The President of Venezuela gives a wide-ranging interview in which he reiterates his commitment to dialogue for peace, but emphasizes Venezuela is prepared should Washington decide to attack.

November 18, 2025

I ask him how he interprets the current context of pressure, slander, and threats against Venezuela. As he drives carefully in the gentle Aragua twilight, he tells me:

“They have gone to great lengths to craft a new narrative—that of narco-terrorism—but, at its core, it’s the same thing they’ve always done: create a pretext to kill a hope. Remember, for example, that in 1954, they accused Jacobo Árbenz, the democratically elected President of Guatemala, of being a “communist” because he had implemented a modest agrarian reform. They orchestrated a coup, a military intervention, and overthrew him. Several decades later, they apologized, acknowledging that Árbenz was not a communist and that they had made a mistake…”

“Ten years later, in 1964, in Brazil, they did the same thing to President João Goulart… And they apologized again a few decades later… And in 1965, they did the same thing again in the Dominican Republic with President Juan Bosch. They accused him of being a ‘communist,’ invaded the country with some 20,000 marines and OAS forces. And many years later, they again acknowledged that Juan Bosch was a true democrat and that the invasion was a mistake. And in 1973, the same script in Chile, against President Salvador Allende. And the same belated apologies.