On 29 January US President Trump signed an Executive Order imposing a total oil blockade, threatening any country that sells oil to Cuba with punitive tariffs. This is a massive intensification of the 60-year genocidal US blockade of Cuba. Trump has threatened Cuba to ‘make a deal before it is too late’. This dramatic escalation follows the US hijacking of oil tankers bound for Cuba, cutting off 30,000 barrels per day of subsidised oil provided by Venezuela. Cuba is suffering from daily blackouts due to fuel shortages. The aim is clear: to strangle the Cuban Revolution to death.
Supporters of RATB and the Revolutionary Communist Group stood in solidarity with socialist Cuba as part of a national day of action last weekend.
Supporters of RATB and the Revolutionary Communist Group have called a day of action in support of socialist Cuba. On 29 January US President Trump signed an Executive Order imposing a total oil blockade, threatening any country that sells oil to Cuba with punitive tariffs. This is a massive intensification of the 60-year genocidal US blockade of Cuba. Trump has threatened Cuba to ‘make a deal before it is too late’. This dramatic escalation follows the US hijacking of oil tankers bound for Cuba, cutting off 30,000 barrels per day of subsidised oil provided by Venezuela. Cuba is suffering from daily blackouts due to fuel shortages. The aim is clear: to strangle the Cuban Revolution to death.
Join us this Saturday (7th Feb) to expose British complicity in imperialist attempt to subjugate revolutionary Cuba. The call is urgent. We must oppose this imperialist aggression and defend the gains of revolutionary Cuba in housing, healthcare and material anti-imperialist solidarity around the world! VIVA CUBA!
Events and locations (watch this space for more as they are arranged!)
- North and East London - 12:30pm outside Camden Town Tube Station NW1 8NH
- West London - 12:30pm outside Metro Bank on High Street in Hounslow TW3 1BL
- South London - 11am outside Barclays Lewisham High Street SE13 6BB
- Birmingham - 1pm outside Lloyds Bank on Corporation Street B2 4LP
- Newcastle - 12pm outside Lloyds Bank on Northumberland Street NE1 7DE
- Glasgow - 12pm outside The Glasgow Museum of Modern Art G1 3AH
- Manchester - 11:30am outside Lloyds on Market Street M1 1PW
- Liverpool - 12:30pm on Church Street L1 1DF
- Brighton - 12:00pm outside Lloyds Bank on North Street BN1 1GL
You can now watch the videos from our Hands off Venezuela webinar on our YouTube channel or below:
Socialist Cuba is under attack. US imperialism, after bombing Venezuela and kidnapping its president Nicolas Maduro, has set its sights on Cuba.
On 29 January US President Trump signed an Executive Order imposing a total oil blockade, threatening any country that sells oil to Cuba with punitive tariffs. He has threatened Cuba to ‘make a deal before it is too late’. This dramatic escalation follows the US hijacking of oil tankers bound for Cuba, cutting off 30,000 barrels per day of subsidised oil provided by Venezuela. Cuba is suffering from daily blackouts due to fuel shortages. The aim is clear: to strangle the Cuban Revolution to death.
On 3 January, under cover of darkness, the US launched ground strikes on Caracas, seizing Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife, National Assembly deputy, Cilia Flores. It followed months of criminal airstrikes on Venezuelan and Colombian fishing boats, the imposition of a naval blockade, and the seizure of several oil tankers. The assault was an act of war. For any country to kidnap and imprison the democratically elected President of another state is a flagrant abuse of international law. This is a war for oil – in December, on his ‘Truth social’ Trump demanded Venezuela return ‘all of the oil, land and other assets’ he alleged were ‘stolen’ from the US under nationalisations in the early 2000s. This is the Monroe doctrine on steroids, a crisis, not only for the Venezuelan people, but for the peoples of Colombia, Cuba, Nicaragua and any nation that dares defy US imperialism – ‘You could be next!’
Join your local watch party for our upcoming webinar: Hands Off Venezuela! Eyewitness reports from Caracas on Wednesday 14 January, 6.30pm (UTC).
Groups all around the country will be hosting in-person events where they will join the meeting to hear from activists in Britain and Venezuela, and then have an in depth discussion afterwards. See below for the list of events!
- London: Marchmont Community Centre, 62 Marchmont Street, London WC1N 1AB
- Birmingham: EthyOn Cafe, 13a Cannon St, Birmingham B2 5EN
- Leeds: Imagine Leeds, 9 Blenheim Terrace, Woodhouse, Leeds LS2 9HZ
- Liverpool: 34 Castle St, Liverpool, L2 0NR
Watch this space for more events as they are arranged.
Rock Around the Blockade and the Revolutionary Communist Group mobilised with other groups across the country to stand in defence of the Venezuelan people against imperialist war. From London, in the belly of the beast, we echoed the demands of the risen Venezuelan people who are taking action to defend their revolution.
The British state has consistently offered its support to the US’s imperialist aggression in the hopes of getting its own share of the spoils. While the US and Britain plot the plunder of the world, Venezuela has offered its support to the people of Palestine and Cuba. We must defend the right of the Venezuelan to self-determination! We say, hands off Venezuela!
