted to turn Abya Yala into its backyard, its private garden, leaving behind residues that slowly seep in and take hold.

It is no coincidence that, following Maduro’s arrest in Venezuela, the Monroe Doctrine (1823) has been brought back into public discourse. It stands as a clear example of imperialist intervention, though unfortunately neither the only nor the first. In Abya Yala, we can easily name a list of violations the United States has committed against territorial integrity in recent decades:

The Monroe Doctrine (1823), framed as an anti-colonial policy, in fact gave the United States a free hand to intervene in the region without consulting any multilateral or consensual authority—a practice that has been the rule rather than the exception.

In a one-hour press conference held on Saturday, January 3, 2026, from his home in Mar-a-Lago, Florida, much was said. Some excerpts from ABC News showcase the extreme and belligerent nature of Trump’s declarations.

“All the way back, dated to the Monroe doctrines. And the Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve superseded it by a lot, by a real lot.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,” and “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.”

(The original article in Spanish cited Trump’s remarks as referenced in El País.)

Ending a regime that plunged millions of Venezuelans into hunger, poverty, and death is undeniably significant, and I sincerely hope it never returns to power. But I also allow myself to feel fear and concern, and to express them from my locus of enunciation. Much of my family was forced to leave Venezuela as part of the mass displacement of more than seven million people, yet many of my loved ones remain in the country.

And the history of our territories is also the history that passes through my body, and it is the place from which I speak. As a Black Venezuelan from Abya Yala living in diaspora, I cannot help but ask whether this moment will truly open a path toward democracy and self-determination, or whether it is simply another war in which the United States will once again instrumentalize the judicial system for its political and economic ends. Today, the target is Maduro; tomorrow it could be trans people, feminists, Russia, Cuba, Gaza, Colombia, Greenland, Spain, or any other country, territory, or group that stands in the way of its interests.

What we are witnessing is the erosion of sovereignty in the name of supposed justice, normalized and consumed as spectacle. We all watch how this event clears the way for the United States to continue its arbitrary conquest without limits. If it can violate Venezuela’s sovereignty before our eyes, it can do so to any other country, inside or outside the European Union. Worse still, other countries may feel tempted to do the same, replicating a pattern of intervention that appears normalized and accepted by those who should be defending international principles.

No one lifts a finger. No one outside Venezuela has taken any real action. We have heard nothing but lukewarm statements from the UN and the European Union. When responses gesture toward action, they seem closer to weapons deals than to any serious commitment to defending sovereignty or human rights. This reveals how international law and multilateral frameworks increasingly function as observers rather than as guarantors of justice and sovereignty.

I believe that imagining a truly emancipatory transition for Venezuela requires more than the end of the Maduro regime, imposed or facilitated by a government that simultaneously expels, criminalizes, and dehumanizes our brothers, sisters, and siblings within its own borders. It requires dismantling g the deeper structures of colonialism, capitalism, and hetero-cis-racial power that continue to define which lives matter and which are rendered disposable.

And yes, I indeed understand that for some people, all of this is nothing more than theory. But I deeply believe that life must be thought through to at least attempt to transform it.

*Versión original en español disponible aquí / Original Spanish version available here*

Intervention in Venezuela: A Logic of Colonialism and Expansionism