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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Trump: Who Will Put the Bell on the Cat?</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Maria Paez Victor</div></div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><img width="430" height="258" src="https://orinocotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/3264-1024x614.webp" alt="A tabby kitten wearing a small patriotic "Uncle Sam" style hat and posing with a US flag. Photo: JonnieEngland/Getty Images/iStockphoto/file photo." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 0px;"></p>
<p><span></span></p><p>
A tabby kitten wearing a small patriotic "Uncle Sam" style hat and
posing with a US flag. Photo: JonnieEngland/Getty
Images/iStockphoto/file photo.</p>
<p></p></div><div id="gmail-content"><div><p><span>By Maria Páez Victor \u2013 Dec 16, 2025</span></p><p><strong>\u201cVenezuelan
President Nicolás Maduro described the detention of an oil tanker
seized by US military personnel in the Caribbean Sea on Wednesday as an
act of piracy\u201d (Orinoco Tribune, 12 Dec. 2025)</strong></p><p><span>Trump,
the president of the most capitalist nation on Earth, has dealt a blow
to the very system upon which his country \u2013 and indeed most of the West \u2013
considers the bedrock of the economy. A blow that not even the most
revolutionary person today would have foretold or thought to achieve. He
has trashed the notion of private property and outright stolen a full
oil tanker in international waters, like modern pirates, and kidnapped
its crew. </span></p><p><span>Since September, mighty US navy warships
obliterated with military missiles 22 small outboard motorboats mostly
in the Caribbean and some in the Pacific, killing at least 87 people.
They were unidentified, unarmed, and there was no evidence of drugs. One
boat\u2019s two survivors, clinging to the wreckage for an hour, were not
picked up but obliterated by a second missile later. These killings were
all extra-judicial, therefore illegal as there was no due process, no
chance of defence, no courts, no judges, no adherence to US laws or
international laws, no respect of human rights or for age-old norms of
seafaring rescue. Trump and his buffoonish \u201csecretary of war\u201d were judge
and executioner. In other words, it was a premeditated murder. By the
precedent set at the Nuremberg trials, all who follow illegal orders to
murder are also guilty of murder: </span><span>an individual carrying
out illegal instructions on behalf of a superior is not absolved of
responsibility under international law.</span></p><p><span>The killings
have been denounced by most Caribbean and Latin American countries,
progressive NGOs worldwide, solidarity movements and most non-aligned
countries including Mexico, Colombia, Brazil, the BRICS, China, Russia,
Iran, Turkey, and the United Nations. France and the UK have spoken out,
but only lukewarm nods have come from Canada and the EU. However, human
rights experts and international law experts invariably have pronounced
that these were extrajudicial, unlawful killings. </span></p><p><span>But
Wall Street remained unperturbed by the murder of seamen and
fishermen. The markets were not affected in any real way: murder in the
high seas is \u201cnot their department\u201d. </span></p><p><span>Nor have the
markets been affected in any significant way by the hybrid war against
Venezuela these past years: the sabotages, the mercenary invasions, the
cyberattacks, the exclusion from the international financial system, the
UK theft of Venezuelan gold, the theft of all Venezuelan foreign
assets including its oil company CITGO, and the sanctions impeding the
production and sale of oil by Venezuela restricting its ability to
import food and medicines. Venezuela was not even allowed to acquire
Covid-19 vaccines during the pandemic. The list of actions designed to
impoverish and destabilize Venezuela goes on. It includes assassination
attempts on Venezuelan leaders, the promotion and recognition of a false
president, and the death of more than 100,000 Venezuelans due to the
1,000+ illegal, unilateral, brutal economic sanctions. The economic cost
to the country is staggering: $</span><a href="https://www.dw.com/es/venezuela-perdi%C3%B3-usd-232000-millones-por-sanciones-de-eeuu/a-64374193"><span>232,000</span></a><span> millions to the petroleum sector and $</span><a href="https://mronline.org/2023/08/18/how-u-s-sanctions-are-a-tool-of-war-the-case-of-venezuela/"><span>642,000</span></a><span> million to the non-petroleum sector. </span></p><p><span>None
of these appalling imposed sufferings of Venezuelans seemed to impress
in any meaningful way geopolitics or world markets. After all, what
importance did a Latin American country like Venezuela have in the broad
scheme of international geopolitics and economy? It all seemed to be
confined in a sort-of private \u201cquarrel\u201d between the US and Venezuela.</span></p><p><span>Not so the robbery of a full oil tanker in international waters on December 10, 2025. </span></p><p><span>After
