Jacobin Radio: The Donroe Doctrine w/ Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos

Trump’s January 3rd military assault on Venezuela and abduction of President Nicolas Maduro marks a turning point in global politics. Trump made no humanitarian or democratic claims — only a blunt assertion of power, resources, and control. Suzi talks to Brazilian political economist Pedro Paulo Zahluth Bastos who says this new “Donroe Doctrine” is openly transactional, unapologetically imperial, and signals weakness: a declining hegemon turns to force to secure oil, minerals, and supply chains. We discuss why Venezuela was targeted, how China figures centrally in US strategy, and the trouble of defending Maduro in the name of “anti-imperialism.”

That question — how to oppose US imperialism without defending corrupt regimes — leads directly to Ukraine. Denys Pilash of Ukraine’s democratic socialist organization Sotsialnyi Rukh draws on his scholarly work on Venezuela. He is speaking from Kyiv in blackout conditions, under bombardment and infrastructure attacks. We discuss why the struggle against Maduro’s government and the struggle against American imperialism are not opposites, but two sides of the same conflict, in which people become pawns in political games. Pilash says for this reason, as internationalists, "we must speak out in solidarity with the people of Venezuela, the same solidarity that Venezuelans showed towards Ukraine in its resistance to Russian aggression." He argues that accepting a world divided into imperial spheres of influence fatally undermines any consistent opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.