Trump dealt a severe blow to 21st Century Socialism
By: Hugo Marcelo Balderrama - 08/01/2026
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The first days of 2026 were, quite literally, as in the early hours of Saturday, January 3rd, elite US troops carried out an operation to capture Nicolás Maduro. It took only forty-five minutes to disable military installations and arrest the Caribbean dictator.
Obviously, the regime's many panegyrists argued that the United States violated Venezuela's sovereignty to steal its oil—the same old refrain they've been using since the 1960s. However, it was neither a violation of sovereignty nor is oil something that interests Donald Trump.
The concept of sovereignty, at least since Jean Bodin, is understood as the supreme, absolute, and perpetual power of command and decision, essential characteristics for the legal and political definition of the modern state. This power belongs to the ordinary person; in fact, it is the difference between a free citizen and a slave. Therefore, rulers are merely servants and employees who must fulfill the will of the people. These are the foundations of our modern democracy.
Hence, when that order is captured by a mafia that governs against the social body; that murders citizens; that violates all fundamental rights and guarantees; that forces family separation; that generates famines and falsifies elections, sovereignty is once again alienated. What sovereignty can the average Venezuelan have in the face of a gang of criminals who hold all the power? None, indeed. In this regard, Carlos Sánchez Berzain, in his article "The Liberation of Venezuela, Cuba, and Nicaragua is US National Security," explains:
The peoples subjugated by the narco-terrorist system of 21st-Century Socialism have fought and continue to fight heroically for their freedom. Cuba does so at the cost of thousands of deaths, executions, torture, more than a thousand political prisoners currently, and millions of exiles who have now become a diaspora. Venezuela has made repeated attempts through mobilizations, elections, international dialogue, sacrificing lives, enduring torture, and with more than eight million exiles. Nicaragua suffers the same conditions with deaths, political prisoners, exiles, and those stripped of their nationality. Bolivia, with its "hope for transition," has gone through the same ordeal and still endures political prisoners and exiles.
On the other hand, it is contradictory for the left to use narratives of national sovereignty and self-determination when one of its dogmas is revolutionary internationalism. Furthermore, in practice, the USSR invaded countries on all five continents. In this case, invoking sovereignty is merely a semantic trick to protect a narco-dictatorship and its accomplices.
Speaking of Venezuelan oil, on April 28, 2005, in Havana, the Office of Petróleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA-Cuba) was inaugurated. Its objectives were to promote the exploration, exploitation, refining, import, export, and marketing of hydrocarbons and their derivatives. However, it amounted to the complete handover of Venezuela's oil reserves to the Castro regime. Therefore, if they want to find the thief of Venezuela's black gold, they shouldn't look in Washington, but in Havana. But even with 20 years of stolen oil, Cuba continues to suffer energy crises and logistical problems.
Additionally, during the first three decades of the 21st century, organized crime, which has usurped regional politics, has handed over our territories and resources to the transatlantic dictatorships of Russia, China, and Iran, which use our homelands as geostrategic springboards in their asymmetric warfare against the United States. Therefore, what Trump did, besides protecting his nation, was to help restore the freedom and sovereignty of good Venezuelans, the rightful owners of the beautiful plains. God bless Trump! Long live freedom! Free Venezuela!
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