The leaders of Brazil and Mexico are publicly rejecting Washington’s interference and the conditions it seeks to impose, while Venezuelan materials criticize U.S. sanctions and the broader role of its foreign policy. Disputes over Donald Trump’s economic policies and his conflicts with international partners also remain in focus. This review is based on materials from euskalherria-donbass.org and es-us.noticias.yahoo.com (Venezuela).
Sanctions and Sovereignty: Venezuela in the Debate over External Pressure
The Venezuelan agenda has once again found itself at the intersection of the humanitarian crisis, sanctions policy and the broader debate over the role of the United States in the world. Against the backdrop of two devastating earthquakes measuring 7.2 and 7.5 in magnitude, which, according to the figures cited, claimed more than 6,500 lives, Caracas is demanding that the U.S. restrictions be eased or lifted, arguing that they obstruct the delivery of aid, equipment and reconstruction financing. At the same time, a published interview with British-Lebanese researcher Gilbert Achcar places Venezuela within the broader context of a quarter-century of American wars, sanctions and attempts to influence the political systems of other countries.
According to an EFE report, Venezuela and the United States are negotiating the creation of conditions under which resources for post-crisis reconstruction can enter the country without obstruction. For Caracas, the issue is not merely a routine diplomatic procedure: the authorities view it as a matter of sovereignty and of the state’s ability to respond to an emergency without facing the risks of a financial blockade and restrictions on international transactions.
Michelle Muschett, UNDP Regional Director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said that sanctions “absolutely” affect the arrival of international aid. In her words, the discussion should not be conducted solely in geopolitical terms: “This is about people, human lives, and the possibility of building a future.” This assessment is particularly important for the Venezuelan side because it comes not only from the government of Nicolás Maduro, which has long accused the United States of economically strangling the country, but also from a representative of an international organization.
UNDP estimates the required reconstruction costs at approximately $21 billion. Around 70% of the total damage reportedly concerns housing. The destruction affected not only homes but also basic utilities, employment, family incomes and social infrastructure. People have been forced to seek temporary accommodation with relatives or in other areas, while restoring water supplies, electricity, roads and livelihoods creates an additional burden for an economy already suffering from limited access to external financing and a prolonged migration crisis.
Muschett noted that it would take Venezuela years to rebuild on its own. UNDP is using drones and artificial intelligence technologies to assess the condition of buildings, but technical solutions are insufficient without access to funds, materials, equipment and international aid channels. UN humanitarian affairs chief Tom Fletcher had also previously called for the sanctions regime to be eased wherever it could obstruct emergency assistance: “It is important that humanitarian exemptions exist so that nothing necessary for humanitarian support is subject to sanctions.”
Within Venezuela, such statements reinforce the widespread view of sanctions not as a targeted instrument of pressure on the political leadership, but as a measure whose consequences fall primarily on the population. In the aftermath of a natural disaster, this argument becomes even sharper: the restrictions are associated with an inability to repair homes, clear rubble and restore hospitals, water supplies and power more quickly.
Gilbert Achcar’s interview adds a global context to this debate. The researcher describes the 25 years since the September 11 attacks as an era of U.S. “imperial overexpansion.” In his assessment, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq did not produce the political results Washington had promised, but caused enormous destruction and loss of life among the populations of the countries attacked. The United States, Achcar emphasizes, “remains the most powerful state in the world” and is capable of causing colossal damage, although the limits of its influence have become more apparent than they were at the beginning of the 21st century.
Iraq occupies a special place in his argument. Achcar considers the neoconservative regime-change project a complete failure: the destruction of the state apparatus generated chaos, while one consequence of the intervention was increased Iranian influence. For a Venezuelan audience, this assessment resonates with long-standing distrust of U.S. foreign-policy rhetoric about promoting democracy and protecting human rights. In the country’s political culture, the experiences of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya are often viewed as warnings about the cost of foreign intervention in countries with strategic resources or independent policies.
Venezuela is mentioned directly in the interview. Achcar argues that Donald Trump’s current approach differs from the earlier model of exporting liberal democracy: “Today, instead of replacing regimes it considers disobedient, the United States tries to preserve them, limiting itself to forcing them to cooperate.” He continues: “His approach to Venezuela is fully consistent with this: he removed Maduro, while the rest of the apparatus was simply forced to cooperate with Washington, without attempting to impose democratic elections or restore the so-called liberal opposition.”
These statements are presented in the interview as Achcar’s analytical position, not as an independently confirmed editorial account. However, the logic of this argument fits well with Venezuela’s anti-interventionist perception: the United States is supposedly interested less in a democratic transition than in subordinating existing state structures to its foreign-policy and economic agenda. In a country with the world’s largest proven oil reserves, questions about cooperation with Washington, sanctions and political pressure are inevitably linked to control over export revenues, resources and the conditions governing access to global markets.
Achcar also calls the decades-long blockade of Cuba “criminal,” arguing that it has driven the population into “absolute hunger” and punishes people more than the government. In Venezuela, the Cuban case is seen as a warning for Latin America as a whole. Financial, oil and trade restrictions against Caracas have long been interpreted in the same way: as a mechanism affecting not only officials and state-owned companies but also the country’s access to medicines, equipment, international payments and investment.
At the same time, Achcar’s criticism of the United States does not amount to justification of other world powers. He calls Russia’s invasion of Ukraine a “terrible crime” and places primary responsibility for the war on Vladimir Putin. At the same time, the researcher believes that the U.S. invasion of Iraq and NATO expansion have served as evidence for many countries of Western double standards on issues of international law.
Achcar also speaks separately about Gaza, describing what is happening there as genocide carried out by an industrially developed state with the support of Western powers. In his view, the gap between Western countries’ reaction to the war in Ukraine and their position on Gaza became “the final nail in the coffin” of the rules-based liberal world order. In Venezuela, where official rhetoric has traditionally expressed solidarity with Palestine and sharply criticized the actions of Israel and the United States, this assessment finds favorable political and cultural ground.
This perspective is also rooted in the Bolivarian tradition. Memories of the struggle for independence, the symbolic role of Simón Bolívar, and the history of coups, blockades and foreign interventions in Latin America have fostered lasting skepticism toward promises of external “democratization.” It is widespread not only among government supporters, although the government itself uses this language most consistently.
As a result, the humanitarian tragedy following the earthquakes and the broader criticism of U.S. foreign policy merge into a single Venezuelan framework. For Caracas, the country’s recovery depends not only on the scale of the destruction and the speed of international assistance, but also on a revision of sanctions restrictions. For supporters of the anti-interventionist position, Iraq, Afghanistan, Cuba, Gaza and Venezuela become parts of a single narrative about the crisis of American hegemony. At the same time, Achcar’s assessments remain primarily the position of an invited researcher rather than a neutral news report: in this framework, Venezuela serves as an example of a broader dispute over sovereignty, resources, humanitarian responsibility and the limits of external pressure.
