In the aftermath of bombing Venezuela, the U.S. threatens other Latin American countries

Since launching deadly attacks in Venezuela, which killed several people, including civilians and resulting in an illegal abduction and extraterritorial transfer of President Nicholas Maduro and his wife Celia Flores, the United States has also hurled threats at Colombia.

Cuba and neighboring Mexico. According to Jan. 8 reporting by Reuters, Venezuela’s Interior Minister Diosdado Cabello said 100 fatalities had been reported.

Critics call U.S. foreign policy “bully diplomacy,” and others call it “straight up gangster.” For the Western Hemisphere, the world’s strongest military and economic power is flexing its imperialist muscle in an arrogant pursuit of global dominance. However, the posture is causing global animosity and loss of friendship.

The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam and His National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, warned that the country’s posture in the global arena is akin to a serpent, a mischief-maker and blood-shedder.

“Now beloved brothers and sisters, ‘foreign policy’ is something that the American people know very little about,” noted the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, in part 13 of his 58-week lecture series delivered in 2013 called “The Time and What Must Be Done.”

“All over the Earth, wherever I have traveled, wherever people dislike America: It is not ‘the American people,’ necessarily, that the people of the Earth are angry with, or burdened by. It is the foreign policy of the government of the United States,” he said.

Many of the enemies of the U.S., Minister Farrakhan pointed out, were made by the government itself. “The American people would like to know: ‘Why is it that we are hated in the world?”’ although America sees itself as a good nation and, by and large, if people knew better, most would do better.

“But, at ‘the top of things’ you have a Satanic, Demonic Mind that is the architect of America’s foreign policy. And this foreign policy has objectives and national interests,” continued Minister Farrakhan.

“But the American people don’t know, necessarily, what those ‘interests’ are, and they don’t necessarily know what the ‘foreign policy objective’ of their government is toward the nations and people of the Earth,” he added.

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan and the Honorable Elijah Muhammad have long warned and called out America’s bullying tactics on other nations.

“Since there is no more ‘superpower’ in the world to be a balance of power for the power of America and the West, all the smaller nations of Africa, the Middle East, the Isles of the Pacific, the Caribbean and Central and South America are literally frightened of the enormous power of America.

And America now is like a great bully, just dictating terms to the nations of the Earth,” said Minister Farrakhan, in another profound message titled, “Crack Cocaine: The Conspiracy to Destroy The Black Community,” delivered on Nov. 3, 1996, in Chicago.

Minister Farrakhan’s words are just as true in 2026 as they were then, as the U.S. actively engages in meddling and imperialist ambitions in Latin America and the Caribbean. He and his teacher taught about the relevance of these issues for several decades.

“I think we’re looking at the last 40 years of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan’s warning to the Western Hemisphere, and in particular the Caribbean, Central and South America, of what was to come and is now here … in this hour,” said Nation of Islam Student Minister Abel Muhammad, representative to the Spanish speaking community, who is of Mexican lineage.

Minister Farrakhan, drawing from the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, has advanced a vision of Caribbean and Latin American unity—one rooted in self-reliance rather than subordination to the United States, multinational corporations, and Western powers that have long exploited the region’s people and resources, explained Student Minister Abel Muhammad.

He sees the unfolding events of the region as an overdue wake-up call and that the U.S. is no longer just “talking” about what they plan to do but are “demonstrating what they plan to do,” Student Minister Abel Muhammad added.

“We are at the point where whatever false hope or empty promises we believed from the West, it is now blatantly in our face that they are not our friends,” he continued. “They do not have our best interests in their heart.”

Upset with the U.S. bombing in Caracas, anti-war and social justice advocates have continued engaging in demonstrations. A small group gathered Jan. 7 outside the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., where House Republicans were conducting a member retreat, shortly after President Trump had given a speech.

The protest intensified when Republican Representative Daniel Meuser (R-Penn.) exited the venue and was confronted by a passionate crowd chanting, “Shame! Shame! Shame! There’s blood on your hands! U.S. out of Venezuela!”

Some participants waved pro-Palestine banners and anti-ICE placards, underscoring the coalition’s diversity.  “You look around and you see unity and diversity,” said rally speaker Alex Ortiz. “We can have differing ideas and differing ideologies, but still all come up together and act in unison,” he said.

