FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Oct. 24, 2025
Media Contact: Melissa Garriga | [email protected]
CODEPINK Condemns Trump’s Criminal Escalation Toward War in Venezuela
WASHINGTON - Once again, the United States is dragging our hemisphere to the brink of war. President Trump has ordered the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier strike group, the Navy’s most advanced and deadly war machine, into the Caribbean, marking the largest U.S. military escalation in the region in decades. The carrier, joined by destroyers and a submarine, adds to a massive buildup of 10,000 U.S. troops and a dozen F-35 jets deployed near Venezuela’s shores.
This war build-up comes amid a relentless wave of U.S. air and drone strikes, ten in total since September, killing at least forty-three people. The latest strike, announced today, killed six more aboard a small vessel off Venezuela’s coast. The Pentagon calls them “narco-terrorists.” Locals and journalists call them what they are: fishermen, sailors, and civilians caught in a campaign of lawless violence.
For weeks, B-52 and B-1B bombers have flown dangerously close to Venezuela’s shores while the White House hides behind a so-called “war on drugs” that has no legal or moral basis. Even United Nations human rights experts have condemned these attacks as “extrajudicial executions in international waters.”
And now Trump himself has said the quiet part out loud: “Well, I don’t think we’re going to necessarily ask for a declaration of war. I think we’re just going to kill people that are bringing drugs into our country. OK? We’re going to kill them.”
He added: “The land is going to be next.”
The Trump administration has authorized CIA operations inside Venezuela, turned Puerto Rico into a military launchpad, and revived the Monroe Doctrine to justify open aggression against Latin America. Every drone strike, every bomb, and every warship serves the same purpose: intimidate, destabilize, and impose U.S. control over a region that has chosen independence.
The United States is not “preparing” for war; it’s already waging one. It has been waging an economic war through vicious sanctions. It is now waging a military war of aggression against Venezuela’s sovereignty, against Latin America’s independence, and against the very idea that any nation can live free from U.S. domination.
CODEPINK condemns this dangerous escalation in the strongest possible terms. So does the U.S. public. A recent YouGov poll found that only 16 percent of Americans support a U.S. invasion of Venezuela, while 62 percent oppose it.
We demand:
- An immediate halt to U.S. air strikes and naval operations off Venezuela’s coast.
- The withdrawal of all U.S. warships, bombers, and troops from the Caribbean.
- An end to sanctions, CIA operations, and all hybrid warfare tactics against Venezuela.
Peace is not achieved through aircraft carriers; it’s achieved through diplomacy, respect, and solidarity. The people of the Americas don’t need another U.S. war. We need to bury the Monroe Doctrine and usher in a Good Neighbor Policy for the 21st century.
If those in power won’t stop this man, the people must. Because silence is consent, and we refuse to consent to war. CODEPINK calls on all people of conscience, activists, veterans, workers, and students to rise up now before another war begins.
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