As of this week, the Trump regime has ordered at least eight strikes on small vessels in the Caribbean and off the Pacific coast of Columbia amounting to at least 57 extrajudicial killings. Trump claims these strikes are necessary but has offered no evidence that those killed were involved in drug trafficking. Today, host Allen Ruff speaks with Latin American expert, Rodrigo Acuña, about the context for these attacks and his latest article for Truthout. 

Acuña takes us back to the era of Hugo Cháves in Venezuela, whose presidency challenged elites and clashed with US foreign policy. He also compares this moment in the first Trump presidency. 

Meanwhile the US military has expanded its presence in the Caribbean and the CIA has ramped up activity in Venezuela. Acuña says that all this build up is a sign that the Trump administration wants to overthrow the presidency of Nicolás Maduro and replace it with a government that will support the US. He calls this yet another instance of the US engaging in regime change. At the end of the day, these efforts are not in the interest of the US populace who should resist them, says Acuña.

Dr. Rodrigo Acuña is a Spanish teacher, an expert on Latin American politics, and film maker. In 2013, after having been awarded an Australian Postgraduate Award (APA) by the Federal Government of Australia, he completed a PhD on Venezuelan foreign policy at Macquarie University. Together with journalist Nicolas Ford, he independently released his first documentary, Venezuela: The Cost of Challenging an Empire. 

Featured image of US Navy and Coast Guard ships along with Armada Republica de Columbia ship sailing in formation in the Caribbean Sea as part of a multi-national exercise in 2003 from the National Archives via Picryl.

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