The largely peaceful and enthusiastic protest drew people who expressed concerns and anger about U.S. foreign policy.

The U.S. is using a template of how it will attempt to move throughout the hemisphere and the world; however, amid recent volatile events, some leaders of other countries have also responded strongly, denouncing Washington’s posture in the region.

Marcos Jose Garcia, Venezuelan Charge d’affairs to Belgium, called on organizations worldwide to mobilize against the U.S. machinations toward the region, President Maduro, and his wife. The narrative of the Western-controlled media to justify the actions must be countered, he argued.

“There is no justification for this action, as there is no justification for the genocide in Gaza,” said Mr. Garcia.

Speaking to a press conference on Jan. 7, organized by the Shirley Graham DuBois/William Worthy Media and Friendship Collective via Zoom, Mr. Garcia said Washington has no right to go into another sovereign country, kidnap the president and first lady and kill citizens without even a declaration of war and authorization of the U.S. Congress.

If U.S. imperial ambitions in Latin America and the Caribbean are to be assessed by its adventurism in Venezuela, then it’s against international law.

“It’s straight-up gangster,” said Ajamu Baraka, the director of Black Alliance for Peace North South Project For People(s) Centered Human Rights, describing the assault on Venezuela.

The attempted move on Venezuela and interventionist rhetoric toward Colombia, Cuba and Mexico underscores Washington’s scheme of dominating the Americas, which is inflaming opposition to “Yankee imperialism,” meaning U.S. coercive, exploitative control, in the region.

“What we see is the execution of U.S. policy in the Americas,” said Mr. Baraka, referencing the “Trump” National Security Strategy (NSS), a 33-page document that serves as a roadmap for U.S. foreign policy and defense strategy.

In the NSS document, the U.S. aims to reassert its remaining influence over the Western Hemisphere by treating Latin America and the Caribbean as a U.S. strategic sphere of influence.

It signals an agenda to block rival powers—such as China and Russia—from gaining more military, economic, or strategic footholds in the region, including control over ports, infrastructure, or resources.

Framed as a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine, it justifies employing more aggressive political, economic, and potentially military action to preserve U.S. domination in the hemisphere.

The Monroe Doctrine is a 19th-century foreign policy position that opposed European colonialism in the Western Hemisphere, which, since World War II, has been expanded to oppose any foreign influence in the region. However, though the Monroe Doctrine opposed European influence overseas, it instead pushed for U.S. dominance and rulership in the region.

Alongside that condition, the U.S. has ramped up its military footprint in the southern Caribbean Sea with more than 15,000 troops and multiple naval ships—including the nuclear-powered, largest aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford.

Washington’s hawkish plans for conflict and war could spin the region into chaos. Mr. Baraka predicted that if the U.S. remains in this vein, the domino effect could be internal discontent within pro-U.S. countries like Argentina, Ecuador and Peru, and a destabilizing effect on the region. With that, the potential implications of Washington’s posture are far-reaching, he said.

“For the wider world, it is a reconfirmation of the dangerous character of the United States of America,” Mr. Baraka told The Final Call. “And, that this is a state that is operating as a rogue state, unrestrained by international morality or international law, which means that everyone is potentially vulnerable,” he added.

This feeds a growing perception that the U.S. may be unable—or unwilling—to operate within a global order where it no longer dominates. As a result, its behavior is increasingly distrusted, as it is seen as posing an existential threat to everyone. “That is the messaging that I think is developing in the minds of people, at least in the Global South,” said Mr. Baraka.

The U.S. has a sordid record of undermining governments in the region, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan outlined in part 13 of “The Time and What Must Be Done.” He warned of the consequences of these actions.

“So, when The Great Mahdi, Master Fard Muhammad, came to North America by Himself, and introduced Himself to the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, He said that the ‘No. 1 Enemy’ that He would destroy is this one: The ‘Modern Babylon’—that ‘Mystery Babylon’ that has become The Habitation of Devils.

And that Great Mahdi, or, ‘The Lord Himself”—Jesus The Christ—anointed with Power to crush The Wicked, is now curtailing the power of America in the present, in the world, ‘economically’ and ‘politically,’” Minister Farrakhan said.

Final Call Staff Writer Nisa Islam Muhammad contributed to this report.

January 19, 2026