London
Venezuelan militia member trains with the National Bolivarian Armed Forces (photo: Venezuelanalysis)
On 16 November 2025, the nuclear-powered USS Gerald R Ford, the world’s largest aircraft carrier, entered the Caribbean. Venezuela is in its sights. Since September, the US has been firebombing fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela and in the Pacific, killing 79 people so far. US President Donald Trump claims, without a scrap of proof, that the victims are ‘narco-terrorists’. Escalating the aggression, the US military department SOUTHCOM launched Operation Southern Spear, mobilising guided-missile destroyer warships, a submarine, an amphibious assault ship and some 15,000 soldiers. In addition, the US has stationed F-35 fighter jets at the Roosevelt Roads military base in Puerto Rico; US SOUTHCOM head, Admiral John Holsey, visited neighbouring Guyana, whilst Trinidad and Tobago conducted a week of joint military drills with the US Military’s 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit just seven miles from Venezuela’s shores. Flights to Caracas have been virtually grounded following a US Federal Aviation Administration ‘Notice to airmen’ warning whilst US B52 bombers have conducted sorties skirting the coastline. The US is launching a war in what Trump refers to as his ‘neighbourhood’, preparing to bomb South America for the first time since the 1989 invasion of Panama. SAM McGILL reports.
As the imperialists take aim at Venezuela and the Bolivarian Revolution, it is urgent that we come together to educate ourselves and stand in steadfast solidarity with Venezuela against imperialist aggression.
The Trump administration is constantly threatening an invasion, and has already slaughtered dozens of Venezuelans by bombing non-military boats off the coast. The British state assists in this aggression by continuing to claim that the elected government of Nicolás Maduro is somehow illegitimate, and hoarding gold in the Bank of England worth £1.5bn that belongs to the Venezuelan state.
Throughout all of this Venezuelans have remained strong and have mobilised to defend their right to self determination and their revolution from imperialist savagery. The time is now to defend Venezuela and make our demands clear:
HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!
Join RATB alongside a coalition of supportive organisations for a day school on 15 November at 1pm at Bolivar Hall!
Thousands of Cubans march in support of Venezuela against US intervention (photo: CGTN)
The US is gearing up for a war in the Caribbean, a war on Venezuela. Since September, the US military has firebombed fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, murdering dozens of people – and getting away with it. US President Trump claims, without a scrap of evidence, that the victims are ‘narco-terrorists’, boasting about the extra-judicial killings on Twitter. The Trump regime has refused to rule out air-strikes on Venezuela’s mainland, preparing the ground for US bombs to rain down on South America for the first time this century. We must oppose this war on Venezuela.
Just as the fictitious claims of ‘weapons of mass destruction’ were peddled to justify the 2003 invasion of Iraq, today’s lie is that Venezuela is a narco-state flooding the US economy with drugs. Venezuela does not produce cocaine and even the United Nations office on drugs and crime reports that just 5% of the region’s cocaine is transited through Venezuela. Facing regional opposition, Trump has broadened his targets, bombing boats in the Eastern Pacific as well as imposing 50% tariffs on Brazil, slapping sanctions on Colombian President Gustavo Petro and declaring him an ‘illegal drug dealer’. Further supporting military intervention, the bourgeois media uncritically repeats the lie that Venezuela is a ‘dictatorship’.
The real motive behind this aggression is control over Venezuela’s oil and a desire to crush any government that asserts independence from imperialist interests. The US has openly discussed regime change, placed a $50 million bounty on President Maduro, and deployed military assets to the Caribbean. Sanctions have devastated Venezuela’s economy, causing severe shortages of medicine and vital goods, with UN special rapporteur Alfred De Zayas estimating 100,000 deaths as a result. Imperialist Britain is complicit, freezing over $1 billion of Venezuela’s gold reserves in the Bank of England and refusing to recognise the elected Maduro government.
Venezuela is not a threat to peace or to the people of the US: it is merely the threat of a good example. The Bolivarian Revolution launched 25 years ago in Venezuela is committed to building socialism and independence. The United Socialist Party in government has invested oil revenues in social programmes: building millions of social homes, providing free healthcare, eradicating illiteracy, and creating new universities. The communal movement empowers local communities to decide priorities and oversee projects, representing a model of grassroots democracy and participatory socialism. Eight million volunteers have joined the Bolivarian militia to defend their country against foreign intervention. They will not give up the gains of their revolution.
Internationally, Venezuela supports anti-imperialist struggles in Latin America, Palestine, and beyond. Its example threatens imperialist control in the region, which is why it is under attack. The awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to Maria Corina Machado, a figure aligned with far-right and imperialist interests, is part of the campaign to destabilise Venezuela and justify intervention.
Venezuela needs our solidarity, and its demands must be brought into every progressive, anti-war and socialist movement:
- End all foreign intervention and respect Venezuela’s sovereignty.
- Release Venezuela’s gold from the Bank of England, lift all sanctions and end the economic war.
- Recognise the democratically-elected Maduro government.
- Build political solidarity with Venezuela and all peoples resisting imperialism.
As the Palestinian communist Ghassan Kanafani said, ‘Imperialism has laid its body over the world… Wherever you strike it, you damage it, and you serve the World Revolution.’ Venezuela is on the front lines of this struggle. Our task is to stand in solidarity and oppose all forms of imperialist aggression.