cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/30749

The kidnapping of a sitting head of state marks a grave escalation in US-Venezuela relations. By seizing Venezuela’s constitutional president, Washington signaled both its disregard for international law and its confidence that it would face little immediate consequence.

The response within the US political establishment to the attack on Venezuela has been striking. Without the slightest cognitive dissonance over President Maduro’s violent abduction, Democrats call for “restoring democracy” – but not for returning Venezuela’s lawful president.

So why didn’t the imperialists simply assassinate him? From their perspective, it would have been cleaner and more cost-efficient. It would have been the DOGE thing to do: launch a drone in one of those celebrated “surgical” strikes.

Targeted killings are as much a part of US policy now as there were in the past. From Obama’s drone strikes on US citizens in 2011 to Trump’s killing of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani, lethal force has been used when deemed expedient. And only last June, the second Trump administration and its Zionist partner in crime droned eleven Iranian nuclear scientists.

The US posted a $50-million bounty on Maduro, yet they took him very much alive along with his wife, First Combatant (the Venezuelan equivalent of the First Lady) Cilia Flores.

The reason Maduro’s life was spared tells us volumes about the resilience of the Bolivarian Revolution, the strength of Maduro even in captivity, and the inability of the empire to subjugate Venezuela.

Killing Nicolás Maduro Moros appears to have been a step too far, even for Washington’s hawks. Perhaps he was also seen as more valuable to the empire as a hostage than as a martyr.

But the images of a handcuffed Maduro flashing a victory sign – and declaring in a New York courtroom, “I was captured… I am the president of my country” – were not those of a defeated leader.

Rather than collapsing, the Bolivarian Revolution survived the decapitation. With a seamless continuation of leadership under acting President Delcy Rodríguez, even some figures in the opposition have rallied around the national leadership, heeding the nationalist call of a populace mobilized in the streets in support of their president.

This has pushed the US to negotiate rather than outright conquer, notwithstanding that the playing field remains decisively tilted in Washington’s favor. Regardless, Venezuelan authorities have demanded and received the US’s respect. Indeed, after declaring Venezuela an illegitimate narco-state, Trump has flipped, recognized the Chavista government, and invited its acting executive to Washington.

NBC News gave Delcy Rodríguez a respectful interview. After affirming state ownership of Venezuela’s mineral resources and Maduro as the lawful president, she pointed out that the so-called political prisoners in Venezuelan prisons were there because they had committed acts of criminal violence.

Before a national US television audience she explained that free and fair elections require being “free of sanctions and…not undermined by international bullying and harassment by the international press” (emphasis added).

Notably, the interviewer cited US Energy Secretary Chris Wright’s admission made during his high-level visit to Venezuela. The US official brushed aside demands for short-term elections, instead arguing that they could be held by the end of 2027. In contrast, Rodríguez stressed that Venezuela’s electoral calendar is set by the country’s Constitution.

As for opposition politician María Corina Machado, the darling of the US press corps, Rodríguez told the interviewer that Machado would have to answer for her various treasonous activities if she came back to Venezuela.

Contrary to the corporate press’s media myth, fostered at a reception in Manhattan, that Machado is insanely popular and poised to lead “A Trillion-Dollar Opportunity: The Global Upside of a Democratic Venezuela,” the US government apparently understood the reality on the ground. “She doesn’t have the support within, or the respect within, the country,” was the honest evaluation, not of some Chavista partisan, but of President Trump himself.

Yader Lanuza documents how the US provided millions to manufacture an effective astroturf opposition to the Chavistas. It is far from the first time that Washington has squandered money in this way – we only have to look back at its failed efforts to promote the “presidency” of Juan Guaidó. Its latest efforts have again had no decisive result, leaving Machado in limbo and pragmatic engagement with the Chavista leadership as the only practical option.

Any doubts that there is daylight between captured President Maduro and acting President Rodríguez can be dispelled by listening to the now incarcerated Maduro’s New Year’s Day interview with international leftist intellectual Ignacio Ramonet.

Maduro said it was time to “start talking seriously” with the US – especially regarding oil investment – marking a continuation of his prior conditional openness to diplomatic engagement. He reiterated that Venezuela was ready to discuss agreements on combating drug trafficking and to consider US oil investment, allowing companies like Chevron to operate.

That was just two days before the abduction. Subsequently, Delcy Rodríguez met with the US energy secretary and the head of the Southern Command to discuss oil investments and combating drug trafficking, respectively.

Venezuelan analysts have framed the current moment as one of constrained choice. “What is at stake is the survival of the state and the republic, which if lost, would render the discussion of any other topic banal,” according to Sergio Rodríguez Gelfenstein. The former government official, who was close to Hugo Chávez, supports Delcy Rodríguez’s discussions with Washington – acknowledging that she has “a missile to her head.”

“The search for a negotiation in the case of the January 3 kidnapping is not understood, therefore, as a surrender, but as an act of political maturity in a context of unprecedented blackmail,” according to Italian journalist and former Red Brigades militant Geraldina Colotti.

The Amnesty Law, a longstanding Chavista initiative, is being debated in the National Assembly to maintain social peace, according to the president of the assembly and brother of the acting president, Jorge Rodríguez, in an interview with the US-based NewsMax outlet.

As Jorge Rodríguez commented, foregoing oil revenues by keeping oil in the ground does not benefit the people’s well-being and development. In that context, the Hydrocarbon Law has been reformed to attract vital foreign investment.

The Venezuelan outlet Mision Verdad elaborates: “The 2026 reform ratifies and, in some aspects, deepens essential elements of the previous legislation…[I]t creates the legal basis for a complete strategic adaptation of the Venezuelan hydrocarbon industry, considering elements of the present context.”

As Karl Marx presciently observed about the present context, people “make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances.” The present US-Venezuelan détente is making history. So far – in Hugo Chávez’s words, por ahora – it does not resemble the humanitarian catastrophes imposed by the empire on Haiti, Libya, Iraq, Syria, or Afghanistan.

But make no mistake: the ultimate goal of the empire remains regime change. And there is no clearer insight into the empire’s core barbarity than Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s speech at the Munich conference with his praising of the capture of a “narcoterrorist dictator” and his invocation of Columbus as the inspiration “to build a new Western century.”

Washington’s kidnapping of Maduro was intended to demonstrate the empire’s dominance. But it also exposed its limits: the durability of the Bolivarian Revolution and the reality that even great powers must sometimes negotiate with governments they detest. The outcome remains uncertain.

With minor edits by Venezuelanalysis.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Venezuelanalysis editorial staff.

The post The Decapitation That Failed: Venezuela After the Abduction of President Maduro appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/30759

Images of burning buses, blocked highways, plumes of smoke, and people fleeing in terror from airports and markets in Mexico were plastered across the front pages of the world’s largest newspapers and news sites on Monday. Mexican states such as Michoacán, Guanajuato, Nayarit, Colima, Zacatecas, Tamaulipas, Guerrero, Aguascalientes, and Oaxaca reported disruptions, road blockades, and violent actions. The scenes followed the federal operation that culminated in the killing of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG).

In response to this violence, much of the international press reproduced the false narrative of Mexico as an ungovernable territory dominated by all-powerful cartels. But this narrative obscures the fact that the security policy of Claudia Sheinbaum’s government toward the cartels is part of an imperialist hemispheric architecture promoted by Washington under the banner of the “war on drugs.”

The War on Drugs as a Tool of Regional Domination

Since 2006, Mexico has formally adopted an internal war strategy aligned with U.S. guidelines. The so-called “Kingpin” strategy — focused on capturing or eliminating leaders of criminal organizations — was designed in coordination with U.S. agencies and implemented by the PRI, PAN, and — despite its nationalist rhetoric — Morena governments.

Far from strengthening Mexican sovereignty, this strategy only consolidated mechanisms of interference: intelligence sharing, operational presence of U.S. agencies such as the DEA, diplomatic conditions, and increasing security integration under trade frameworks such as the USMCA.

The result has not been the defeat of drug trafficking, but its violent reconfiguration. The fragmentation of organizations has led to bloodier disputes for territorial control. Meanwhile, international financial capital — including banks operating between Mexico and the United States — continues to absorb and launder billions of dollars from illicit economies.

The “war on drugs” thus functions as a device for social control and regional discipline, justifying military expansion, surveillance, and political subordination in the name of security.

But this dynamic cannot be separated from the new extractive cycle that is beginning to take shape in Mexico and Latin America. In recent months, strategic agreements on critical minerals — lithium, copper, and rare earth elements — have been announced and negotiated within the framework of the geopolitical dispute between the United States and China. Mexico appears as a key piece in the North American supply chain, especially under the USMCA and Washington’s new industrial policies.

In several regions of the country, the expansion of mining, energy, and infrastructure projects coexists with the presence of organized crime groups that control territories, extort money, manage precarious labor, or even participate directly in legal and illegal extractive economies. The relationship between mining, land dispossession, and criminal structures has been documented in states such as Michoacán, Guerrero, and Zacatecas.

Thus, the militarization of the “war on drugs” is part of a broader attempt to build and guarantee the stability of logistical corridors, megaprojects, and strategic mining areas for transnational capital. The cycle of violence and the extractive cycle are not separate phenomena: they are part of the same territorially dependent reconfiguration.

Permanent Militarization and the Working Class

For the Mexican working class, the militarization of the U.S.-backed “war on drugs” has meant the normalization of checkpoints, permanent patrols, and a constant expansion of the power of the Armed Forces in civilian tasks. At the same time, they are forced to live alongside shootouts and patrols by cartel cells vying for control of the territory and fighting against state forces. In the states and areas where the Mexican National Guard is deployed, a regime of “exceptionality” is established in which democratic rights are subordinated to military logic.

In Mexico there have been more than 300,000 homicides and tens of thousands of missing persons reported since the start of the war on drugs in 2007. The victims overwhelmingly come from among the working class and poor, while the business and financial structures that sustain the cartels remain untouched, as do the pro-business politicians associated with organized crime groups.

The roadblocks and fires following the operation are not proof of an “absent state,” as liberal analysts have repeatedly claimed. They are evidence of the consequences of a profound militarization (demanded and imposed by imperialism) that has devastated entire regions, combining illegal economies, extreme job insecurity, and military violence.

Against the Imperial Narrative: an Internationalist Perspective

Reducing the situation to a struggle between the state and the cartels obscures the fact that Mexico’s security policy is inseparable from its structural dependence on imperialism. Economic integration under the USMCA and security cooperation are part of the same mechanism that subordinates Mexican domestic policy to Washington’s strategic interests.

