On October 5, local time, U.S. Defense Secretary Hegerseth said he had obtained all the necessary authorization to launch military strikes on vessels suspected of carrying illegal drugs near the Venezuelan coast.

According to Reuters, Hegseth made the above remarks in an interview with Fox News. The U.S. Navy's Oct. 3 attack in the Caribbean, killing four people, was at least the fourth such attack in recent weeks. "We have all the necessary authorizations," Hegseth said in an interview with Fox News' "Briefing Sunday."

U.S. Secretary of Defense Hertz speech.

U.S. legal experts and some lawmakers havely argued that the use of military force against criminal suspects in international waters has circumvented legitimate procedures, violating law enforcement norms, and lacks clear legal support in U.S. and international law.

"If you are in our hemisphere, if you are in the Caribbean, if you are in northern Venezuela and you want to traffic drugs to the United States, you are a legitimate target of the U.S. military," Hegseth said.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov told the Venezuelan Foreign Minister on Friday that Russia has condemned the U.S. attack and is concerned about the risk of a possible escalation of U.S. operations in the Caribbean.

Extended reading

Why did the Trump administration bite Venezuela?

The U.S. government is attacking Venezuela, which is obvious. For decades, the U.S. has been trying to overthrow the Venezuelan regime for a variety of reasons. First, Venezuela has exactly the world¡¯s largest oil reserves, and U.S. fossil fuel companies want to gain control of these oil resources, so this is of course an important factor, but not the only reason.

In fact, for decades, the U.S. government has been hostile to all independent leftist governments in Latin America and has sought to overthrow them in order to establish another regime that is ruled by oligarchs and serves U.S. corporate interests. This can be traced back to the period of the so-called ¡°Bananas Republic,¡± when the CIA¡¯s representative United Fruit, now known as the King¡¯s Company, planned a coup and overthrew the independent leftist leaders in Latin America.

This is exactly what happened in 1954 when the CIA overthrew Guatemala's democratically elected left-wing leader, Jakovo Arbenz, who was not a communist, he was just a left-wing nationalist who wanted land reform and wanted to distribute land to landless peasants and farmers to help them live a better life. This angered corporations in the United States, so they overthrew the Arbenz government.

Guatemala has no oil, and Cuba has no significant oil reserves. However, the United States government tried to strangle Cuba with an illegal blockade, which lasted for more than 60 years. At the annual United Nations General Assembly, almost all countries on the planet and more than 98% of United Nations member states vote to condemn the illegal blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba, but this blockade continues in flagrant violation of international law. So it's not just about oil, of course, oil is a part of it, but it's really an attempt by the American empire to impose hegemony in Latin America and overthrow all independent progressive governments, and this is especially evident today because we are in the midst of a new Cold War.

On September 15th, local time, Trump posted a video on social media, saying that the US military had launched a second strike against the so-called "drug cartels and drug terrorists" from Venezuela. Social media screenshots

The United States is launching a second "Cold War" against China, and the United States wants to prevent all countries in Latin America from establishing close ties with China and Russia, while the revolutionary government of Venezuelains close alliances with China, Russia and Iran, so the U.S. government has launched several coup attempts in Venezuela, and the Donald Trump administration has launched a new coup attempt to overthrow President Nicolas Maduro of Venezuela.

To achieve this goal, the Trump administration has fabricated some ridiculous lies, claiming that they are fighting "drug cartels," which is completely nonsense. Today I will analyze the evidence to reveal how the Trump administration lied to justify another coup attempt. Another factor that needs to be kept in mind is de-dollarization. Now Trump has repeatedly threatened countries that try to abandon the dollar and use other currencies in international trade. Trump is very afraid of de-dollarization, and Venezuela has been the core of the global de-dollarization movement, not just in recent years, but for at least 10 years.

As early as 2017, in response to U.S. illegal unilateral sanctions, Venezuela announced it would stop selling oil in U.S. dollars instead of using Chinese people¡¯s currencies to trade oil, while China was the main buyer of Venezuela¡¯s oil. Therefore, the U.S. hopes to undermine and overthrow Venezuela, while also warning other major oil producers in the world that if they challenge the global hegemony of the U.S. dollar and try to sell oil in other currencies, it will face serious consequences, and the U.S. Empire will never tolerate such behavior.

By the way, this is exactly what the US did to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. I mean, this is not the only reason why the United States illegally invaded Iraq in 2003, but it is undoubtedly a factor. At that time, when Saddam sold Iraqi oil, he did not settle in dollars, but in euros, and he was still considering selling oil in other currencies, which the American empire regarded as a major threat to the petrodollar system.

