The U.S. has been ramping up military personnel in the Caribbean, with about 10,000 troops, the deployment of several fighter jets and a recent warship hosted by Trinidad and Tobago, in the name of reportedly targeting “narco-terrorists” in Venezuela.
The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, National Representative of the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, for decades, have both warned about the fallout and consequences of America’s errant foreign policy and its pattern of interfering in the affairs of other nations and its warmongering and aggression.
“Continue to study for yourself the far-reaching effect of America’s intervention and meddling in the affairs of other nations! You, the American people, must listen and look.
Because if you don’t you will be deceived into thinking that America’s foreign policy objectives are ‘moral,’ are ‘ethical’—they are anything but that!” Minister Farrakhan warned in part 13 of his 58-week lecture series, The Time and What Must Be Done, in 2013.
The Black Alliance for Peace, an anti-war group, released a statement standing “firmly with Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution, condemning “U.S. lawlessness in Our Americas” and calling for “multinational intervention to guarantee a ‘Zone of Peace.’”
Because it has the world’s largest proven crude oil reserves, Venezuela plays a role in the Americas similar to that of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, Erica Caines, National Co-Coordinator for the Black Alliance for Peace, told The Final Call.
She said that Venezuela is looking to “forge its own way and its own sovereignty, and it does not have the same geopolitical pull that a Saudi Arabia would have because of the types of sanctions that we see have been put on Venezuela for these last years, primarily for the U.S. attempt to maintain hegemony in the region,” she said.
“What has happened as a result is the continuous overt attacks on Venezuela by the U.S. and now with Trump in office, it’s just like an open policy.”
Since early September, U.S. forces have killed at least 57 people from 14 vessels. President Donald Trump and the U.S. government allege that the boats are trafficking drugs, particularly fentanyl-laced cocaine, into the country.
However, Fentanyl is largely smuggled into the U.S. at ports of entry, according to a 2025 report on fentanyl smuggling into the U.S. by the American Immigration Council.
The council analyzed 700 press releases and social media posts published by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection between January 2021 and March 2024 on the seizure of fentanyl at or near the southern border.
“While some have speculated that high levels of irregular migration provide an opportunity for drug smuggling (on the logic that border agents are distracted), the data provides no support for this theory. Migration has risen and fallen with no correlation between drug seizures,” the report said.
On the question of “who is smuggling fentanyl into the United States,” the report noted that about 81 percent of all seizures at ports of entry along the southwest border from 2019 to June 2024 were U.S. citizens.
Relations between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago
Following Trinidad and Tobago’s alignment with the U.S., President Maduro approved suspending energy agreements between the two nations. During a national broadcast on Oct. 24, he accused the U.S. government of “fabricating a new eternal war” against him, according to The Associated Press.
“They are fabricating an extravagant narrative, a vulgar, criminal and totally fake one,” he said. “Venezuela is a country that does not produce cocaine leaves.” In several messages, President Maduro has called for peace but has made it clear that Venezuela will protect and defend its sovereignty if U.S. escalation ensues.
In a statement posted to Venezuela Vice President Delcy Rodríguez’s Instagram account on Oct. 26, Venezuela denounced the “military provocation by Trinidad and Tobago in coordination with the CIA to provoke a war in the Caribbean.”
It reported that it captured a CIA-affiliated mercenary group and “determined that a false flag attack is underway from waters bordering Trinidad and Tobago, or from Trinidadian or Venezuelan territory, intended to provoke a full-scale military confrontation against our country.”
President Trump confirmed his authorization for the CIA to conduct covert operations in Venezuela in mid-October.
Venezuela compared the action to the provocations that led to the war against Spain to seize Cuba in 1898 and the U.S. Congress’s authorization to engage in a war against Vietnam in 1964.
The country accused Trinidad and Tobago and its prime minister, Kamla Persad-Bissessar, of acting “as a military colony subordinated to U.S. hegemonic interests, turning its territory into an American aircraft carrier for war across the Caribbean, against Venezuela, against Colombia, and against all of South America.”
Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar’s alignment with the U.S. violates the proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a “Zone of Peace” approved by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the principles of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM), the statement said.
“These are not defensive exercises: this is a colonial military aggression operation aimed at turning the Caribbean into a space for lethal violence and U.S. imperial domination.”
As a result, “innocent fishermen have been victims of extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean Sea,” the statement said.
Ms. Caines linked the situation between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago to the increased militarization in U.S. cities. “Trinidad and Tobago has been under a state of emergency, citing crime primarily as a proxy and to be in alignment with the narrative coming out of the U.S.