the news got out \u2013 with a handy PR video of the assault to demonstrate
just how \u201ctough\u201d the US is \u2013 oil prices climbed immediately. Brent crude
futures rose 0.4% to $62.21 a barrel, and US West Texas Intermediate
(WTI) crude futures also </span><a href="https://www.wsj.com/finance/commodities-futures/oil-edges-higher-on-likely-technical-recovery-f4246903"><span>gained</span></a><span>
0.4% to close at $58.46 per barrel on the same day. Oil is very
affected by supply issues and by restricting the supply of oil from
Venezuela, the price of oil and price of gasoline can rise. </span></p><p><span>But
that price fluctuation is minor compared with the long-term risks which
Washington has visited upon international shipping, especially its
safety and security and that of its cargo. </span><span> Trump has said
that he will seize even more tankers, increasing the already heightened
insecurity and uncertainty. Will oil tankers now-on have to be heavily
armed to deliver their cargo and protect their crew? The oil in that
seized tanker was prepaid, so Venezuela has not lost the income from it,
but since, in all likelihood, the oil\u2019s final destination was China,
Trump has stolen from China. This puts the seizure of the tanker and its
cargo on a totally different scale of importance geopolitically with
China as the victim. </span></p><p><span>There is more. The enormity of
the US assault on a commercial, civilian oil tanker that was carrying
out non-military private business in international waters, is an
uncommon blow to the cornerstone of the capitalist system on which the
entire economy of the West relies: that is: private property. By
committing such an impudent and openly publicized assault on a private,
unarmed, oil tanker, the US Navy has committed \u2013 without a doubt \u2013 an
act of piracy. The Venezuelan minister of defense has said, \u201cIt is a
crude, rude act of cowardly thievery to appropriate resources that do
not belong to you.\u201d And cowardly it was, as we all saw the video in
which marines armed to the teeth quickly grabbed unarmed seamen. </span></p><p><span>It
is worse than the piracy of old because in this case it is
state-sponsored piracy. It is a grab at another country\u2019s natural
resources, as the US is obsessed with Venezuela because it has the
largest proven oil reserves on the planet, and to do so it endeavours to
turn its government into a lackey puppet that will do the bidding of
the US and its oil corporations. The US does not want to buy Venezuelan
oil, it wants to own it, as Trump openly declared in 2023. Therefore, it
wants to bring down its present government and install a vassal state.
No other nation save Russia, has received so many sanctions as
Venezuela, and for twenty years the CIA attacks to undermine the
government have not ceased. The sanctions have, however, failed, so now
Washington has turned to the military \u201coption\u201d: to take Venezuela by
force.</span></p><p><span>The United States of America is now a
piratical country: an abuser of its own domestic laws and international
laws. It is a lie that they took possession of the oil tanker because it
was \u201cviolating sanctions\u201d, when said sanctions are in themselves
illegal and invalid. They are unilateral US instruments of harassment
and interference in the sovereign affairs of other nations, not backed
by the United Nations Charter, and the UN is the only mechanism to
impose legal sanctions on a nation. The tanker assault also violates the
UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the UN Convention for the
Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation
and is demonstrably contrary to the Geneva Convention. </span></p><p><span>This
armed robbery at sea was also condemned by the Non-Aligned Movement
that comprises 121 countries, and which also condemned the US\u2019s attempt
to completely close Venezuela\u2019s sovereign airspace which the US has no
right to do. The US is undermining the Proclamation of Latin America the
Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. </span></p><p><span>A main concern,
however, is the geopolitical risk of stealing the tanker. The US has
trashed the one undisputed principle of capitalism: that private
property is sacrosanct. This theft, unlike murder, instantly affected
markets as the assault put in peril international shipping, the
international laws and protocols surrounding it, and the protection of
private property. If the US can do this, so can any other nation with
the military force to carry it out. Might is right in this new order
that the cruelty of the Trump administration is trying to enforce upon
our civilization. </span></p><p><span>Of course, Venezuelans have
reacted in disgust, as recent polls show 96% of the population condemn
the attack. But as well, there has been international condemnation from
the Caribbean nations, China, Iran, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, and Cuba.
