Truthout is an indispensable resource for activists, movement leaders and workers everywhere. Please make this work possible with a quick donation.

As the Trump administration escalates its military campaign against Venezuela, we speak to Venezuelan journalist Andreína Chávez about the latest developments. Responding to the U.S. military’s drone strikes on small boats and seizures of oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, Chávez says U.S. claims of pursuing fentanyl traffickers lack evidence and are “pretext” for an attempt “to asphyxiate the Venezuelan economy” and wrest control of the country’s state-owned oil reserves. In the face of U.S. aggression, says Chávez, “Venezuelan communes and Venezuelan popular organizations in general have responded to Trump’s claims that he owns the Venezuelan oil with a very strong response, saying that they’re going to defend sovereignty, that they’re going to defend Venezuela’s self-determination.”

This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: At least two oil tankers have reportedly arrived in Venezuela in recent days, with other vessels navigating toward the Venezuelan coast, despite the Trump administration’s blockade. Two other tankers approaching Venezuela are not under sanction, are part of a fleet from China.

Venezuela’s state oil company has begun shutting some crude oil wells on account of the U.S. pressure on exports and storage space being filled. They’ve announced daily production will be reduced by 15%.

Meanwhile, the U.S. carried out a drone strike on a remote dock facility last week in the first report of a land attack on Venezuela by the U.S. since the Trump administration’s military pressure campaign began.

Since September, the Pentagon has claimed 30 attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 107 people. The Trump administration claims, without evidence, the boats were carrying fentanyl bound for the U.S., and calls for the people killed — calls the people killed “narcoterrorists.”

For more, we go to Caracas, where we’re joined by journalist Andreína Chávez, her latest piece for Drop Site News headlined “’War of the entire people’: Venezuela’s Grassroots Rise to Resist Trump’s Naval Blockade.”

Andreína, can you start off by talking about the response to this latest news? President Trump said it himself last week. Though he didn’t say there was a CIA land attack on Venezuela, he said there was a U.S. attack. And now, in the days, U.S. administration officials say it was a CIA strike. If you can talk about both that, the killing of people in these boats, and how the people of Venezuela are responding?

ANDREÍNA CHÁVEZ: Thank you so much for having me.

And yes, so, as you know, in the last four months, since August specifically, the United States has been amassing a large military buildup in the Caribbean under the pretext that they are fighting drug trafficking. And under that pretext, they have been bombing dozens of small boats in the Caribbean and the Pacific, and they have killed over a hundred people.

Now, there is........

© Truthout