That Venezuela is this narco-trafficking state, Maduro is this criminal and then there’s criminals fleeing Venezuela and entering Trinidad and Tobago,” she said. “If we recall a few months ago in Chicago, that was being said as well, that criminal Venezuelans are fleeing Venezuela and entering the U.S.”
“The results of that here domestically has been the expansion of a police state via the National Guard and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), and then we see on the Caribbean Sea, it has been extrajudicial killings of fishermen,” she added.
America’s errant foreign policy
In addition to suspending energy agreements, President Maduro began proceedings to revoke the citizenship of Leopoldo López, an opposition politician backed by the U.S. The Venezuelan president filed an appeal before the Supreme Court of Justice on Oct. 24 to revoke Mr. López’s nationality “based on his grotesque, criminal.
And illegal call for a military invasion of Venezuela, his continued promotion of the economic blockade, and his call for the mass murder of Venezuelans in complicity with foreign governments and enemies,” according to a statement by Vice President Rodríguez via Telegram.
The U.S. has a history of supporting Venezuelan opposition leaders.
In a message on “America’s Errant Foreign Policy,” the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan spoke about America and the CIA’s organization of a coup against the late Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez.
“A man coming from the masses of the people of Venezuela, his ideas were not in harmony with America’s foreign policy objectives for Venezuela, as well as Central and South America.
His influence with the oil money that he had, as the eighth largest exporter of oil in the world—with the largest oil reserves on the planet—would give him the power to influence the political and social dynamic and direction of Central and South America,” Minister Farrakhan said in part 34 “The Time and What Must be Done.”
“In the eyes of America, he ‘had to be overthrown’ although he was democratically elected. Under George W. Bush, after Hugo Chávez had won a democratic election, forces were set in motion among those who felt threatened by his economic policies, and he was overthrown,” Minister Farrakhan added. However, President Chávez quickly returned to power in less than 48 hours.
After the death of Hugo Chávez in 2013, the people of Venezuela elected Nicolás Maduro, but the U.S. urged the opposition not to accept the results. In Part 14 of “The Time and What Must be Done,” Minister Farrakhan questioned America’s stance.
“I read that Americans are telling the opposition that they should not accept the results of the election in this Venezuelan government if Nicolas Maduro wins,” he said. “America: Why are you meddling in their affairs? Can anyone meddle in the affairs of American politics?” he asked.
President Maduro was reelected in 2018. America, again, rejected the election results. Minister Farrakhan accused America of trying to take President Maduro out of office to get control of the world’s largest oil reserve.
In a major address in 2019, delivered at the Nation of Islam’s annual Saviours’ Day convention, Minister Farrakhan cautioned President Trump during his first term: “I think Mr. President you would be wise to leave President Maduro alone.”
“Now they’re trying to overthrow President Maduro even if it means sending us to war. I respectfully say to the president, I cannot back you if you’re going to send American soldiers to war to die because you want that man out of power and you’re meddling in the affairs of his country. I don’t think any young soldier should go,” Minister Farrakhan said.
He advised America’s soldiers to “adopt the Muslim position.”
“We do not believe that we who declare ourselves to be righteous Muslims should be engaged in wars which take the lives of human beings, especially when we have nothing to gain from it, unless you give us the necessary territory wherein we will have something to fight for.”
Minister Farrakhan added, “But not to go and spend our lives so you can use Venezuelan oil and ruin their country.”
President Maduro was reelected in 2024. The U.S. accused him of election fraud, an accusation Mr. Maduro vehemently denies. During a press conference in September, President Maduro said the U.S. is “seeking a regime change through military threat.”
“Trump has been all but boldly stating that,” Ms. Caines said. “I don’t think it’s a secret that it is about regime change, primarily because of the narrative around Maduro.”
She explained how the U.S. is attempting to maintain hegemony, or political, economic and military dominance, in the Latin America and Caribbean region through not only its continuous attacks on Venezuela but also through ensuring Haiti remains isolated and under control, continuous sanctions on Nicaragua and the continuous blockade on Cuba.
She also expressed concern about the environment, as the U.S. continues its attacks on Venezuela and its military actions in other countries in the region.
“What does it mean for the U.S. to just keep blowing up people in the Caribbean Sea and these bodies are floating up on Trinidad’s shore? The environmental impact of these things,” she said.
“What does it mean for the U.S. to go out to Venezuela, and what does it mean for us here in the U.S. and the surrounding areas like the CARICOM nations?” she asked.