China has pointed out how this assault created \u201cinstability in global
energy markets and undermined international economic security\u201d. China
and Russia have been solid defenders of Venezuela\u2019s right to
self-determination and have shown their solidarity by helping with
Venezuela\u2019s defence. This is no small thing, putting Venezuela\u2019s
sovereignty in the middle of geopolitical concerns. because the US
clearly and outspokenly, seeks to curtail any involvement of China or
Russia in Latin America. </span></p><p><span>We must put all this in
context. The war of Washington against Venezuela is not just about that
country, but against all of Latin America and the Caribbean which the US
insists is their back yard\u2019 \u2013 with Canada thrown into the bargain. </span></p><p><span>The
new US National Security Strategy has been described as \u201cthe Monroe
Doctrine on steroids\u201d (The Hill, 15 Dec. 2025) The new Strategy is a
brazen, shameful bravado of a bully that attempts to exert its will by
force upon sovereign nations. It states: \u201c</span><span>After years of
neglect, the United States will reassert and enforce the Monroe Doctrine
to restore American pre-eminence in the Western Hemisphere, and to
protect our homeland and our access to key geographies throughout the
region. We will deny non-Hemispheric competitors the ability to position
forces or other threatening capabilities, or to own or control
strategically vital assets, in our Hemisphere.\u201d </span></p><p><span>Trump has openly said: </span><span>\u201cYou have to dominate. If you don\u2019t dominate, you\u2019re wasting your time.\u201d</span><span>
Trump is ready to revive the belief that any problem can be solved by
military force, even when other tools exist. He promises to use its
\u201cmilitary system superior to any country in the world\u201d to steal the
hemisphere\u2019s resources.\u201d</span><span> (</span><span>V. Prashad, Counterpunch, 15 Dec. 2025)</span></p><p><span>The
question of private property has long been debated in political science
and philosophic discourse particularly, by men such as Proudhon,
Fourier, Saint Simon, and Marx. Proudhon famously said: \u201cProperty is
theft\u201d. Karl Marx refined the concept by pointing out that it is the
private property of the means of production that is a sort of theft, one
that basically acts to estrange people from people, and indeed from
nature itself. In other words, capitalism alienates people from one
another and revolutionary movements throughout the world are concerned
with the issue of private property and ownership of the means of
production. The forceful theft of a commercial oil tanker in the high
seas is indeed, by capitalist standards, a violation of private property
and it is the seizure of a particular substance that is crucial to the
means of production that are key to industrial activity. It has already
increased the volatility of oil markets and oil transportation by this
blow on navigational security. So private property is now a relative
notion according to Trump, subject to the whims of the most powerful.</span></p><p><span>Trump
has a new take on private property (or perhaps it is as old as the
caveman with a club in his hand?): if we need it or want it and you have
it, we will use our military strength to take it from you but you
cannot take anything from us. And to gild the lily, the new, \u201cimproved\u201d
Monroe Doctrine proclaims to the world that Washington now says it </span><span>owns</span><span> the Hemisphere.</span></p><p><span>So,
who will put the bell on the cat? How can Trump and his entourage be
stopped? He must be stopped by the combined effect of good people,
inside and outside the US, and courageous nations that are willing to
stand up to a mendacious, murderous, thieving government, no matter how
powerful. One must not cower before military technology but cast
awareness to those who misuse it.</span></p><ul><li><span>First,
it is necessary that their legitimacy be widely questioned and
unrecognized at every instance. The US has no right outside its own
frontiers to interfere, harass and in any way influence the sovereignty
of other nations. Other nations should not follow US illegal sanctions.
It has no jurisdiction outside its own frontiers. As Human Rights Watch </span><a href="https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/12/09/us-other-countries-should-push-back-on-lawless-executions-at-sea"><span>advocates</span></a><span>,
other countries should push back on lawless executions at sea as world
order and peace depends on countries speaking out against violations,
even when they\u2019re committed by powerful friends. </span></li><li><span>Secondly,
the prevailing international laws must be strengthened especially in
terms of penalties to be applied if violated. Laws are useless unless
they are enforced. The US must be sanctioned legitimately,
multilaterally, by the United Nations. Washington should be fined,
sanctions, or at least all nations should refuse to buy military
equipment from it. Its outrageous murderous acts and larceny should be
enough to ban it from international organizations upholding
international laws. The US should be shunned at every venue for its
state-run piracy that includes murders.</span></li><li><span>Thirdly,
in view of its unparallelled military resources, the US has become,
more than any other nation, a threat to world peace and security.
Accordingly, it should be required to forfeit its place in the UN
Security Council. </span></li><li><span>Fourth, the
countries of the world should increase their trading in other currencies
rather than the dollar and ignore any illegal, unilateral sanctions the
US tries to impose on commerce. Freedom of navigation and freedom to
trade with whomever a nation wishes should prevail.</span></li></ul><p><span>The Trump regime is fueled by narcissistic pride: hubris. </span></p><p><span>And the ancient Greeks told us clearly that hubris ends badly.</span></p><p><span>In the 19</span><span>th</span><span> Century Venezuela led the way to freedom from an unjust empire. Today, in the 21</span><span>st</span><span>
century again it is showing the way to defeat imperialism with its
serene determination, its military/civil union, its communal councils,
its strong network of allies in solidarity, and its fierce defence of
its own sovereignty. It will prevail again. Bolívar was a greater mind
and man than Monroe ever was. </span></p><p><span>MPV/OT</span></p><div><p><br></p><div><p></p><h5><span>Maria Paez Victor</span></h5><p></p><p>María Páez Victor, Ph.D. is a Venezuelan born sociologist living in Canada.</p></div></div></div></div></div></div>
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