From a socialist and internationalist perspective, the solution lies neither in further militarization nor in increased imperial oversight. Experience demonstrates that the “war on drugs,” while failing to substantially address the drug trade, has served as a means to promote militarization against the peoples of Latin America, strengthening repressive apparatuses and weakening democratic rights.

In response, it is necessary to build an alternative independent of the parties of the bosses, based on the organization of the working class, international coordination, and the struggle against imperialism and financial capital that sustains both the legal and illegal economy.

Only an emancipatory perspective, which questions structural dependency and aims for a socialist transformation of the region, can confront the economic and political roots of this permanent militarizing offensive.

Originally published in Spanish on February 23 on La Izquierda Diario, Mexico.

Translated and adapted for Left Voice.

The post U.S. Imperialist Policy Driving Violence in Mexico appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/29899

Caracas, February 20, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – The Trump administration is forcing all royalty, tax, and dividend payments from Venezuelan oil production be paid into accounts managed by Washington.

The mandate reinforces the White House’s control over Venezuelan crude export revenues in the wake of the January 3 military strikes and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro, as well as a naval blockade imposed in December.

The US Treasury Department updated its FAQ section on February 18 to clarify conditions on recently issued sanctions waivers allowing expanded participation in Venezuela’s oil sector to Western corporations.

Under the licenses, only “routine payments of local taxes, permits, and fees” to Venezuelan authorities are permitted.

“Other payments, including royalties, fixed per-barrel production levies, or federal taxes to blocked persons, such as the Venezuelan government or (state oil company) PDVSA, must be made into the Foreign Government Deposit Fund,” the text read.

The acting Rodríguez administration has yet to comment on the new restrictions.

Since January, Washington has imposed control over Venezuelan crude exports, with proceeds deposited in a US-administered account in Qatar. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced recently that funds will now be deposited directly in a US Treasury account. Senior administration officials have stated that the arrangement gives the White House “leverage” to condition Venezuelan government policies, while Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated that Caracas must submit a “budget request” to access its own oil revenues.

At least US $500 million, out of an initial deal estimated at $2 billion, have been returned to Venezuela and offered by banks in foreign exchange auctions. Venezuelan authorities have also reported the import of medicines and medical equipment from US manufacturers using “unblocked funds.”

On Thursday, the Treasury’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) issued General License 50A allowing select firms to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity. The document mirrors General License 50 issued on February 13 but added French firm Maurel & Prom to a list including BP, Chevron, Eni, Repsol, and Shell.

Maurel & Prom’s main project in the Caribbean nation is a minority stake in the Petroregional del Lago joint venture, which currently produces 21,000 barrels per day (bpd). The company’s executives recently held a meeting with Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as part of Caracas’ efforts to secure foreign investment.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has issued several licenses to boost US and European involvement in the Venezuelan energy sector, with imports of diluents, inputs and technology now allowed. General License 49, issued on February 13, demands that companies apply for a special license before striking production and investment deals with Venezuela.

The US Treasury issued sanctions waivers while maintaining existing coercive measures against the Venezuelan oil industry in place, including financial sanctions against PDVSA. The licenses likewise block any transactions with companies from Cuba, China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia.

The selective flexibilization of sanctions followed the Venezuelan National Assembly’s approval of a pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform grants private corporations expanded control over operations and sales, while opening the possibility for disputes to be taken to external arbitration.

The reformed law also allows the Venezuelan executive to arbitrarily reduce royalties and a new “integrated tax,” capped at 30 and 15 percent, respectively. The executive is likewise entitled to grant reductions to the 50 percent income tax set for the oil industry if deemed necessary for projects to be “internationally competitive.”

According to US-set conditions and the reformed law, minority partners such as Repsol are authorized to sell crude from Venezuelan joint ventures before depositing the owed royalty and tax amounts, as well as dividends belonging to PDVSA, to US Treasury-designated accounts.

The initial crude sales as part of the Trump-imposed arrangement were conducted via commodity traders Vitol and Trafigura, which lifted cargoes at Venezuelan ports before re-selling them to final customers. However, according to Reuters, US-based refiners including Phillips66 and CITGO are looking to secure crude directly from Venezuela to maximize profits.

CITGO, a subsidiary of PDVSA, is close to being taken over by vulture fund Elliott Management following a court-mandated auction to satisfy creditor claims against the South American country. The company has been managed by boards appointed by the US-backed Venezuelan opposition since 2019.

The post Trump Administration Mandates Venezuelan Oil Royalties, Taxes Be Paid to US-Run Accounts appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/29164

By Rosa Miriam Elizalde – Feb 13, 2026

Option Zero was the revolutionary government’s contingency plan for the moment of total blockade from abroad—and therefore—the complete loss of oil in the country.

On July 26, 2010, in the small theater of the José Martí Memorial in Havana, a convalescent Fidel Castro, dressed in olive green and recovering from several surgeries, walked down the aisle greeting those in the nearby seats. He said conspiratorially to the woman sitting next to me: “There’s Rosa Miriam… Do you know that one day she asked me if we were going to survive the Special Period?”

He had just recalled an afternoon in 1990, 20 years earlier, when, as a newly graduated journalist, I was assigned to report on a routine event at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB), which Fidel suddenly attended. For more than four hours, he explained what Cubans would experience after the disappearance of the USSR, a historic moment that was called the Special Period because, as the commander-in-chief said at the time, “no one knows what kind of practical problems may arise.”

Cuba lost a third of its gross domestic product between 1991 and 1994, and the U.S. blockade was opportunistically tightened, first by Republican George H.W. Bush (senior) and then by Democrat Bill Clinton. Among all the hardships we endured, perhaps the hardest was the epidemic of optic and peripheral neuropathy linked to a sharp drop in caloric and nutrient intake: from almost 4,000 calories a day, to just over 1,000. Real, daily hunger left physical and psychological scars on millions of Cubans that still linger today.

But at the CIGB, on that afternoon in 1990, it was the first time that the Cuban leader described in great detail the harsh economic restrictions that were coming, and there was talk in Cuba of Option Zero. Fidel, who always spoke the truth, was so graphic—communal pots, bicycles and carts as the only means of transportation, blackouts, food rationing more than usual—that we were all in shock. And when he finished speaking and approached the journalists, a passionate question came from my heart: “Do you really think we will survive?”

He explained again that Option Zero was the revolutionary government’s contingency plan for the moment of total blockade from abroad and, therefore, the complete loss of oil in the country. A strategy was designed for that scenario, and every link in society was organized to maintain a minimum of economic activity, as well as vital education and health centers, with provisions for an even worse situation: that of military aggression. The people would even be trained to survive without water and electricity for many days.

I remember the patience with which Fidel explained that this plan was not a propaganda slogan, but a defensive planning tool. It psychologically prepared the country for an extreme scenario, sent a signal that the state was organizing itself even for the worst outcome, and expressed an explicit willingness not to capitulate, even under extreme material conditions.

President Díaz-Canel Assesses Preparations for Cuba’s Defense

At a recent press conference, President Miguel Díaz-Canel stated that the national survival protocols conceived during the hardest years of the Special Period not only exist, but have been revised, modernized, and are ready to be activated if necessary.

In the 1990s, Cuba faced a sudden collapse without a “manual,” while today it faces a severe crisis with more experience, more tools to withstand shortages, and some technological and sectoral capabilities—including some domestic crude oil—that allow it to resist with greater resilience, although the weak point remains the same core: energy, foreign currency, and imports.

Added to this is the fact that Trump’s sanctions and threats have united the country. When explicit threats become so visible in their daily effects, they leave less room for the idea that “it’s all just a story” and begin to operate like any other pedagogy of violence.

Harassment and pain awaken the survival instinct, generate more solidarity, strengthen social tolerance for extreme measures, and affirm the common sense that a dispute like this is not only domestic, but geopolitical and coercive. Seeing Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, and Miami congressmen celebrate the damage they are doing, while shouting “zero oil, zero remittances, zero food and medicine shipments,” has outraged even the stones in Cuba.

But they do not calculate the powers of history. After I asked Fidel the question in Biotechnology, he spent almost two more hours explaining to me why Cubans would emerge from the Special Period and the Zero Option. He closed with a phrase that answered that question from the heart: “We will survive by resisting, resisting, and resisting. As we have done before.”

Twenty years later, at the José Martí Memorial Theater, Fidel finished his speech and walked back down the aisle he had entered. When he passed by my seat, he paused for a moment: “Did you see, my daughter, that we were able to resist?”

(Resumen Latinoamericano – English)

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/29093

This article by Luis Hernández Navarro originally appeared in the February 17, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

Simultaneously farce and tragedy, the feud between Marx Arriaga and Mario Delgado reveals the consequences of using public education as a fiefdom to repay political favors. Despite their attempts to cloak themselves in the defense of the New Mexican School (NEM) and free textbooks, what’s at stake in this farcical spectacle is a matter of self-interest.

Both the Secretary of Public Education (SEP) and the head of the institution’s General Directorate of Educational Materials are disgraceful. Even if they cloak themselves in the noble mission of educating children, Delgado’s offer of the Costa Rican ambassadorship to Arriaga (an updated version of Álvaro Obregón’s infamous 50,000-peso bribes to his detractors) in exchange for his job at the SEP demonstrates the pedagogical depth of this clash.

The current Secretary of Education has consistently betrayed the teaching profession. As a senator for the PRD party in late 2012 and early 2013, he placed himself at the beck and call of Claudio X. González to approve Peña Nieto’s education reform. According to the businessman, on December 12, 2012, the Senator called him jubilantly to tell him that the new legislation had been approved with his vote in favor.

On September 13, 2018, already a Morena party deputy, Delgado announced: “The education reform will be overturned, not a single comma will remain.” A lie. The approved education legislation not only preserved the commas, but entire paragraphs of the old text and, above all, its neoliberal core.

And now, working from Vasconcelos’s office, he has dedicated himself to forging close alliances with business groups like Lego and Femsa, opening the door to private interests in terms of approaches and content. He wants to implement STEM education within the New Mexican Education Model (NEM), a flawed and unoriginal pedagogical fad used to attract funding and to promote initiatives and educational materials worthy of the Pleistocene era. Incidentally, he promotes a teacher training program that is utterly devoid of critical thinking.

Engaged in this approach, Delgado promoted the development of “supplementary” workbooks by the SEP (Ministry of Public Education) in collaboration with international organizations. Furthermore, he spearheaded the creation of a coalition called Alianza México (Mexico Alliance), which, as Mauro Jarquín has explained, is essentially a classic model of philanthrocapitalism in education, and has a presence in several states. In addition, local authorities, particularly in northern states, tend not to distribute books or collections published by Marx’s office.

