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Analysts Warn Venezuela Invasion Could Empower Trump to Take Actions Elsewhere.

“The invasion of Venezuela is a blatant violation of international law,” “It is a prelude, potentially, to a long and violent conflict within Venezuela. And it’s a throwback to other times when leaders who had broken democracy, who had exploited their peoples in Haiti in 1915 or in Panama in 1989, became the fodder for further U.S. invasions and occupation.”

“We’re ready to go again if we have to,” Trump said in a press conference after the invasion. And not just against Venezuela. Trump has threatened military action in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.

The US’s first unilateral invasion in South America is Trump’s testing ground for military supremacy in the region.

By Michael Fox , Truthout, January 6, 2026

The bombs fell in the early hours of January 3. They cascaded over the city, one and then another. The bright orange explosions rocked Venezuela’s capital, Caracas, shaking people awake.

“The bombs lasted a while,” Caracas resident and community organizer Yanahir Reyes told Truthout. “And you could hear the helicopters, the planes. It was terrifying.”

The U.S. forces rained down fire — focused on the military barracks in the capital and nearby states, but also hitting surrounding neighborhoods.

Videos of the invading forces spiraled quickly onto social media. Countless videos of the bombs falling, people screaming, trying to make sense of it all, while the explosions shook buildings and destroyed homes. And the sound of the arrival of the U.S. forces echoed across the city.

Shock. Fear. Confusion………………………………………

This was the invasion that Donald Trump had vowed for months. An invasion that U.S. administrations had threatened for years and decades, going all the way back to President George W. Bush.

And it marked the U.S. once again deploying direct military action in other countries in the region. A return to President Theodore Roosevelt’s gunboat diplomacy, where the United States pushes its agenda and its interests by force. The Monroe Doctrine on steroids, or what Trump has called it his own “Donroe Doctrine” — Donald plus Monroe.

It is a terrifying precedent. It is the first time the United States has taken unilateral military action against a nation in Latin America in more than 35 years. Many analysts and Latin Americans had hoped this bellicose foreign policy and direct U.S. aggression had been relegated to the history books.

But those playbooks have been dusted off and are being used again, echoing the December 20, 1989, U.S. invasion of Panama. And it was a copy and paste job — give or take some minor alterations.

“The invasion of Venezuela is a blatant violation of international law,” John Lindsay-Poland told Truthout. He’s the author of the book Emperors in the Jungle, about the history of U.S. intervention in Panama and the 1989 invasion. “It is a prelude, potentially, to a long and violent conflict within Venezuela. And it’s a throwback to other times when leaders who had broken democracy, who had exploited their peoples in Haiti in 1915 or in Panama in 1989, became the fodder for further U.S. invasions and occupation.”

As the 1989 invasion of Panama would be considered a training exercise for the ensuing U.S. wars in the Middle East, the Venezuelan invasion on January 3 was Trump’s testing ground for military supremacy in the region.

“We’re ready to go again if we have to,” Trump said in a press conference after the invasion. And not just against Venezuela. Trump has threatened military action in Colombia, Cuba, and Mexico.

“We should be concerned,” says Steve Ellner, an associate managing editor of the journal Latin American Perspectives, who taught for decades at the Universidad de Oriente in Venezuela. “And we should be concerned because this is meant to send a message way beyond Venezuela, not only way beyond Venezuela in the region, but worldwide.”

1989 Panama Invasion

On December 20, 1989, U.S. President George H.W. Bush ordered the U.S. invasion of Panama. Twenty-six thousand U.S. troops invaded the country. They rained down fire and bombs — attacking the barracks of the Panama Defense Forces in the capital of Panama City and other areas.

The U.S.’s goal was to capture President Manuel Noriega on drug trafficking charges.

Neighborhoods like Panama City’s El Chorrillo went up in smoke. Twenty-thousand homes burned. U.S. forces killed hundreds of people. They dumped bodies into mass graves.

When I visited El Chorrillo in late 2023 to report for the episode of my podcast Under the Shadow about the U.S. invasion, I saw the open wounds that still remain. The bullet holes left by U.S. troops. The pain in people’s voices as they remember that night and the subsequent U.S. occupation.

“So many innocent people died,” said resident Omar Gonzalez, who was only 12 at the time and watched fires engulf homes. “Friends of ours. Children we knew. People. Men and women. Some people who were sleeping at that moment. Elderly people who couldn’t stand up or run away because they lived close to the barracks. And this is the history. It’s painful, more than anything else.”

U.S. forces killed more than 500 people. Victims and their families are still demanding justice. Large murals cover walls, like one depicting a U.S. helicopter flying over rubble engulfed in flames. It reads: “Never forget. Never forgive.”

The Panama invasion marked a new era for U.S. foreign policy in the region in a number of ways………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. https://truthout.org/articles/analysts-warn-venezuela-invasion-could-empower-trump-to-take-actions-elsewhere/?utm_source=Truthout&utm_campaign=7f1612e76d-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2026_01_06_10_12&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_bbb541a1db-7f1612e76d-650192793

January 10, 2026 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | SOUTH AMERICA, USA, weapons and war