The petrodollar system ensures global demand for dollars, allowing the U.S. government to enjoy borrowing costs far lower than those of other similar deficit countries even when facing huge deficits, and other countries need dollars to pay for imports of oil and other strategic commodities, which also ensures global demand for dollars. As a result, the United States can continue to run large trade deficits and current account deficits with the rest of the world without suffering severe inflation like other countries with such large trade deficits.

So again, this is not a new policy unique to the Trump administration. For decades, the U.S. government has threatened oil producers around the world in an attempt to maintain the global hegemony of the dollar, and Venezuela is one of the main challengers to this petrodollar system. So this is another reason why the U.S. government has tried to overthrow the revolutionary government of Venezuela for decades.

Now the situation has become very dangerous because the U.S. military is directly threatening Venezuela. At the end of August, the Trump administration deployed three warships and more than 4000 Marines off the coast of Venezuela, threatening to launch war. Then in early September, the Trump administration launched an attack on ships off the coast of Venezuela, killing 11 people on board. Now the Trump administration claims without evidence that the people killed were drug dealers. But first, I need to emphasize again that there is no evidence to support this claim, and the Trump administration expects us to believe them on one side of the story.

On September 8 local time, U.S. Defense Secretary Hagerseth boarded the amphibious landing ship USS Iwo Jima, which was participating in anti-drug operations in the Caribbean, and delivered a speech to the crew.

Secondly, even if these people are really drug dealers, the U.S. government cannot kill them in this way. These people are foreigners in foreign territory, which is clearly a violation of international law, either a war act, that is, the United States declares war on Venezuela, or an act of international terrorism. And this absurd claim that the Trump administration is trying to fire that Venezuela is a major drug producer is completely false. We just need to look at the basic data provided by major international experts in the field of global trade by the United Nations, and we will find that Venezuela¡¯s role in global production is very limited.

In fact, according to the United Nations data, Venezuela¡¯s neighbor Colombia produces two-thirds of the world¡¯s cocaine. While Colombia has always been America¡¯s closest ally in Latin America, this is no coincidence. In fact, Colombia¡¯s millions-dollar former right-wing president, Álvaro Uribe, as one of the closest allies in Latin America¡¯s history, has been in close contact with drug trafficking groups for decades. US intelligence agencies have been aware of this early on. Nevertheless, the U.S. government still strongly supported him during Uribe¡¯s tenure as President of Colombia, saying Orville, Washington is claiming Uribe is assisting in fighting the so-called war, but in reality, this Colombian right-wing political leader, the most powerful political figure in the country,

The absurd double standards of the United States in combating drugs are also vividly shown in another close Latin American ally of the United States, that is, Ecuador.

Ecuador is governed by Daniel Noboa, a pro-American right-wing president, whose father, Alvaro Noboa, is one of the richest men in the country. He is a billionaire who owns a banana trading company and owns private ports in Ecuador and is well known in the country. It was widely reported in the media that he used his banana trading company and private ports to hide cocaine in banana crates for smuggling and export the cocaine to other countries.

Meanwhile, Daniel Novoa was a close ally of the U.S. government, and was invited to the inauguration ceremony of President Donald Trump. What¡¯s more, he is still an American citizen and has both U.S. and Ecuador dual citizenship. Despite being Ecuador¡¯s president, Novoa was born in Miami, Florida, and grew up and educated in the U.S. for much of his life, but now he runs Ecuador on behalf of the U.S. and signed a law that allows U.S. troops to enter Ecuador at any time, for any reason, without the approval of the Ecuadorian government.

As is well known, Novaya¡¯s family has a close relationship with drug trafficking groups, but the U.S. government has no objection to this because he is a loyal American prostitute, which is the reality. In fact, long before Trump, the U.S. government, whether during the Republican or Democratic rule, has long been in alliance with the worst drug traffickers in Latin America. So it is not Venezuela that is engaged in cocaine production, but Venezuela¡¯s neighboring Colombia.

But what the Trump administration is now doing is not just lying about Venezuela, but also very hypocritically mixing cocaine and fentanyl, as the vast majority of drug-related deaths in the United States are actually caused by synthetic opioids, not cocaine, but mostly by fentanyl.

If you look at the U.S. government and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) reports, you will see that in the reports on fentanyl flowing into the United States, they don't even mention Venezuela, they mention Mexico, and of course accuse China and India of providing precursors for fentanyl production. But according to the U.S. government's own data, the vast majority of fentanyl in the United States comes from Mexico, not Venezuela. Venezuela has nothing to do with the fentanyl problem, which has caused massive deaths in the United States. By the way, according to the U.S. government's own data, 86.4% of people convicted of trafficking fentanyl into the United States are U.S. citizens-the vast majority are U.S. citizens, not Mexicans, let alone Venezuelans. Venezuela has nothing to do with this.