Marx Arriaga suffers from severe personality disorders. He is a civil servant who fancies himself a teachers’ union leader; a state employee with preacher aspirations; a philologist who dreams of refounding an ethereal and ambiguous liberating pedagogy; a colonel without troops, but with a salary, who fantasizes about taking heaven by storm; a street fighter whom stylists knock out; an unelected apostle of Obradorism; a missionary who proclaims the new world in a strident and vociferous manner.

His time in the education sector has been fraught with controversy. Since his appearance at a morning press conference on April 26, 2023, announcing a new educational model, the scandals surrounding him have been relentless. The combination of his penchant for championing fervent causes with the kind of rhetoric worthy of a lay evangelist, and his inability to ground his pedagogical pronouncements in simple examples, has earned him widespread criticism from academics, teachers, and journalists.

His curriculum reform is a hodgepodge of good intentions and few concrete steps. He’s had indigestion from decolonial theory. He’s indulging in empty rhetoric that has fueled the right wing’s fear of communism. His verbosity ultimately drives away any possibility of sympathizing with what he claims to defend.

Until his latest scandal, he was a powerful figure. He held that position during President López Obrador’s six-year term, when all his erratic behavior was tolerated. He also held it throughout the first year of Claudia Sheinbaum’s administration. He traveled the country as if he were accountable to no one. He said whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, without any repercussions.

Things started to heat up when, at the end of December last year, he called for the formation of “Committees for the Defense of the New Mexican School and its Free Textbooks.”

Beyond his role as a civil servant, Marx has his own political capital comprised of teachers, some of whom are followers of critical pedagogy. They are concentrated in Chihuahua, Baja California, Michoacán, Querétaro, Guerrero, the State of Mexico, Guanajuato, Puebla, Coahuila, and Mexico City.

The Freirean Bonfires he organized and the Insurgent Bonfires he convened (a kind of study circle) would become the embryos of his committees. He held 300 Freirean Bonfires in which just over 3,000 teachers participated. At the beginning of this year, some 1,500 teachers were registered for the Insurgent Bonfires project, which was scheduled to hold 200 bonfires. The number of attendees could reach approximately 3,000 education workers.

The poet Nadia López García was appointed as Arriaga’s replacement. In 2018, President Enrique Peña Nieto presented her with the National Youth Award. The wounds of Ayotzinapa were still raw. In her acceptance speech, the current head of educational materials told the president: “Rest assured that today you have planted, in this generation, the seed for all our dreams to grow in Mexico.”

Unfortunately, the dispute at the SEP is not a fight between good and bad for the defense of public education, but a brawl between rival power groups for control and the collection of political rents from a pedagogical project that has not yet been born.

• 

  Analysis

  A Circus at Mexico’s Education Secretariat

  February 17, 2026February 17, 2026

  The dispute is not a fight for the defense of public education, but a brawl between rival power groups for control and the collection of political rents from a pedagogical project that has not yet been born.

• 

  Analysis

  A Bigger Plan

  February 17, 2026

  López Obrador’s fear of Mexico’s abrupt return to the right still applies today. The Brazilian case is instructive.

• 

  Analysis

  Mexico Needs a Macroeconomic Policy for Growth, not the Finance Sector

  February 17, 2026

  While the Mexican government attempts to curry favour to receive preferential treatment in USMCA negotiations, it ignores the fact that the Trump administration violates all established international norms and makes decisions only based on US interests.

The post A Circus at Mexico’s Education Secretariat appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28809

The president of the Colombian Communist Party (PCC), Jaime Caicedo, expressed his solidarity with the people of Cuba and also demanded respect for the rights of those who defend its Revolution.

He also called for an end to the repression and violence against activists who defend Cuba in the United States, whom the US administration demonizes, and for respect for the integrity and rights of Latin American migrants persecuted by the current government.

The political secretary of the Communist Party of Colombia (PCC) in Bogota, Carlos Garcia, stated that the party expresses “its solidarity and support for the heroic struggles of the Cuban people, who are resisting the onslaught and direct threat of U.S. imperialism and the continuation and intensification of the criminal economic, financial, and commercial blockade.”

“Today we demand respect for the autonomy, independence, and principle of sovereignty of peoples, as well as recognition of the heroic struggles of those who resist and fight for their dignity,” he exclaimed in a message obtained by Prensa Latina.

Recently, writer and former Colombian Minister of Culture, Arts, and Knowledge Juan David Correa asserted that Cubans are suffering because of a “totalitarian, authoritarian, and inhumane policy on the part of the United States government.”

Currently, the Colombian Movement of Solidarity with Cuba is promoting a donation drive, collecting non-perishable food, medicine, medical supplies, and electrical goods as a sign of support for the Caribbean nation.

Several statements of support were also signed by dozens of organizations in Colombia, including the Minga Association for Alternative Social Promotion, the Somos Defensores Program, the Jose Alvear Restrepo Lawyers’ Collective, the Corporation for Support of Popular Communities, and the Lazos de Dignidad Foundation, among others.

jdt/rc/ifs

The post Support of Cuba against the US blockade grows in Colombia first appeared on Prensa Latina.

From Prensa Latina via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28163

The Guatemalan government announced the termination of the medical collaboration agreement with Cuba under which Cuban health professionals worked in remote and impoverished areas of the country since 1998.

On Tuesday, February 10, the Guatemalan Ministry of Health announced that the 412 Cuban medical collaborators currently working in the country, of whom 333 are specialist doctors, will be replaced “gradually” by “national human resources.”

The decision, justified by a “technical analysis” to “strengthen the national healthcare system,” comes amid US pressures on Cuba and the rise of right-wing governments in Latin America that are aligned with this policy.

US persecution against a symbol of solidarity
Cuba’s international medical collaboration, with over six decades of history and a presence in 56 countries, follows the principles of solidarity and South-South cooperation.

However, this mission has been a specific target of a US campaign to suffocate and discredit it, which has intensified since Donald Trump’s first administration.

The US narrative, which accuses these programs of “modern slavery” and “human trafficking,” is aimed at undermining one of the main sources of foreign exchange for Cuba, as well as depriving vulnerable populations of medical care.

The Cuban international medical mission began in 1960 with the dispatch of a first brigade to Chile, devastated by an earthquake. It was forged in the following decades as a pillar of Cuba’s foreign policy.

International Activists Announce Flotilla Mission for Cuba Solidarity

The mission was later strengthened by large programs, such as the Barrio Adentro Mission in Venezuela or the Mais Médicos program in Brazil. It gained recognition by responding to global health crises, from the Ebola outbreak in Sierra Leone to sending doctors to the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy.

The continued US economic and political aggression against Cuba has entered a new and brutal phase of energy asphyxiation, with the recent executive order threatening sanctions on third countries for supplying fuel to Cuba. This escalation is a brutal act of aggression aimed at provoking hunger and despair among the population, as openly declared by the Trump administration. However, Cuba, its political leadership guided by the ideals of Fidel Castro, the revolutionary continuity with President Miguel Díaz-Canel, and its people, has had the resilience to defend the nation’s right to self-determination and sovereignty.

(Resumen Latinoamericano)

Translation: Orinoco Tribune

OT/SC/SF

From Orinoco Tribune – News and opinion pieces about Venezuela and beyond via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28616

This article by Arturo Sánchez originally appeared in the February 15, 2026 edition of La Jornada, Mexico’s premier left wing daily newspaper.

The Cuban ambassador to Mexico, Eugenio Martínez Enríquez, expressed his emotion yesterday for the Mexican solidarity with the island and thanked the citizens for their response to the campaign to collect medicines and food organized by the Militant Solidarity Collective Va por Cuba and the José Martí Association of Cubans Residing in Mexico.

“I am deeply moved by the response to the call to help the Cuban people, who do not deserve the injustice and cruelty that the United States inflicts upon Cuba. Thank you is all I can say, for the generosity and humanity of the Mexican and patriotic Cuban people,” the diplomat declared.

“I am deeply moved by the response to the call to help the Cuban people, who do not deserve the injustice and cruelty that the United States inflicts upon Cuba. Thank you is all I can say, for the generosity and humanity of the Mexican and patriotic Cuban people,” the diplomat declared.

From early morning, the flow of people was constant. Young people, families, retirees, workers, office workers, and teachers arrived with bags, boxes, and packages to join the slogan that Cuba is not alone.

The collection center – located almost at the corner of Corregidora and Plaza de la Constitución – will remain open until February 22, from 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., and accepts non-perishable food items, as well as essential medical supplies.

Francisco Rosas López, from the organizing group, described the response as “formidable.” He noted that although they had expected good participation, the volume of donations exceeded their initial projections. As he spoke, vans provided by the city government departed for a storage warehouse loaded with boxes and sacks.

Rosas emphasized that this is a “people-to-people” campaign that will later be supplemented by shipments from the federal government. She added that similar collection centers are being prepared in Puebla, Celaya, and other locations throughout the country, with the goal of expanding the solidarity network in the coming weeks.

Among the donors, anger toward Washington’s policies was a constant theme. Retirees María Paz Arroyo and Patricia Galicia arrived together with 60 kilos of rice, 60 kilos of beans, 20 packages of milk, and two boxes of sardines. “It bothers me that Trump is doing such awful things. We are Latin American countries, and we have to help each other,” said Arroyo.

Galicia, for its part, emphasized that its support is also a form of gratitude towards the Cuban doctors who have worked in remote communities in Mexico.

Additionally, graduate students from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) will open an extra collection center to support the island. Donations will be accepted on February 17 and 18 at the Graduate Studies Unit in University City, and on February 19 and 20 at Las Islas in University City, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.

Without fanfare, but with consistency, the day in the capital’s Zócalo showed an uninterrupted flow of support and a shared conviction: that Cuba, insisted the organizers and donors, is not alone.

• 

  News Briefs

  Cuban Ambassador Expresses Gratitude for Mexican Solidarity

  February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

  The Mexico City collection center – located almost at the corner of Corregidora and Plaza de la Constitución – will remain open until February 22.

• 

  Analysis | Interviews

  A Mexican Conspiracy Against the US?

  February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

  An interview with Morena’s Secretary for Mexicans Living Abroad, Alejandro Robles, on Peter Schweizer’s dangerous and deluded new conspiracy theory.

