US President Donald Trump’s stark, nationalist and openly neocolonial worldview has now produced another regime-change war, this time in Venezuela.
The year opened with US air strikes on multiple sites inside Venezuela. Trump announced that Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife had been “captured and flown out of the country”. These attacks, framed as a blow against “narco-trafficking”, followed Christmas Day strikes on Nigeria and Somalia, and a CIA drone strike in Venezuela itself.
Venezuela Dock Strike Controversy
Standing at Mar-a-Lago beside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 29 December, Trump boasted to reporters of “a major explosion in the dock area where they load the boats up with drugs” in Venezuela. This referred to the first land-based strike after months of lethal attacks on fishing boats in the Caribbean. Trump insisted the victims were smugglers; members of Congress say these operations resemble war crimes. The Nigeria strikes were publicly announced as targeting militants, while the Somalia raids went largely unreported, continuing a pattern of quiet escalation that Western media barely notices.
Trump’s Claims on Gaza Ceasefire
On Israel-Palestine, Trump echoed Netanyahu’s talking points almost verbatim. He claimed Israel had “100 percent” complied with his 20-point Gaza “ceasefire” plan, and that Hamas violated it by failing to disarm. In fact, Hamas has returned all living and dead hostages but one since 13 October, despite a suffocating aid blockade and near-daily Israeli attacks that have killed more than 400 Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel accelerates de facto annexation of the occupied West Bank.
New data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics shows Gaza has suffered a “sharp and unprecedented” population drop of around 254,000 people since October 2023—a 10.6 percent decline. With roughly 150,000 believed to have fled Gaza, a recent German demographic study concludes that more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israel’s two-year onslaught.
Stalled “Peace” Deals
Also at Mar-a-Lago, Trump hosted Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for another failing attempt to negotiate with Russia. Moscow continues pounding Kyiv with drones, while Ukraine—guided by US intelligence—retaliated with strikes on a Russia-occupied Black Sea resort, killing 24 and injuring 50.
Trump’s diplomacy resembles his real-estate deals: headline-grabbing, opaque, and collapsing once he leaves the room. Trump halted Israel’s outright war of annihilation in Gaza only to replace it with a hybrid project to recolonise both Gaza and the West Bank. As long as Washington shields Israel, it must keep enabling its wars and territorial expansion in Lebanon and Syria, and will be repeatedly drawn into new conflicts. On his latest US visit, Netanyahu again pressed Washington to strike Iran, explicitly linking Tehran to Venezuela’s socialist leadership.
With the attack on Venezuela, 2026 has begun under a doctrine that normalises regime change, great-power predation and endless proxy wars. The world is already more volatile—and more dangerous—than it was just a year ago.