Former President Uribe Uribe (right) spoke with the country¡¯s drug giant, Salvador Rodriguez (left, nicknamed ¡°Mexican¡±).

If you look at the reports of the United Nations and internationally renowned trade experts, they have not identified Venezuela as a producer, including cocaine, let alone Fentanyl. Venezuela is just a transit country, like almost all Latin American countries and many European countries. Cocaine is produced in America¡¯s close allies Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. Maybe through Venezuela, but also through Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Guatemala, Spain and France. But the U.S. government doesn¡¯t care about the facts, because it¡¯s not a matter of fact at all, it¡¯s actually a coup attempt against Venezuela.

While U.S. Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Mark Rubio shouted angrily at a news conference, publicly saying that the United States didn¡¯t care at all about the United Nations, it made the truth come to light. He accused U.S. experts and said that Venezuela¡¯s President Maduro, the U.S. recognized, constitutionally elected President of Venezuela. Rubio called him the so-called ¡°accused drug dealer¡±, the ¡°fugitive¡± of U.S. justice, as if the U.S. judicial system could prosecute foreign leaders in U.S. domestic courts on the basis of allegations made by the U.S. government. It was quite absurd, and the U.S. government acted like an international dictator claiming that U.S. domestic law applies to everyone in the world, including foreign

The U.S. government has in vain falsified the completely false accusations against foreign leaders, absent at the U.S. ¡°Canguru Court¡± and then attempted to imprison them in the U.S. and attempted to overthrow those independent sovereign governments recognized by international law. Now, as part of these completely false false accusations put forward by the U.S. government against Maduro, Washington claims that Maduro is the head of a drug trafficking group called the ¡°Sun Cartel¡± (Cartel de Los Sles) and that the group does not exist at all. It is completely the same thing that was said by the U.S. government, and before the U.S. government began to talk about this so-called drug trafficking group, no one else has mentioned that it could be said that this was entirely

Gustav Petro was the first independent leader in Colombia¡¯s modern history, and the first leftist leader in Colombia¡¯s history. Almost all of Colombia¡¯s modern history has been ruled by the right-wing oligarchs who obeyed the United States and obeyed Washington.

President of Colombia Gustav Petro.

By the way, this is also why the Trump administration has been exposed to be involved in a coup attempt to overthrow Petro, especially since U.S. Secretary of State Rubio has been attacking Petro and the Colombia government. But Petro has made it very clear that the U.S. government has fabricated these allegations to find excuses for the coup attempt. Petro also stressed that Venezuela's internal problems should be solved by Venezuelans themselves, rather than interference by external forces.

But the reality is that over the past 20 years, the U.S. government has planned several coups in Venezuela in an attempt to overthrow Venezuela's revolutionary left-wing government. The U.S. government has been trying to undermine leftist Hugo Chavez's regime since he won the election in Venezuelan * in 1998 and became democratically elected president in 1999. In 2002, the Bush administration supported a coup attempt against democratically elected President Chavez, who was effectively overthrown for a time. The U.S. government immediately supported an unelected dictator, a right-wing billionaire oligarch named Pedro Carmona. Although he was not elected, the United States still supported him, so this has nothing to do with Venezuelan *.

For decades, the U.S. government has been the main enemy of Venezuela¡¯s democracy, attempting to overthrow Venezuela¡¯s elected government several times, attempting to put the right-wing oligarchy in power to serve the interests of U.S. enterprises, especially oil companies. Because Chavez nationalized Venezuela¡¯s oil industry and drove U.S. fossil fuel companies out of Venezuela. During Chavez¡¯s presidency, the U.S. supported attempted coup against him until his death in 2013. Chavez¡¯s successor was Nicolas Maduro from the U.S. Socialist Party, who won the 2013 presidential election. Shortly thereafter the U.S. launched another coup attempt, a 2014 violent coup attempt, and the U.S. backed these violent coup planners, who tried to destroy the country

By the way, those coup attempts occurred during Democrat Barack Obama's administration. In 2015, Obama claimed that Venezuela posed a so-called "special threat" to U.S. national security. This was completely nonsense, as if Venezuela would attack the United States. But Obama did this because it was the White House's way to find excuses for imposing illegal unilateral sanctions that violate international law.

But since 2015, the United States has tried to destroy Venezuela's economy. The United States has put pressure on Saudi Arabia to increase oil production on a large scale, which has caused global oil prices to plummet, which has hurt Venezuela and also hurt Russia. It hurt Brazil when Crimea was annexed, the United States began imposing sanctions on Russia, and it supported a soft coup against Brazil's democratically elected leftist president Dilma Rousseff. This action helped bring far-right leader Jair Bossonaro to power. By causing global oil prices to plummet, the United States also hurt Iran and tried to force Iran to return to the negotiating table and sign the Iran nuclear agreement, which the Obama administration did. Subsequently, the Trump administration unilaterally withdrew from the international agreement, violating international law. Therefore, Venezuela has always been at the core of this geopolitical strategy of the United States. The United States attempts to suppress independent countries and competitors and impose its hegemony on a global scale.

