GER—The Donald Trump administration has imposed an extreme oil blockade to prevent Cuba from getting fuel from any country. Marco Rubio wants to collapse the economy, causing millions of civilians to starve and suffer in order to overthrow the revolutionary Cuban government. Ben Norton explains the monstrous history of US imperialism and its siege of Cuba.
GER—Donald Trump claims he will “run” Venezuela, after he bombed it and abducted President Nicolás Maduro. However, his plan makes no sense — and will likely blow back on the USA. Acting President Delcy Rodríguez is still independent, and not cutting off China. US sanctions devastated Venezuela’s oil infrastructure, and its heavy crude is expensive to produce — and not profitable, amid a global supply glut. Ben Norton explains.
GER—The Donald Trump administration is waging war on Venezuela, and if it can succeed in overthrowing the leftist government of President Nicolás Maduro, Machado would help to lead the new pro-US regime in Caracas.
Machado won the 2025 Nobel Peace Prize (sic), despite the fact that she openly supports Trump’s war on her country. She has for years called for a US military intervention to violently topple President Maduro.
If Trump and his powerful Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Marco Rubio [a notorious gusano] can manage to put Machado in power, she has pledged to sell off her country’s assets to US corporations.
BEN NORTON—Greece’s former Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis explains the US system of “neo-imperialism” based on the dollar, an “IOU issued by the hegemon”, which finances a huge trade deficit by letting foreign capitalists “extract colossal surplus value from their workers and then stash it away in America’s rentier economy”.
BEN NORTON—Finally, while sectors like healthcare and education are adding jobs, these are largely due to bloated, privatised, and inefficient industries rather than genuine economic health. The overall message is a warning: the US economy’s apparent strength is an illusion fueled by financial and tech bubbles that will eventually burst, causing severe damage to the broader economy and worsening inequality.