• 

  News Briefs

  Clicks

  February 15, 2026February 15, 2026

  Our weekly roundup of stories in the English and Spanish language press on Mexico and Mexican politics. Kurt Hackbarth, Trump Is Using Mexico’s Oil to Put the Squeeze on Cuba Jacobin. The alternative, however, is to let Cuba starve: the process of Gaza-ification brought into this hemisphere. If this were to succeed, and Mexico were…

The post Cuban Ambassador Expresses Gratitude for Mexican Solidarity appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28628

Caracas, February 15, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – US President Donald Trump is considering a visit to Venezuela, though he did not specify when the trip might take place or what agenda it would entail.

“I’m going to make a visit to Venezuela,” Trump told reporters outside the White House on Friday.

The US President addressed the press ahead of a trip to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to meet soldiers who participated in the January 3 military attacks against Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro and First Lady Cilia Flores.

Questioned by a journalist, Trump stated that Washington recognizes the Venezuelan government led by Acting President Delcy Rodríguez as the country’s legitimate authority.

“We are dealing with them, and they have done a great job,” he stated. The White House refused comment on whether the recognition was the administration’s official stance.

In 2019, the first Trump administration recognized the self-proclaimed “interim government” headed by Juan Guaidó as the country’s legitimate authority, prompting the Maduro government to sever diplomatic ties. The US later transferred its recognition to the defunct opposition-controlled National Assembly whose term expired in January 2021.

Since the January 3 attacks, Caracas and Washington have fast-tracked a diplomatic rapprochement, with US Chargé d’Affaires Laura Dogu arriving in the Caribbean nation in early February. An official recognition of the Rodríguez acting government could pave the way for the restructuring of Venezuela’s sizable foreign debt.

In his Friday press remarks, Trump further described relations with Venezuelan leaders as being “as good as one could hope for,” and added that “the relationship with Venezuela today is a 10.”

Trump additionally highlighted progress in Venezuela’s oil sector.

“Oil is flowing, and other nations are paying a lot of money for it, and we are handling it. We are refining it,” he said. Since January, the White House has imposed control of Venezuelan oil exports, with proceeds deposited in bank accounts in Qatar before being partly rerouted to Caracas under US-set conditions.

Earlier last week, Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez emphasized in an NBC interview that Maduro remains the country’s legitimate president. She also disclosed that she has spoken twice with Trump and has had “more frequent” contact with Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and expressed “gratitude” for the “respectful and courteous” nature of the talks.

Venezuela’s acting president went on to announce that she has likewise been invited to visit the US. “We are considering going once we establish cooperation and can move forward with everything,” she said.

The invitation reportedly arose during a recent visit to Caracas by US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was hosted by Rodríguez at Miraflores Palace on Wednesday.

Wright and Rodríguez later toured the Petroindependencia crude upgrader, a mixed venture between Venezuela’s state-owned PDVSA and Chevron, in the Orinoco Oil Belt.

The Trump administration official announced that Chevron would invest US $100 million to modernize operational facilities, with the goal of “doubling [Petroindependencia’s] productive capacity within 12 to 18 months and quintupling it within five years.” Petroindependencia has a current output of 40,000 barrels per day (bpd).

US issues new oil licenses

Following Wright’s Venezuela visit, the US Treasury Department issued two general licenses, 49 and 50, aimed at boosting conditions for Western multinational corporations to operate in Venezuela’s energy sector.

The first license allows for the negotiation and signing of future investment contracts, contingent upon the potential issuance of a specific license. The second waiver authorizes Chevron, BP, Eni, Shell, and Repsol to conduct transactions and operations related to hydrocarbon projects with PDVSA or any other Venezuelan public entity.

Repsol (Spain) and Eni (Italy), like Chevron, participate in oil and gas joint ventures in the South American country, whereas the UK-headquartered Shell and BP are set to lead offshore natural gas projects alongside Trinidad and Tobago’s National Gas Company (NGC) in Venezuelan waters.

However, GL50 requires that any contracts fall under US jurisdiction and mandates that all payments to “blocked” entities—as sanctions against PDVSA and Venezuela’s banking system remain in place—be made to accounts designated by the US Treasury.

It also explicitly prohibits transactions involving any person or entity linked to Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba, or China, as well as vessels sanctioned by Washington.

The Trump administration has loosened restrictions against the Venezuelan energy sector, including allowing the import of US diluents, inputs and technology, following a recent pro-business overhaul of the country’s Hydrocarbon Law. The reform granted expanded benefits for private corporations, including reduced fiscal responsibilities and expanded control over operations and sales.

Upon leaving Caracas, Energy Secretary Wright claimed that “structural reforms” would continue in Venezuela, with changes to “labor laws, the court system and the banking system.”

Edited and with additional reporting by Ricardo Vaz from Caracas.

The post Trump Announces Venezuela Visit as US Treasury Grants Licenses to Western Energy Giants appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/28178

This Wednesday marked the first round in the battle against Argentina’s regressive labor bill as the legislation moves toward the Chamber of Deputies. While media outlets attempted to demonize the protests to obscure growing social opposition, a renewed militancy emerged, signaling a new stage in the fight against the law.

The day’s struggle took shape between two poles: on one side, the unpopular policies of the government and its economic backers; on the other, the perceived betrayal of the bureaucracy of the CGT — Argentina’s largest labor union federation —and the complicity of Peronism. Despite these obstacles, sectors were determined to resist push the movement forward. The Left has seen its role strengthened in this process, and the central challenge now lies in forcing an active national strike when the bill is debated in the lower house — a key step toward a broader popular mobilization and a general strike.

The Media Campaign vs. Social Reality

Even before the day had ended, major media outlets — alongside Senator (and former Security Minister) Patricia Bullrich — launched a fierce campaign to demonize the movement. Their goal was to hide the obvious: deepening social anger toward an economic plan that is pushing large sectors of the working class into increasingly precarious conditions, and a renewed willingness among workers and youth to fight back.

The government — which in just over two years has implemented “chainsaw” austerity, repressed social protest, passed laws concentrating economic power, and subordinated the country to the IMF — attempted to cast itself as a victim. Meanwhile, it continues to advance a reform that attacks the right to organize, facilitates layoffs, eliminates overtime, fragments vacation time, and extends the workday while reducing employer contributions to the national pension fund.

By evening, the government’s narrative began to unravel. After the initial crackdowns, thousands returned to the area around Congress, joined by workers arriving after work. They were met with indiscriminate repression, including tear gas, rubber bullets, and mass arrests.

While the government managed to pass the bill in the Senate, it failed its central objective: projecting an image of governability and calm to financial markets. The government and media operation have been widely questioned, revealing deep tensions. Rising inflation, combined with austerity, declining consumption, and job losses undermined official claims of stability. The streets were anything but peaceful. From social media, PTS (Socialist Workers’ Party) Deputy Myriam Bregman argued that brutal reforms inevitably generate resistance, and that the violence lies not in protest, but in imposing austerity through state repression.

The mobilizations expressed a rejection not only of the labor reform but of the government itself. Thousands took to the streets despite the CGT leadership, which has spent months negotiating with the government without calling for a national strike. Their limited call for mobilization — offered without a strike and granting “freedom of action” to individual unions — aimed to contain social pressure. Nevertheless, many workers and youth mobilized independently, even after working hours and amid the ongoing repression.

The protests were nationwide. In Córdoba, repression occurred under Peronist governor Martín Llaryora, while in the Senate, the reform advanced thanks to the quorum provided by the UCR, the PRO, and sectors of Peronism — the same actors who enabled previous measures like the “Omnibus Law.” These senators, maintaining privileges far removed from the daily reality of millions, reflect a political regime increasingly disconnected from the population.

A government marked by crisis and sustained by imperialist finance capital, alongside a fragmented and often complicit opposition, has led to the emergence of new combative sectors.

The Path Forward Is Working-Class and Youth Organization

What occurred on Wednesday was merely the first round of a broader confrontation. Even if the labor reform is ultimately approved, it will face fierce resistance wherever the state attempts to implement layoffs or precarity, as seen in ongoing conflicts at Lustramax and Garrahan Hospital.

In this context, the working class and youth can rely only on their own strength. The immediate challenge is to deepen organization in workplaces, schools, and neighborhoods, pushing from below for an active national strike. The PTS and the Left Front place themselves in this perspective, participating in ongoing struggles and building on months of solidarity with retirees, healthcare workers, disability collectives, and other sectors in this conflict.

The labor struggle was not resolved on Wednesday; rather, a new stage has begun. The nascent networks built in recent months will shape the next phase of mobilization as the debate moves to the Chamber of Deputies and social resistance continues to grow.

Originally published in Spanish on February 14 in La Izquierda Diario.

The post Argentina: Anger and Class-Struggle Confront Milei’s Reactionary Labor Reform Law appeared first on Left Voice.

From Left Voice via This RSS Feed.

URGENT: SEND SOLAR GENERATORS & PANELS TO CUBAN HOSPITALS!

Trump’s fuel blockade is starving Cuba of power, crippling hospitals and schools, and attempting to induce a famine.

We are rushing solar generators and panels to our neighbors 90 miles away so that hospitals can keep their doors open and their lights on. Your donation helps ensure patients receive the essential care they need.

This crisis does not have to exist. It was created by the Trump Administration and should be reversed immediately.

Until these cruel policies end, as neighbors, we must act and send aid.

Help us stop the Trump Administration from creating famine in Cuba.

Donate now. Send power. Save lives.

Please do not write “Cuba” in donation comments or on the memo line of checks. Simply write “Urgent Aid.”

To donate by check:
Make check payable to: The People's Forum
On memo line write: “Urgent Aid” (Do not write Cuba!)
Mail to: The People's Forum, 320 W 37th St, New York, NY 10018

All donations are tax-deductible.

Let Cuba Live. Act Now.

Donation Link

wow I didn't know that drug cartels, similar to ISIS, are just deniable US proxies used for regional destabilization - you're telling me that for the first time

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26500

The government of Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum announced the shipment of 814 tons of milk, meat, beans, rice, and other foodstuffs to Cuba on Sunday, February 8. The move came days after Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel presented a series of emergency measures being adopted by his government to mitigate the impact of the severe fuel shortage facing the island.

Cuba is currently facing a serious crisis, provoked by recent maneuvers from the US government which, emboldened by its massive military build up in the Caribbean and its recent bombing of Caracas, has sought to further tighten the blockade on the island, hoping to finally force the overthrow of the government. On January 29, Trump announced an executive order under which any country that trades hydrocarbons with Havana will see a 10% increase in tariffs on its products exported to the United States. The executive order was said to have targeted Cuba’s main energy suppliers: Venezuela, Mexico, and Russia. 