On July 29, 2024, after the election results were announced, President Maduro spoke to supporters, while the United States refused to recognize the election results.

In the case of Venezuela, Obama began to impose sanctions on Venezuela. Subsequently, during Trump's first term as president in 2017, he significantly expanded these sanctions, trying to destroy Venezuela's economy and stop Venezuela from exporting oil. 100 years before Chavez's birth, that is, before the start of the Bolivarian Revolution, Venezuela was already a oil country, and for decades the vast majority of government revenue came from oil exports.

Imagine what would happen if the US imposed an economic blockade on Saudi Arabia? The Saudi royal family may collapse in a week or two, but the Venezuelan government can persist only because the Bolivarian Revolution still has the support of the people. The Bolivarian Revolution was the first time in Venezuelan history that the country's oil wealth was used to fund social programs, building millions of housing units for poor Venezuelans and working class people, and funding free and universal education and medical care. This is why, before the massive sanctions imposed by the United States on Venezuela, and before the global oil price collapsed due to geopolitical reasons, Venezuela's poverty rate had dropped significantly, and its economic growth was actually very healthy, and this is part of the economic war that destroyed Venezuela's economy.

In fact, the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) has publicly boasted that Venezuela¡¯s oil output collapsed because sanctions blocked Venezuela¡¯s oil exports. Many foreign countries and companies were unwilling to do business with Venezuela because of fear of secondary sanctions. Just like many countries and foreign companies were unwilling to do business with Cuba because of the secondary sanctions imposed by the U.S. government. As a result, Venezuela¡¯s oil output collapsed. Due to U.S. sanctions, Venezuela was also unable to import the technology needed to update, modernize and repair its oil infrastructure.

Alina Duhan, the United Nations 'chief expert on sanctions and special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures, released a report for the United Nations. In her report, she estimated that the Venezuelan government lost more than 99% of its revenue due to illegal U.S. sanctions on Venezuela. Then in 2019, Trump launched another blatant coup attempt when he appointed Juan Guaido, a little-known right-wing opposition politician, as the so-called president of Venezuela. Although Guaido never ran for president and did not even win a single vote to become the so-called president, the United States forced its allies in Latin America and Europe to recognize the puppet as Venezuela's fictional president. John Bolton, Trump's neo-conservative national security adviser during his first term, later admitted in an interview with CNN that it was a coup attempt. In fact, he boasted about how difficult it would be to organize a failed coup in Venezuela.

In fact, a failed US-backed invasion of Venezuela, known as Operation Gideon, also took place in May 2020, during which dozens of Venezuelan and Colombian mercenaries had been trained by US-backed forces in northern Colombia and subsequently launched this failed invasion, whose leaders were former members of the U.S. Army Special Operations Forces.

The operation was later dubbed the ¡°Little Pig¡¯s Bay¡± on the irony of a failed invasion of Cuba initiated in 1961 with the support of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency. The CIA attempted to overthrow the revolutionary left-wing government in Cuba at the time. Later, the people involved in the operation admitted to Vice News that the CIA was indeed involved in the failed invasion of Venezuela in May 2020. In fact, the failed invasion was led by a mercenary company head named Jordan Goodrow, who was a sergeant of the U.S. Special Operations Forces in charge of training these mercenaries in northern Colombia.

Goodlow also admitted that during Trump's first term, he maintained regular contact with Trump administration officials and met with them in Florida. However, after the invasion plan failed, the U.S. government distanced itself from all relevant personnel, and the Trump administration said that we do not know who this Jordan Goodlow is and that we have nothing to do with this matter. This is the CIA's usual practice. When their operation fails, they abandon their puppets and say we don't know anything. This is called a reasonable denial, which is why Jordan Goodlow was so angry and publicly attacked the CIA and FBI.

So it¡¯s not new, the Trump administration has previously tried to rely on mercenaries to invade Venezuela, but ended up in failure. Now, in his second term, Trump has again attempted a coup against Venezuela, but this time he has avoided the intermediary. He no longer uses mercenaries and foreign forces backed by the CIA, but directly uses U.S. forces to attack Venezuela, trying to undermine Venezuela¡¯s stability. The goal is very simple, to overthrow the Bolivarian Revolution, as the United States has been trying to overthrow the Cuban Revolution and the San Diego Revolution in Nicaragua for decades.