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imperialism
Cuba Vows to Defend Itself Against Trump to 'The Last Drop of Blood'
"Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do," said Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel in response to the latest threat from the authoritarian US president.
Jan 11, 2026
President Donald Trump was ripped by humanitarians and anti-war voices on Sunday after he again threatened Cuba by saying the US military would be used to prevent oil and other resources from reaching the country, threats that come just over a week after the American president ordered the unlawful attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores.
In a social media post Sunday morning, Trump declared:
Cuba lived, for many years, on large amounts of OIL and MONEY from Venezuela. In return, Cuba provided “Security Services” for the last two Venezuelan dictators, BUT NOT ANYMORE! Most of those Cubans are DEAD from last weeks U.S.A. attack, and Venezuela doesn’t need protection anymore from the thugs and extortionists who held them hostage for so many years. Venezuela now has the United States of America, the most powerful military in the World (by far!), to protect them, and protect them we will. THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA - ZERO! I strongly suggest they make a deal, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE. Thank you for your attention to this matter. President DJT
Cuba's President Miguel Diaz-Canel rejected Trump's latest comments and threat of military force, saying the island nation was ready to defend itself.
"Cuba is a free, independent, and sovereign nation. Nobody dictates what we do," Diaz-Canel said in a social media post. "Cuba does not attack; it has been attacked by the US for 66 years, and it does not threaten; it prepares, ready to defend the homeland to the last drop of blood."
Progressive critics of the US president were also quick to hit back. Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group CodePink, said the "true extortionist" in this situation is Trump himself, as she detailed the mutual benefit of the relationship between the Venezuelan and Cuban governments over recent decades:
Trump says Cuba is “extorting” Venezuela.
Yet, it was Cuba that sent 250,000 health workers to Venezuela, lowered infant mortality, restored eyesight, and trained local doctors.
The true extortionist is Trump. pic.twitter.com/79b9IafeSH
— Medea Benjamin (@medeabenjamin) January 11, 2026
"What is extortion?" Benjamin asks. "It's what Donald Trump is doing: taking over those oil tankers, confiscating 30-50 million tons of oil—that is extortion. And saying to Venezuela, 'We're going to run your country." Donald Trump is the greatest extortionist our country has seen."
Reuters reports Sunday, citing shipping data, that Venezuela has been Cuba's "biggest oil supplier, but no cargoes have departed from Venezuelan ports to the Caribbean country since the capture of Maduro.
Speaking with CBS News on Sunday, Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.) said that Trump's threats to strangle the people of Cuba by enforcing a resource blockade were "like magical" in her ears and those of her right-wing constituents who live in Miami's large community of Cuban exiles.
Welcoming Trump's efforts to bully Cuba into submission, Salazar claimed that Cuba's government is "hanging by a threat" she said, before correcting herself, "a thread, I should say."
Oddly—but notably—Salazar continued her remarks by saying it was Cuba that has been an "immense" threat to the United States, as she described it as a nation "with no water; they have no electricity; they have no food—nothing. So if you think Maduro is weak, Cuba is even weaker. And now they do not have one drop of oil coming from Venezuela."
President Trump announced on TruthSocial that “there will be no more oil or money going to Cuba,” Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) responded saying “those words are like magical.”
“Cuba is really a center of power for our enemies,” Salazar told @margbrennan. “Now, I think… pic.twitter.com/CSZNRI30lZ
— Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) January 11, 2026
But progressive voices opposed to Trump's authoritarian violations of international law, his bullying of allies and enemies alike with claims that the US can do whatever it likes in the name of national security and claims of national interest, are warning that the threats against Cuba and other nations represent a chilling development that must be met with international opposition and condemnation.
"The US blockade of Cuba is the longest-standing act of collective punishment in the world," said David Adler, co-general coordinator of Progressive International, pointing to Trump's remarks. "It is condemned by the entire international community every year at the UN. And now, the US president is doubling down on this cruel and illegal punishment. Enough."