Venezuela was already effectively forced to halt oil shipments to Cuba due to the naval blockade imposed by the US against Venezuela, which already resulted in the illegal seizure of a Cuba-bound Venezuelan oil tanker.

Russia, a country which, due to heavy sanctions, is the most decoupled from the US economy, has declared that it will continue supplying fuel to Cuba. The government has said that “the situation in Cuba is truly critical” and top government spokesperson Dimitry Peskov, said “We are in close contact with our Cuban friends through diplomatic and other channels.”

Mexico, for its part, announced that it was engaged in negotiations with the US over oil shipments. President Claudia Sheinbaum has openly declared her rejection of the Trump measure: “You can’t suffocate people like that. It is very unfair.”

She also promised that Mexico would continue to help Cuba in any way possible: “We will continue to support Cuba and take all necessary diplomatic action to resume oil shipments.” In recent days, after learning of the Trump administration’s “threat”. Mexico, one of the few countries that sent oil to Cuba, said it would consult with Washington to determine the extent of possible retaliation.

According to Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, not a single drop of oil has entered the island in 2026, posing a serious threat to a country that depends heavily on fuel for its power grid and to keep transportation, health, education, and other key systems functioning. Government officials and political analysts have claimed that the recent measure seeks to annihilate the Cuban people.

Former Colombian President Ernesto Samper shared this opinion in a post: “SOS for Cuba. The genocide of the Cuban people is being prepared by suffocating their vital conditions for survival. A United Nations humanitarian mission could lead a deployment of humanitarian ships loaded with the fuel that the island needs today, like the oxygen we breathe every day to stay alive.”

Mexican solidarity with Cuba

For his part, the Cuban president said, regarding the Mexican shipment that departed in two ships from the port of Veracruz: “Thank you, Mexico. For your solidarity, affection, and always warm embrace of Cuba.”

Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez wrote on X: “We thank the Government of Mexico, under the leadership of President Claudia Sheinbaum, for sending more than 800 tons of aid to Cuba, amid the intensification of the blockade following the recent Executive Order by the US government. While some try to suffocate our population, sister nations extend their hand in solidarity.”

The post Mexico sends shipment of humanitarian aid to Cuba appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26322

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel spoke to the press on Thursday, February 5, about the situation facing the island in the wake of the latest measures imposed by Washington.

Following the seizure of Venezuelan tankers bound for Cuba by the United States Military, the Trump administration increased pressure on the island, which has been under an economic and commercial blockade for more than 60 years, by threatening to increase tariffs on any country that sells fuel to Cuba.

The US military campaign against Venezuela, including a naval blockade on oil and the kidnapping of the president and the first lady, cut off one of Cuba’s only alternatives for obtaining oil. 

In his address, the president reported that no fuel has entered Cuba since December. 

The loss of fuel supply severely complicates the electricity supply on which schools, transportation, and vital health infrastructure depend. In view of this, several analysts have called Trump’s latest measure against the Cuban people “genocidal”.

“Cuba is not a threat to the United States”

Díaz-Canel said he is aware of the difficulties and painful hardships that the Cuban people are going through following a decision that Washington justifies based on an alleged threat that Cuba poses to its national security, something that has been widely questioned by various analysts and politicians around the world.

On this subject, a deeply moved Díaz-Canel said during his appearance: “Cuba is not a terrorist country, nor is it a threat to the security of the United States. Cuba has never carried out, nor proposed, nor organized any aggressive action that puts at risk the territorial integrity, the security, or the stability of the government of the United States.”

He added: “We do not protect terrorists, and there are no military forces in Cuba from other nations or from other groups. In Cuba, there is indeed a military base – an illegal military base – and it is an illegal United States military base on Cuban soil, in the province of Guantánamo, against the will of the Cuban people.” 

Cuba proposes dialogue “between equals”

In response, he affirmed that Cuba has always been and remains willing to engage in dialogue with Washington, although he clarified that “dialogue under pressure is not dialogue.” In this regard, he said that Cuba advocates civilized relations between neighbors, but rejects blackmail, threats, and impositions by some countries on others as a method of negotiation. He thus demanded respect for Cuban sovereignty.

Díaz-Canel said that his government is willing to meet with officials from the Trump administration to discuss the situation between the two countries: “Cuba is open to dialogue on any issue that needs to be debated or discussed, as long as there is no pressure or preconditions, in a situation of equality and respect for our sovereignty, independence, and self-determination.”

The theory of collapse

According to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, between March 2024 and February 2025 alone, the damage caused by the economic blockade of Cuba amounts to 7.556 billion USD, which represents a 49% increase compared to the previous period, showing that the blockade causes greater damage over time.

For his part, the Cuban president recalled that the US strategy of applying pressure until the country collapses is not new, and that despite all the difficulties Cuba has had to endure, it is not a failed state, as claimed by the White House: “The theory of collapse and the insistence on it is related to a whole set of constructs that the US government has tried to use to characterize the Cuban situation. This theory of collapse is associated with one of the currents in which the US government is determined to overthrow the Cuban revolution.”

Currently, he said, Cuba is enduring not only a series of mechanisms that seek to suffocate the Caribbean country, combined with the constant threat of military aggression, but also a media campaign that combines slander, hatred, and psychological warfare to justify various US attacks.

Read more: For the Cuban people, surrender is not an option

However, the Cuban president also pointed out that, despite the new conditions following the attack on Venezuela on January 3, there are several signs of international solidarity with his government: “Cuba is not alone, and we know that there are countries and companies willing to continue working with the largest of the Antilles.”

The revolutionary government’s decisions: savings and defense

Faced with this difficult situation, Díaz-Canel outlined the decisions his government has taken to tackle this new onslaught: “We have had to make a series of assessments in the Political Bureau, the Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers, and the National Defense Council, and we have just had a meeting in the Council of Ministers to update the plan to be implemented based on government directives to address an acute fuel shortage.”

Cuba has implemented fuel rationing to ensure the functioning of essential and basic activities for the Cuban population, although he acknowledged that the difficulty has been enormous, considering that no oil shipments have arrived in Cuba throughout 2026. This will mean a reduction in public transportation and an increase in blackouts on the island, which have already broken records.

In response, the Cuban president raised the possibility of increasing other types of energy sources, such as renewable energies, although this process will take time. Therefore, he said, the government must now demonstrate enormous creativity to overcome this new barrier that the United States, the most powerful country on earth, is unilaterally imposing on a country of just 10 million inhabitants.

In addition, Díaz-Canel stated that following the attack on Venezuela, in which more than 30 Cuban combatants on security missions in the South American country were killed, Cuba has prepared itself to face possible US military aggression: “One of the priorities we established was to deploy a defense preparedness plan.”

According to Díaz-Canel, in the event of military aggression, Fidel Castro’s old military principle of “war by the entire people” will be used against external aggressors. This, however, does not mean that the country is entering a “state of war”, but rather that it is preparing for the moment when that step must be taken, the president said.

In this regard, Foreign Minister Rodríguez said on Telegram: “The US seeks to impose its will on the rights of sovereign states and has been using force and aggression against Cuba for 67 years. On its side is enormous military power and the size of its economy, plus vast experience in aggression and crimes. On our side is reason, international law, and the patriotic spirit of a people.”

He added: “We Cubans are not willing to sell our country or give in to threats and blackmail, nor are we willing to renounce the inalienable prerogative with which we build our own destiny, in peace with the rest of the world. We will defend Cuba. Those who know us know that this is a firm, categorical, and proven commitment.”

The post Cuban government responds to US-manufactured fuel shortage: “We will defend Cuba” appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/26209

A couple of years after President Hugo Chávez came to power, Venezuela had approximately 30,000 practicing physicians. Even so, it was not possible to effectively deliver healthcare services to all of the country’s poor and marginalized people. There was an acute shortage of regular healthcare, especially in impoverished urban slums and rural regions.

It was in this context that a new kind of cooperation between Venezuela and Cuba began. In exchange for supplying Venezuelan oil to Cuba, arrangements were made to bring Cuban doctors and healthcare expertise to Venezuela. At the same time, initiatives were taken to send Venezuelan students to Cuba to study medicine and healthcare. Alongside this, an alternative medical education structure was created outside Venezuela’s conventional medical education system, called the “University Without Walls.” Its main objective was to ensure that new medical students could receive their education without becoming detached from their own communities and social environments.

The successes of Misión Barrio Adentro

Based on this initiative, the Barrio Adentro (“Inside the Neighborhood”) program was launched. In the first phase, around 10,000 Cuban doctors came to Venezuela; later, this number increased to about 14,000. Along with them, 15,000–20,000 other health workers – such as dentists, nurses, and technicians – were recruited. As a result, nearly 7,000 new primary healthcare centers and about 5,000 diagnostic centers were established across the country.

In the next phase, Venezuelan students traveled to Cuba for medical training. After completing their training as doctors, they returned to their own country and began working in various healthcare facilities throughout Venezuela. At the same time, many of them also became involved in teaching medicine at colleges and universities in Venezuela. Most of these new doctors were appointed to areas close to their own places of residence, so that healthcare services would be more easily accessible to local communities. The entire cost of this public health program was borne through the exchange of Venezuela’s oil resources.

Ordinarily, international oil trade and exchange are conducted on the basis of commercial profit traded against the US dollar. But Venezuela and Cuba demonstrated that social development and public health could also be important areas of exchange in return for oil. Instead of sending troops to weaker countries to seize oil and resources, Venezuela and Cuba set an international example of how social development can be achieved through mutual cooperation using oil as a medium of exchange, departing from the usual norm.

Read more: Venezuela and Iran: oil and survival

At the beginning of 2003, Misión Barrio Adentro began as a small program in the Libertador district of Caracas. Its aim was to provide free primary healthcare to poor communities who had previously been neglected or had no regular access to health services. At that time, many Venezuelan doctors were unable, for various reasons, to work in poor urban slums and rural areas. For this reason, the mayor of the Libertador district took the initiative to bring doctors from Cuba to staff newly established local clinics.

Later, in 2010, a devastating earthquake struck Haiti. The way Venezuelan doctors provided medical services there also set an important example. Brazil’s Ministry of Health recognized this medical work and innovative public health system and joined in cooperation with them in Haiti. This program gained considerable international recognition and was reported in The Lancet.

Cuba’s revolutionary medicine as inspiration for Venezuelan healthcare

Today, there is an ideological difference between how the United States views oil and how Venezuela views it. Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez signed an agreement with Cuba under which petroleum was supplied to Cuba at discounted rates in exchange for doctors and other health professionals. These doctors generally worked in Venezuela on rotating two-year terms. By 2004, Barrio Adentro had become a nationwide network of 13,000 doctors, along with nurses, dentists, and other healthcare workers.

