Trump Cheers Imaginary Maduro Arrest, US Imperialism Still Real
The Independent reports Donald Trump's bizarre social media post of a handcuffed Nicolás Maduro, celebrating a 'capture' that exists only in his mind. The article dutifully notes 2020 US narco-terrorism charges against Maduro and his family. What it conveniently overlooks is the US track record in Venezuela: sanctions that have crippled the economy, estimated to have killed over 100,000 people
according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, and repeated attempts at regime change, including publicly backed coup attempts in 2002 and again in 2019. (Source: Office of Foreign Assets Control, CEPR). One might wonder if the US government, which has a long history of supporting drug-funded paramilitaries and coups across Latin America (Iran-Contra, anyone?), genuinely cares about
'narco-terrorism' or if that's just a convenient pretext for resource extraction. Trump’s post is ludicrous, but the media's failure to contextualize why a US politician would fantasize about regime change in Venezuela—and the very real suffering US policy has inflicted—is a far more dangerous delusion.