"This is an emergency," Progressive International explained in a dispatch last week, warning about Trump's overt hostility toward Cuba, Colombia, Mexico, and other nations in the wake of the US attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of Maduro and Flores.
"The United States is rapidly escalating its assault on the Americas—and the principle of self-determination at large," warned the international advocacy group. "Under the banner of the Monroe Doctrine, Donald Trump and his cronies are leading a campaign of imperial aggression that stretches from Caracas to Havana, Mexico City to Bogotá."
According to the dispatch:
What we are witnessing today is class struggle played out through imperial violence. The United States stands as the political and military instrument of capital: Big Oil bankrolling politics; arms manufacturers profiting from destruction; and financial power thriving on plunder and permanent war. These sections of capital pay for the policies they desire and are richly rewarded. The share prices of US oil majors soared around 10% following Maduro’s kidnapping, representing a return of around $100 billion on an investment of $450 million in the last US elections.
The government serves its donors, so aggression can proceed without consent. Public opinion has repeatedly shown opposition to U.S. military action in Venezuela — a gap between elite appetite and popular will bridged by force, not democracy.
Venezuela — like many nations before it — represents a different possibility: that the popular classes might govern themselves, control their resources, and chart a future beyond imperial command. And that possibility represents an existential threat to empire.
The group said Sunday's latest threat by Trump against Cuba—openly saying that the US military might will be used to prevent life-sustaining resources from reaching the island nation—should be seen for what it is: a coercive "threat to strangle Cuba of critical energy and resources" at the end of a barrel of a gun.
"Through manipulation, coercion, and now direct military action," the group warns, the US government under Trump "has made absolutely clear its intention to dominate Latin America."
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'I Don't Need International Law,' Trump Says, Adding That His 'Power' Is Limited Only By His 'Morality'
“This is the mind of a fascist,” said a former official of the first Trump administration.
Jan 09, 2026
As he uses the military to extort Venezuela and threatens to wage war against half a dozen other nations, President Donald Trump stated plainly this week that there are no restraints on his power to use force to dominate and subjugate any country on the planet besides his own will.
Asked by the New York Times whether there were any limits on his ability to use military force in his ambitions toward "American supremacy," and a return to 19th-century imperial conquest, he told the paper, which published excerpts from the interview Thursday: "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”
Trump’s attack on Venezuela and kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro last weekend, his floating of military force to annex Greenland this week, and his repeated threats to bomb Iran in recent days have all been described as blatant affronts to international law and what remains of the “rules-based” global order.
The president told the Times, “I don’t need international law. I’m not looking to hurt people.” He seemed to backpedal momentarily when pressed about whether his administration needed to follow international law, saying, "I do." But the Times reports that the president "made clear he would be the arbiter when such constraints applied to the United States."
“It depends what your definition of international law is,” Trump said.
If statements by other top officials are any guide, the administration's "definition" of international law is more akin to the law of the jungle than anything to do with treaties or UN Security Council resolutions.
In an interview earlier this week, senior adviser Stephen Miller, reportedly one of the architects of Trump's campaign of extrajudicial boat bombings in the Caribbean, laid out a view of the president's power that amounts to little more than "might makes right."
Speaking of Trump's supposed unquestioned right to use military force against Greenland and Venezuela, Miller told CNN anchor Jake Tapper: “The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries but not to us.”
Miller added that “the future of the free world depends on America to be able to assert ourselves and our interests without an apology.”
The United Nations Charter expressly forbids "the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state."
Yet in recent days, Trump has also threatened to carry out strikes against Colombia and Mexico, while his secretary of state, Marco Rubio, suggested a similar operation to the one that deposed Maduro could soon be carried out against Cuba's socialist government, which US presidents have sought to topple for nearly seven decades.
In a Fox News interview on Thursday, Trump stated that the US would "start now hitting land" in Mexico as part of operations against drug cartels. The nation's president, Claudia Sheinbaum—who has overseen a dramatic fall in cartel violence since she took office in 2024—has said that such strikes would violate Mexico's status as an "independent and sovereign country."
To Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, Trump’s assertion of limitless authority sounded like “the dangerous words of a would-be dictator.”
"Trump says he is constrained not by the law but only by his 'own morality,'" Roth said. "Since he values self-aggrandizement above all else, he is describing an unbridled presidency guided only by his ego and whims."
In recent days, the White House has sought to punish those who suggest that members of the US military should not follow illegal orders given by the president.
Earlier this week, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced that he would seek to strip retirement pay from Sen. Mark Kelly (Ariz.), a retired Navy captain who last year spoke in a video reminding active duty soldiers that their foremost duty is to the law rather than the president. Trump has referred to these comments as "seditious behavior" and called for Kelly and other members of Congress who took part in the video to be executed.
The White House has repeatedly asserted that because Trump is the commander-in-chief of the military, any orders he gives are legal by definition.
For Miles Taylor, who served as chief of staff for the Department of Homeland Security during Trump's first term, the president's latest claim to hold unquestioned authority called to mind a warning from Gen. John Kelly, who also served in the first Trump White House as its chief of staff.
In the lead-up to the 2024 election, Kelly told The Atlantic that Trump fits the definition of "a fascist" and that the president would frequently complain that his generals were not more like “German generals,” who he said were “totally loyal” to Hitler.
"John Kelly was right," Turner said on Thursday. "This is the mind of a fascist."
While Trump's comments left her worried about a return to an "age of imperialism," Margaret Satterthwaite, the UN special rapporteur on the independence of judges and lawyers, said that the president's sense of impunity is unsurprising given the recent toothlessness of international law in dealing with the actions of rogue states, specifically Israel's genocide in Gaza.
“International law cannot stop states from doing terrible things if they’re committed to doing them,” Satterthwaite told Al Jazeera. “And I think that the world is aware of all of the atrocities that have happened in Gaza recently, and despite efforts by many states and certainly by the UN to stop those atrocities, they continued. But I think we’re worse off if we don’t insist on the international law that does exist. We’ll simply be going down a much worse kind of slippery slope.”
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War-Making Belongs to Congress―and the Oil Belongs to the People of Venezuela
The question is not whether a particular president’s motives are sincere, nor whether a foreign government is flawed. The question is whether the United States will remain governed by law―or by precedent accumulated through silence.
Jan 09, 2026
The recent Senate debate over U.S. military action in Venezuela exposes a fundamental rupture in American constitutional governance: who has the authority to initiate war. The Constitution answers that question plainly. Yet modern practice―and the arguments advanced in defense of it―have drifted dangerously far from that design. Alongside this constitutional crisis stands a second, inseparable issue: whether the United States may lawfully claim control over the natural resources of another sovereign nation, specifically Venezuela’s oil, under the threat of force.
These questions are not abstract. They determine whether the United States remains governed by law or by precedent accumulated through executive action and congressional silence.
At the center of the debate are two sharply opposed views articulated on the Senate floor. One asserts that the President, as Commander in Chief, may unilaterally use military force whenever he deems it necessary to advance national interests, with Congress relegated to the limited roles of funding restriction or impeachment after the fact. The other insists that the power to initiate war belongs exclusively to Congress, not as a technicality, but as a deliberate constitutional safeguard against impulsive, personalized, or imperial war-making.
Constitutional design and deliberate restraint lie at the heart of the Framers’ intent. Article I of the Constitution vests in Congress―not the President―the power to declare war. Article II assigns the President the authority to command the armed forces once war is authorized and to repel sudden attacks. This division was not accidental. It reflected deep skepticism, shared across the Founding generation, that executives are structurally inclined toward war. James Madison warned that the executive branch is “most prone to it,” driven by secrecy, ambition, and the temptation of unilateral action.
Bombing a foreign capital, removing a sitting head of state, and threatening prolonged military occupation are acts of war by any ordinary, historical, or legal definition. The Constitution does not permit semantic evasions to substitute for authorization.