However, in the long run, it was not feasible to rely solely on doctors from Cuba. Therefore, soon after the project began, initiatives were taken to integrate Venezuela’s own doctors into the system. Residency programs were introduced for newly graduated doctors, and many medical students were sent to Havana’s Latin American School of Medicine. At the same time, a six-year integrated community medicine program – Medicina Integral Comunitaria (MIC) – was established. Operating outside the traditional university framework, this program trained thousands of new doctors with a focus on primary healthcare.

A unique feature of the MIC program is that students do not have to leave their villages or slum areas. Even students from the poorest neighborhoods of Venezuelan cities can pursue medical education while remaining in their own communities. This is not a short-term course; rather, it is a comprehensive program designed to create a new kind of doctor who is a part of a community healthcare system. The experience of Cuba’s healthcare system has had a significant impact on the development of public health in Venezuela.

Watch: 60 years of Cuban medical solidarity

The roots of this Cuban medical philosophy lie in the post-revolutionary outlook of the island. In a speech in 1960, Che Guevara spoke about the role of medicine in the new Cuba, saying: “Our task today is to direct the creative capacity of all medical professionals toward social medicine.” Within a year and a half of the revolution, he began thinking about “revolutionary medicine” and the possibility of creating a new type of doctor. He linked the mission of medicine to the construction of a just society.

A cooperation that brings international solidarity and respect

In his book “Revolutionary doctors: how Venezuela and Cuba are changing the world’s conception of health care,” Dr. Steve Brouwer shows how Cuba’s healthcare and medical education systems evolved in a unique way after the revolution, and how medicine also played an important role in Cuba’s relations with the outside world. Brouwer himself lived for a year in rural Venezuela and observed that in areas where healthcare services had not existed just a few years earlier, new doctors, students, and health workers were now actively working.

Clearly, the actions and mutual cooperation of Cuba and Venezuela were producing striking results. Yet the United States remained determined to disrupt both Cuba and Venezuela, imposing strict economic and travel sanctions. Not only that, it began devising and funding various plans to weaken the two revolutionary governments. In 2006, the US created the Cuban Medical Professional Parole Program, aiming directly to undermine Cuba’s humanitarian medical missions. Special plans were designed to draw Cuban doctors, nurses, and technicians away from their overseas assignments.

Read more: How Venezuela poses an “unusual and extraordinary threat” to the US agenda

However, the US did not succeed in diminishing the international solidarity and respect that Cuba and Venezuela were earning worldwide through their exchange-based cooperation. Nor was it able to halt the expansion of humanitarian medical assistance and international medical education programs.

In 2007, at the graduation ceremony of the Latin American School of Medicine in Havana, a young graduate said: “Today we are an army in white coats, who will bring health and dignity to our people.” In the words of Dr. Steve Brouwer, when emergency services and humanitarian cooperation take precedence over diplomatic or military coercion by powerful countries, true moral victory is achieved.

Venezuela and Cuba have presented a concrete example of those alternative values in opposition to capitalist and imperialist powers.

People’s Health Dispatch is a fortnightly bulletin published by the People’s Health Movement and Peoples Dispatch*. For more articles and subscription to People’s Health Dispatch, click* here.

The post Venezuela and Cuba: a socialist alliance for Health for All appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25975

The halls of power in Washington are echoing with a familiar, predatory chorus. Once again, the White House, various think-tank experts, and US politicians are predicting the “imminent collapse” of Cuba. This is a tune the world has heard for over sixty years, usually sung at its highest volume whenever the United States decides to tighten the economic noose around the island’s neck. However, in 2026, the rhetoric has shifted from sanctions to an overt campaign of total strangulation. Under a new executive order signed in late January, the second Trump administration has escalated the decades-long blockade into a proactive fuel blockade.

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel laid bare the intended consequences in a press conference on February 5, 2026: “Not allowing a single drop of fuel to enter our country will affect transportation, food production, tourism, children’s education, and the healthcare system.” The objective is clear: to induce systemic failure, sow popular discontent, and create conditions for political destabilization. The White House rhetoric confirms this intent. Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt’s statement on the same day, that “the Cuban government is on its last leg and its country is about to collapse,” is not an analysis but public signaling, a psychological operation meant to reinforce the narrative of inevitable doom and pressure Cuban leadership into unilateral concessions.

This policy is not merely a “sanction” in the traditional sense; it is a calculated attempt to suffocate a nation by blocking every drop of fuel from reaching its shores. The administration has authorized aggressive tariffs and sanctions on any foreign country or company that dares to trade oil with the island, effectively treating Cuban territorial waters as a zone of exclusion. Since December, multiple oil tankers headed to Cuba have been seized by US naval forces in the Caribbean or forced to return to their ports of origin under threat of asset forfeiture. In direct response to this intensifying siege, Cuba has announced sweeping fuel rationing measures designed to protect essential services. The plan prioritizes fuel for healthcare, water, food production, education, public transportation, and defense, while strictly limiting sales to private drivers. To secure vital foreign currency, the tourism sector and key export industries, such as cigar production, will continue operating. Schools will maintain full in-person primary education, with hybrid systems implemented for higher levels. The leadership of the Cuban Revolution has affirmed that Cuba “will not collapse.”

To the planners in the White House, Cuba is a 67-year-old problem to be solved with starvation and darkness. But to the Cuban people, the current crisis is a continuation of a long-standing refusal to trade their sovereignty for Washington’s demands of submission.

The ghost of the “Special Period”

To understand why the Cuban people have not descended into the chaos Washington predicted, one must look to the historical precedent of the “Special Period in Time of Peace.” Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba experienced an economic shock that would have toppled almost any other modern state. Overnight, the island lost 85% of its international trade and nearly all of its subsidized fuel imports. The resulting statistics were staggering: the Gross Domestic Product plummeted by 35%, and the daily caloric intake of the average citizen dropped from over 3,000 calories to roughly 1,800. During this era, the lights went out across the island for more than 16 hours a day, and the bicycle became the primary mode of transportation as the public transit system collapsed.

At the same time, Washington escalated its assault through the Torricelli Act (1992) and the Helms-Burton Law (1996), each tightening the noose around Cuba’s economy. However, instead of fracturing under the weight of this tightened blockade, Cubans developed “Option Zero”, a survival plan designed to keep hospitals running and children fed without any fuel, and the Cuban social fabric tightened. The government prioritized the distribution of remaining resources to the most vulnerable, ensuring that infant mortality rates remained lower than those in many parts of the United States despite the scarcity. This period proved that when a population is politically conscious of the external forces causing their suffering, they become extraordinarily resilient. The “Special Period” was not just a time of hunger; it was a period of forced innovation that gave rise to the world’s first national experiment in organic urban farming and mass-scale energy conservation.

The return of the energy crisis

The crisis of 2026 is, in many ways, a sequel to the 1990s, but with higher stakes and more advanced technological targets. The roots of the current energy shortage can be traced back to the first Trump administration’s decision in 2019 to target Cuban oil imports as a means of punishing the island for its solidarity with Venezuela. By designating Cuba as a “State Sponsor of Terrorism” and activating Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, the US successfully scared off international shipping lines and insurance companies. This was followed by a focused campaign against the PDVSA (Venezuela’s state oil company) and the shipping firms involved in the trade agreement between countries in the region known as ALBA-TCP.

By 2025, the impact on Cuba’s energy grid was catastrophic. The island’s thermal power plants, most of which were built with aging Soviet technology, were never designed to burn the heavy, sulfur-rich crude that Cuba produces domestically without constant maintenance and expensive imported additives. The lack of foreign exchange, caused by the tightening of the blockade, meant that spare parts were non-existent. By the time the 2026 fuel blockade began, the national grid was already operating at 25% below its required capacity. President Miguel Díaz-Canel has been transparent with the public, noting that without fuel, everything from the morning school bus to the refrigeration systems for the nation’s advanced biotech medicines is under constant threat, a reality that has now precipitated the stringent new rationing regime.

The threat of intervention: from Caracas to Havana

The current US stance toward Cuba cannot be viewed in isolation from its recent military interventions in the Middle East and Latin America. The “regime change” efforts in Cuba are being modeled after the maximum pressure campaigns used against Iran and the military incursions seen in Venezuela on January 3, 2026. The threat of a US military attack is no longer a rhetorical flourish used by Havana to drum up nationalism; it is a documented strategic option discussed in Washington.

The logic behind such an intervention is twofold. First, there is the ideological drive to eliminate the “contagion” of a country that questions the Monroe Doctrine and US domination in the region. Cuba’s existence serves as a reminder that sovereignty is possible even in the shadow of a superpower. Second, and more pragmatically, the US is motivated by a thirst for strategic minerals. Cuba sits on some of the world’s largest reserves of nickel and cobalt, essential components of lithium-ion batteries that power the global transition to electric vehicles and advanced weaponry. In a world where the US is scrambling to compete with China for control of the mineral and energy supply chain, a sovereign Cuba that controls its own mines is seen as an obstacle to American hegemony. If the US can force a collapse, these minerals would no longer belong to the Cuban people; they would be auctioned off to US corporations as it was before 1959.

The new resistance: extraordinary efforts in renewable energy

However, the Cuban response to this renewed strangulation is not a white flag of surrender. Recognizing that fossil fuel dependence is a vulnerability the US will always exploit, Cuba has, in recent years, launched an extraordinary national effort to transform its energy matrix. Building on this momentum, the country completed 49 new solar parks in 2025 alone. This massive undertaking added approximately 1,000 megawatts of power to the national grid, marking a 7% increase in total grid capacity and accounting for a remarkable 38% of the nation’s energy generation. By the end of March 2026, with support from China, the island is on track to add over 150 MW of renewable power to its grid through the rapid deployment of solar parks.

The strategy is clear: if the empire can shut off the oil, Cuba will harvest the sun. “The way the US energy blockade has been implemented reinforces our commitment to the renewable energy strategy,” President Miguel Díaz-Canel declared. The government has committed to a plan to generate 24% of the country’s electricity from renewable sources by 2030, with a long-term goal of achieving total energy independence. This involves not just large-scale solar farms, but the decentralization of the grid through the installation of thousands of small-scale solar panels on homes and state buildings. This “energy sovereignty” movement is the 21st-century equivalent of the 1990s urban gardens. It is a way of overcoming the US blockade by removing the very commodity, oil, that Washington uses as a leash.

The narrative of Cuba’s “imminent collapse” has been written a thousand times by people who do not understand the depth of the island’s historical memory. The 2026 fuel blockade is a brutal crime against a civilian population, designed to create the very chaos that the US media then reports on as “proof” of government failure. It is the arsonist blaming the house for being flammable. The newly imposed fuel rationing is not a sign of surrender, but a tactical maneuver of national defense, a structured effort to outlast the assault while safeguarding the pillars of Cuban society that precisely make it an alternative to the US model.

Yet, Cuba’s message to the world remains consistent. They are willing to talk and trade, but not to be owned or become a neo-colony of the United States. The story of Cuba is not one of a failed state, but of a people who have decided that the most potent fuel for their future isn’t oil, it’s the will to remain independent. As the sun rises over the new solar arrays in the Cuban countryside, it serves as a silent, glowing testament to a nation that refuses to disappear.

Manolo De Los Santos is Executive Director of The People’s Forum and a researcher at Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research. His writing appears regularly in Monthly Review, Peoples Dispatch, CounterPunch, La Jornada, and other progressive media. He coedited, most recently, Viviremos: Venezuela vs. Hybrid War (LeftWord, 2020), Comrade of the Revolution: Selected Speeches of Fidel Castro (LeftWord, 2021), and Our Own Path to Socialism: Selected Speeches of Hugo Chávez (LeftWord, 2023).

The post For Cubans, surrender is not an option appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://hexbear.net/post/7584978

I looked a little bit at why far-right politicians are so popular in Latin America and every time I read that there was an increase in violent crime the past years and now everyone wants to copycat Nayib Bukele. Why did crime increase in the first place?

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25692

This article by Obed Rosas originally appeared in the February 5, 2026 edition of Sin Embargo.

Mexico City, On February 20, 2025, the Chihuahua Health Department reported a case of measles in a 9-year-old boy from a Mennonite community in the municipality of Cuauhtémoc who had traveled to Seminole, Texas, a settlement where measles cases had already occurred with one known death at the time of the visit.

The boy’s school in Chihuahua was closed after more cases were detected. A month later, on March 20, the National Institute of Diagnosis and Reference (InDRE) confirmed that the virus isolated in the first patients belonged to the same lineage of measles previously identified in Seminole, Texas.

This is how Irma Leticia de Jesús Ruiz González, from the Chihuahua State Health Department, and Rubén Morales Marín, from the Autonomous University of Chihuahua, describe the reintroduction of measles in the state, in an article published last November in the American Journal of Field Epidemiology. The text warns that the outbreak occurred in “a highly susceptible population, such as the Mennonite community in Chihuahua, where there is low adherence to vaccination for religious or cultural reasons, in addition to close interconnection with other unvaccinated populations.”

Mennonites in Mexico

The outbreak occurred within an adverse regional context. In November 2015, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) declared that the Americas had once again lost their measles elimination status. The reintroduction of the virus led Mexico to face its largest outbreak since it interrupted endemic transmission in 1997. Chihuahua became the main epicenter of infections and deaths on the continent, with figures that even surpassed those of the entire United States.

This week, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) confirmed that Mexico leads the Americas in COVID-19 infections, with 6,428 cases and 24 deaths. Of that total, Chihuahua accounts for 4,495 cases and 21 deaths; followed by Jalisco, with 1,034 cases and one death; Chiapas, with 432 cases; Michoacán, with 261; and Guerrero, with 257.

Of the total infections, 275 were imported, 4,054 were related to importation, and 2,839 remain with the source of infection under study.

The report in the American Journal of Epidemiology highlights that 10 of the deaths occurred among Indigenous communities in Chihuahua, where 569 cases were recorded. Three deaths were recorded in the rest of the population, in addition to the death of a Wixárika child from Nayarit.

“The Rarámuri indigenous population of Chihuahua had a mortality rate 18 times higher than the rest of the population, and this excess was statistically significant,” the study notes. The age distribution shows especially high rates in children under six months and in infants aged six to 11 months, with levels 41.4 and 82.5 times higher, respectively, than those observed in people aged 50 and over. The second most affected group was the 20-39 age group.

In mid-January, another study conducted by researchers from the University of Guadalajara, with participation from the Tlajomulco de Zúñiga campus and the University Center of Los Altos, identified five key findings. The first: the outbreak was highly concentrated, with 73 percent of the cases in Chihuahua and 76.8 percent in just 45 municipalities.

The second finding was the existence of two independent introductions of the virus: one across the northern border and a separate importation into Oaxaca. Third, the analysis describes a three-stage transmission pattern: introduction through networks of temporary agricultural workers, amplification in under-vaccinated communities, and subsequent spread to marginalized Indigenous populations.

The fourth point highlights that vaccine effectiveness remained high, supporting the theory that the outbreak was due to an accumulation of susceptible individuals rather than vaccination failures. The fifth point identifies age, living conditions in indigenous communities, lack of vaccination, and residence in rural areas as independent risk factors.

The report also documents the concentration of the outbreak in closed communities with persistent immunity gaps, such as the Mennonites of Chihuahua, a pattern similar to that observed in the 2015 outbreak in Texas, which resulted in 762 cases and two deaths. Comparable episodes have been recorded in recent years in Orthodox Jewish communities in New York and Amish communities in Ohio, reinforcing the existence of “hotspots of susceptible individuals” capable of triggering large epidemics even in countries with seemingly high national coverage.

This resurgence is occurring within a complex regional context. In November 2025, the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) warned that the Americas had once again lost their measles elimination status, just one year after regaining it. The combination of ongoing imports and inequalities in access to vaccination threatens to reestablish endemic transmission.

Although the study acknowledges limitations—such as self-reporting of vaccination status and the partial availability of genomic data—it is the most comprehensive epidemiological analysis conducted to date on a measles outbreak in Latin America. It integrates individual surveillance data, genetic information, and social determinants at the municipal level in all 32 states of the country.

The conclusion is stark: measles did not return due to vaccine ineffectiveness, but rather due to the accumulated neglect of entire communities. Without targeted campaigns, strengthened molecular surveillance, and specific strategies for mobile, Indigenous, and rural populations, Mexico will remain vulnerable to new outbreaks. This major setback in nearly three decades offers an uncomfortable lesson: measles elimination is not lost overnight; it erodes slowly.

• 

  News Briefs

  A Child with Measles Arrived in Mexico from the US, & Then the Virus Was Everywhere

  February 6, 2026February 6, 2026

  This major setback in nearly three decades offers an uncomfortable lesson: measles elimination is not lost overnight; it erodes slowly.

• 

  Analysis | Interviews

  Attack on Venezuela: Mexico’s Response

  February 6, 2026February 6, 2026

  An interview with Daniela González López of Observatorio de Derechos Humanos de Los Pueblos.

• 

  News Briefs

  Sheinbaum: The Regime of Privileges Will Not Return

  February 5, 2026February 6, 2026

  The Mexican President spoke at the 109th anniversary of the 1917 Mexican Constitution, which was one of the most advanced social constitutions at its time, & inspired the Soviet constitution.

The post A Child with Measles Arrived in Mexico from the US, & Then the Virus Was Everywhere appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25743

Caracas, February 6, 2026 (venezuelanalysis.com) – Venezuelan Acting President Delcy Rodríguez held meetings with oil executives from Repsol (Spain) and Maurel & Prom (France) on Wednesday as part of ongoing efforts to secure energy investments amid US pressure and unilateral sanctions.

“We discussed the models established in the reformed Hydrocarbon Law to strengthen production and build solid alliances toward economic growth,” Rodríguez wrote on social media.

State oil company PDVSA, represented at the meetings by its president, Héctor Obregón, touted the prospects of establishing “strategic alliances” and “win-win cooperation” with the foreign multinational corporations.

The Rodríguez administration recently pushed a sweeping reform of Venezuela’s Hydrocarbon Law. Corporations are set to have increased control over crude extraction and exports, while the Venezuelan executive can discretionally reduce taxes and royalties and lease out oil projects in exchange for a cut of production.

Venezuelan leaders have defended the pro-business reform as a step forward to attract investment for a key industry that has been hard hit by US coercive measures, including financial sanctions and an export embargo, since 2017, as part of efforts to strangle the Venezuelan economy and bring about regime change.

Former President Hugo Chávez had overhauled oil legislation in 2001 to reestablish the state’s primacy over the sector with mandatory majority stakes in joint ventures, increased fiscal contributions, and a leading PDVSA operational role. Increased revenues financed the Bolivarian government’s aggressive social programs of the 2000s, which dramatically reduced poverty and expanded access to healthcare, housing, and education for the popular classes.

Repsol and Maurel & Prom currently hold stakes in several oil and natural gas joint ventures in the South American country. The two firms, as well as Italy’s Eni, have operated in a stop-start fashion in recent years as a result of US sanctions.

The European companies have consistently lobbied for increased control and benefits in their projects in the molds now established in the reformed energy legislation.

Since launching military attacks and kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro on January 3, the Trump administration has vowed to take control of the Venezuelan oil sector and impose favorable conditions for US corporations. Senior US officials have praised Caracas’ oil reform.

According to reports, the White House has dictated that proceeds from Venezuelan crude sales be deposited in US-run accounts in Qatar, with an initial agreement comprising 30-50 million barrels of oil that had built up in Venezuelan storage as a result of a US naval blockade since December.

On Tuesday, the US Treasury Department issued a license allowing Venezuelan imports of US diluents required to upgrade extra-heavy crude into exportable blends. On January 27, Washington issued a sanctions waiver allowing US companies to purchase and market Venezuelan crude. The exemption requires payments to be made to US-controlled accounts and bars dealings with firms from Russia, Iran, Cuba, and North Korea.

The US Treasury is additionally preparing a license to allow US companies to extract Venezuelan oil, according to Bloomberg.

The White House has urged US corporations to invest in the Venezuelan oil sector and promised favorable conditions. However, executives have expressed reservations over significant new investments. According to Reuters, US refiners have likewise not been able to absorb the sudden surge of Venezuelan heavy crude supplies, while Canadian WCS crude remains a competitive alternative.

Vitol and Trafigura, two commodities traders picked by the White House to lift Venezuelan oil, have offered cargoes to European and Asian customers as well. India’s Reliance Industries is reportedly set to purchase 2 million barrels. In recent years, the refining giant has looked to Venezuela as a potential crude supplier but seen imports repeatedly curtailed by US threats of secondary sanctions.

US authorities have reportedly delivered US $500 million from an initial sale to Venezuelan private banks, which are offering the foreign currency in auctions that are said to prioritize private sector food and healthcare importers. Nevertheless, Venezuelan and US officials have not disclosed details about the remaining funds in a deal estimated at $1.2-2 billion.