The Framers, therefore, made war intentionally difficult to launch. They placed the decision in a deliberative body accountable to the people, requiring public debate, recorded votes, and political responsibility. That Congress has too often failed to exercise this duty does not diminish the Constitution’s command. Repeated violations do not convert usurpation into legality. Historical drift explains how power migrated; it does not justify why it should remain there.
Attempts to rebrand large-scale military operations as “law enforcement,” “arrest warrants,” or “limited actions” do not change their substance. Bombing a foreign capital, removing a sitting head of state, and threatening prolonged military occupation are acts of war by any ordinary, historical, or legal definition. The Constitution does not permit semantic evasions to substitute for authorization.
The War Powers Resolution―and the myth of congressional overreach is often invoked as the supposed villain. Critics claim that the 1973 War Powers Resolution is unconstitutional because it allegedly transforms Congress into “535 commanders-in-chief.” This argument inverts constitutional logic. The Resolution does not empower Congress to command troops; it reasserts Congress’s authority to decide whether hostilities initiated by the executive may lawfully continue. It exists precisely because Congress had been sidelined, not because it had seized power.
The statute’s reporting requirements and time limits are accountability mechanisms, not vetoes of military command. Congress’s true failure has not been excessive interference but persistent abdication―avoiding the political responsibility of authorizing war while permitting presidents to act first and justify later. That abdication corrodes checks and balances and transfers the gravest decision a democracy can make into the hands of one person.
Sovereignty, coercion, and Venezuela’s oil bring the constitutional crisis into sharp international focus. The claim that the United States may seize, sell, or administer Venezuelan oil for “mutual benefit” or reconstruction collapses under legal scrutiny. As reaffirmed by the United Nations Secretary-General, Venezuela’s oil belongs to the Venezuelan people. This is not rhetoric; it is a cornerstone principle of international law grounded in state sovereignty and permanent sovereignty over natural resources.
Any alleged “agreement” cited by the Trump administration with a Venezuelan interim authority cannot be credibly described as a genuine agreement at all. Consent extracted under duress is not consent. When a population faces a clear and present threat of escalating military force―further ground operations, hundreds more civilian deaths, and a highly probable invasion―what follows is not agreement but coerced acquiescence. Allowing foreign control of national resources under the shadow of overwhelming military power is not voluntary cooperation; it is survival under threat.
The decision to go to war is not merely strategic. It is moral, constitutional, and irrevocable.
International law does not recognize resource transfers imposed by force or intimidation as legitimate. To do so would resurrect a doctrine of conquest the modern international order was built to reject. If oil may be seized in Venezuela today because military pressure makes resistance impossible, it may be seized anywhere tomorrow by any power willing to invoke its own version of “national interest.”
Such actions erode not only international norms but the United States’ own legal and moral standing. They convert foreign policy from diplomacy into extraction and military power from defense into appropriation.
Democratic accountability and the cost of war demand a return to constitutional first principles. The decision to go to war is not merely strategic. It is moral, constitutional, and irrevocable. It places citizens in harm’s way, reshapes international relations, and unleashes consequences that last generations. That is precisely why the Constitution assigns the initiation of war to Congress.
Congressional authorization does not weaken national security; it strengthens it by conferring legitimacy, public consent, and strategic clarity. History shows that when the United States has truly been attacked, Congress has acted swiftly and decisively. What the Framers sought to prevent was not defense, but adventurism―wars launched without deliberation, accountability, or consent.
Allowing one individual to initiate war, seize foreign leaders, and appropriate another nation’s resources without congressional approval collapses the separation of powers and invites abuse. It replaces law with discretion, deliberation with impulse, and sovereignty with force.
In the end, the question is not whether a particular president’s motives are sincere, nor whether a foreign government is flawed. The question is whether the United States will remain governed by law―or by precedent accumulated through silence. On that question, the Constitution is unambiguous.
War begins with Congress.
And Venezuela’s oil belongs to Venezuelans.
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