Besides controlling crude sales, the Trump administration has also sought to impose conditions on the Venezuelan government’s spending of oil revenues. On Tuesday, US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told House Representatives that the flow of oil funds will be subject to outside audits.

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio had told a Senate committee last week that US authorities would scrutinize Caracas’ public expenditure and claimed that Venezuelan leaders needed to submit a “budget request” in order to access the country’s oil proceeds.

Washington’s attempted takeover of the Venezuelan oil industry also has an expressed goal of reducing the presence of Russian and Chinese companies. On Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told media that the country’s enterprises are being “openly forced out” of the Caribbean nation at the behest of the US.

In mid-January, the US’ naval blockade drove away Chinese-flagged tankers on their way to Venezuela. With crude shipments partly used to offset longterm oil-for-loan agreements, Beijing has reportedly sought assurances of the repayment of debts estimated at $10-20 billion. For their part, independent Chinese refiners have moved to replace Venezuelan supplies with Iranian heavy crude.

The post Venezuela: Rodríguez Courts European Investment as US Greenlights Diluent Exports appeared first on Venezuelanalysis.

From Venezuelanalysis via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25407

On January 29, the White House issued an official statement declaring a national emergency in the United States because, it claims, “the policies, practices, and actions of the Government of Cuba constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat, which has its source in whole or substantial part outside the United States, to the national security and foreign policy of the United States.”

According to the statement, the Cuban government “aligns” itself with hostile countries, terrorist groups, and “malign actors adverse to the United States,” which the White House considers to include Russia, China, Iran, Hamas, and Hezbollah. Several analysts believe that these justifications do not imply that Cuba is a threat to US national security.

However, beyond the reality behind this or that suspicion, the Trump administration, based on these justifications, has decided to economically suffocate the Cuban government, which, since 1959, the year the Revolution triumphed, has been considered by Washington a fundamental target to be eliminated.

Cuba is currently subject to the longest economic and commercial blockade in contemporary history, imposed unilaterally by the United States. It has been condemned and rejected dozens of times by the almost absolute majority of the world’s countries in the United Nations.

Now Washington seeks to further suffocate Cuba’s small economy, which, in its own way, has managed to withstand punishment from the most powerful country on the planet for more than 60 years. According to the statement, the alleged threat from the small Caribbean country authorizes US authorities to impose new tariffs (the amount is not specified) on products from countries that sell or offer oil to Cuba.

Trump’s goal is clear: to overthrow the government in Havana. Following the White House announcement, Trump told the press: “It looks like it won’t be able to survive. Cuba won’t be able to survive.”

Rejection and condemnation by Cuban authorities

The measure has been strongly rejected by the Cuban authorities. The country’s president, Miguel Díaz-Canel, said: “Under a false and empty pretext, sold by those who make politics and enrich themselves at the expense of our people’s suffering, President Trump intends to suffocate the Cuban economy by imposing tariffs on countries that sovereignly trade oil with Cuba. Didn’t the Secretary of State and his harlequins say that the blockade did not exist? Where are those who bore us with their false stories that it is simply an ‘embargo on bilateral trade’?”

He added: “This new measure highlights the fascist, criminal, and genocidal nature of a clique that has hijacked the interests of the American people for purely personal gain.”

For his part, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez posted on X that Cuba does not pose a threat to the United States: “To justify [the new measures, the United States] relies on a long list of lies that seek to portray Cuba as a threat that it is not. Every day, there is new evidence that the only threat to peace, security, and stability in the region, and the only malign influence, is that exerted by the US government against the nations and peoples of Our America, which it seeks to subjugate to its dictates, strip of their resources, mutilate their sovereignty, and deprive them of their independence.”

Rodríguez also pointed out: “The US also resorts to blackmail and coercion to try to get other countries to join its universally condemned policy of blockade against Cuba, threatening those that refuse with the imposition of arbitrary and abusive tariffs, in violation of all free trade rules. We denounce before the world this brutal act of aggression against Cuba and its people, who for more than 65 years have been subjected to the longest and cruelest economic blockade ever imposed on an entire nation and who are now promised to be subjected to extreme living conditions.”

A new economic threat to Cuba’s partners

The measure seeks to encourage countries that still offer aid to the blockaded island to reconsider their position regarding the revolutionary government. Even prior to the invasion of Venezuela on January 3, Cuba had lost its main energy partner when Washington imposed a naval blockade on Venezuela. Cuba is now experiencing an energy crisis as a result of the US economic blockade, which has intensified after Washington forced the Venezuelan authorities to cut off the supply of hydrocarbons to Cuba.

Read more: Trump’s ultimatum to Cuba: no fuel until surrender!

Among the countries that collaborate with Cuba on energy matters is Mexico, which many analysts believe is the main target of Washington’s “warning”. Russia and China could also be affected if they decide to continue their collaboration with Cuba.

For now, Claudia Sheinbaum, president of Mexico, has said that aid to Cuba will continue in such a way that it does not “put Mexico at risk”. She said she will request more information from the US State Department on the scope of this measure, but that she will not abandon the “tradition of solidarity and respect” that Mexico has maintained with all Latin American countries. “The application of tariffs could trigger a far-reaching crisis, affecting hospitals and food supplies, a situation that must be avoided in accordance with international law,” said the president.

Indeed, within the framework of this new form of US foreign policy, Cubans will undoubtedly be the most affected. The civilian population could find itself in dire straits without transportation and electricity, which compromise the most fundamental aspects of people’s lives.

This was stated by Jorge Legañoa, president of Prensa Latina: “What is the goal? The goal is genocide of the Cuban people, and if the tariffs are implemented, the effect would be to paralyze electricity generation, transportation, industrial production, agricultural production, the availability of health services, water supply … in short, all spheres of life.” 

The post The US is using “blackmail and coercion” to intensify the blockade, says Cuba appeared first on Peoples Dispatch.

From Peoples Dispatch via This RSS Feed.

cross-posted from: https://news.abolish.capital/post/25146

A powerful 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Ecuador on April 16, 2016, shortly before 7 PM local time. I was working for teleSUR English in Quito at the time and was sent that same night as part of the crew to cover the aftermath on the coast, the area of Ecuador most affected by the disaster. Being based in the country meant we were among the first journalists to arrive. We witnessed the Ecuadorian state mobilize to respond, and offers of help from friendly countries poured in.

But it was the Cubans who were among the first to arrive.

While covering  the earthquake, I interviewed Col. Lázaro Herrera Hernández of the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces, who told me a phrase that has become a political maxim of mine: “It is not about providing what is left over, but sharing what we have.”

Conceding to imperialism in the short term puts Mexico at risk over the long term. Trump’s vulgar form of imperialism is going to pick off each country one by one if we do not unite immediately

Cuba, the island country subjected to a brutal decades-long economic blockade, has consistently been among the first to extend its hand in solidarity to peoples of Latin America and the world and to share the little they have. Cuba occupies a special place in the hearts of millions of people across this region not only for their unconditional solidarity but also because of the example its people and their Revolution set for us. Cuba showed us that imperialism was not invincible, that we could stand tall and defeat Washington right here in our  own hemisphere.

Latin America would not be the same today were it not for the Cuban people’s determination to defend their revolution and their decision to chart their own way. But today, Cuba is in the White House’s crosshairs.

This could very well be the most decisive moment ever for the Cuban Revolution. After the kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores, Delcy Rodríguez’ interim government has been forced, at the barrel of a gun, to suspend oil shipments to Cuba. This critical lifeline has been cut off virtually overnight, with the Financial Times reporting that as of late January, Cuba has just 15 to 20 days of oil left.

Meanwhile, Trump has signed an executive order declaring Cuba an “unusual and extraordinary threat” that comes with hardened sanctions, which includes a tariff on countries that sell oil to the island. The US is exerting tremendous pressure on other countries to stop providing oil to Cuba in order to enforce this illegal and criminal blockade. Mexico’s PEMEX, which had over the last few years steadily been increasing its shipments to Cuba, has already suspended a planned shipment. President Claudia Sheinbaum nonetheless assures that humanitarian aid to Cuba will continue.

“We will find ways to maintain solidarity with the Cuban people without putting Mexico at risk,” said Sheinbaum.

The trouble is that conceding to imperialism in the short term puts Mexico at risk over the long term. Trump’s vulgar form of imperialism is going to pick off each country one by one if we do not unite immediately.

Amilcar Cabral & Fidel Castro, Tricontinental Conference, Havana, 1966

Our need for a regional response to US imperialism was the overwhelming message coming out of the Nuestra América Summit held in Bogota Colombia, organized by Progressive International. Kurt Hackbarth and I were there representing the Mexico Solidarity Project. The first thing that Carlos de Céspedes Piedra, the Cuban ambassador to Colombia, expressed to us upon learning we were from Mexico was his appreciation for Mexico’s consistent solidarity with Cuba.

We cannot let Cuba stand alone at this moment.

In his speech at the closing session of the Tricontinental Conference in Havana in 1966, Fidel Castro issued a warning that we would be wise to heed today:

The imperialists’ correlation of forces on this continent, the nearness of their home territory, the zeal with which they will try to defend their dominions in this part of the world require, on this continent more than anywhere else, a common strategy, a joint, simultaneous struggle.

José Luis Granados Ceja is a journalist and political analyst based in Mexico City. He currently covers Latin America for Drop Site News*. He is the co-founder of MSP’s Soberanía podcast and a presenter on the show* Sin Muros on Mexico’s Canal Once*. He focuses on political issues, social movements, elections and human rights. Follow him @GranadosCeja*

• 

  News Briefs

  Morena’s Magdalena Rosales Says Mexican Oil for Cuba Represents Essential Humanitarian Support

  February 4, 2026February 4, 2026

  “We Mexicans stand in solidarity with the Cuban people, we stand in solidarity with all the peoples that the empire wants to crush.”

• 

  Labor | News Briefs

  Morena Legislators Defend Gradual 40 Hour Workweek, Lack of Two Days Off

  February 4, 2026February 4, 2026

  Mexico’s 40 hour workweek will only come into effect in 2030, critics say the legislation opens the door to 12 hour workdays and reduced overtime pay.

• 

  Analysis

  Solidarity or Submission

  February 4, 2026

  The fight to save Cuba is the fight to save us all, writes José Luis Granados Ceja. We cannot let Cuba stand alone at this moment.

The post Solidarity or Submission appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

From Mexico Solidarity Media via This RSS Feed.