© Getty Images / Agencia Makro / ContributorPresident of Bolivia Luis Arce Catacora
The US sent air and naval forces to the southern Caribbean Sea earlier this month in what the White House called part of a broader campaign against drug trafficking groups operating in Latin America, particularly those linked to Venezuela.
"We know that behind this failed international war on drugs lies the real objective to geopolitically control Latin America for its natural resources and to dismantle organized peoples, so that we cannot follow our own sovereign path," Arce said, speaking via video link at the 13th Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.
The Bolivian leader also called on the US government to address the root causes of drug trafficking at home, urging it to curb domestic demand for narcotics and dismantle the arms industry and the shallow culture that, he argued, sustains the drug trade.
Arce also decried Washington's latest steps against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro as an insult to regional sovereignty and a direct attack on a democratically elected leader.
Last month, the US administration expanded its crackdown by designating the Venezuela-based Cartel de los Soles as a criminal organization, alleging that it is personally led by Maduro and includes other senior officials in his government and military.
Maduro, who was indicted on federal drug charges by a US court in 2020 during Trump's first term, has consistently denied the accusations, calling them politically motivated and part of Washington's broader campaign to topple his government.
Earlier this month, tensions escalated further after the US Justice and State Departments announced a doubling of the reward for information leading to Maduro's arrest, raising it to $50 million, while also claiming the Venezuelan leader is now collaborating with the Tren de Aragua and Sinaloa cartels.
Reader Comments
Why the need to attack?
'His' party (although in reality it was the creation of his predecessor Evo Morales), Movement To Socialism, has successfully managed to destroy any feeling of socialism (literally and originally meaning, living in society, as social beings)... his own very innocent looking yet dirty move was to remove US dollars from the national banks... It may seem like an anti-imperialist and pro-socialist move... The reality on the ground is that the price of living has soared through the roof, gasoline (which was imported with $$$) is constantly scarce, and that in turn has made the entire population more capitalist, more money-orientated, more willing to stab their neighbour in the back in order to jump the day-long queues for gasoline... that one single supposed 'socialist' move has made the entire country become capitalist... Hence it should be no surprise that the far-right narco-trafficking families have just won the democratic elections.
Furthermore, whilst the population is squabbling for pennies on the streets, the Arce family has made millions of dollars trading in the country's abundant natural resources... pure egoism, the very opposite of what Bolivian socialism was supposed to represent.
And before you think that 'perhaps it was an innocent mistake', Arce was the previous minister of economy for the socialist government, which means he more than anyone would know exactly the consequences of his supposed 'anti-imperialist' policies.
Due to Arce, the whole country is now primed and ready to reject socialism and beg for US dollars to come back and save the day.
From all that we see and read about the USA, sadly it is a country projecting all its inner problems, outwards, onto others. It is abundantly clear to most that America has monumental economic problems and is in more debt than it can service and needs desperately to steal the resource wealth of other countries to sate its avaricious appetite. Perhaps the tariff-dreams are not going to provide quite the magic fairy-dust it was envisioned to assuage the festering debt bubble, before it bursts and putrifies the body politik.
W ell, enough already, try rechanneling the spare cash sent to Ukraine and Israel on internal issues before drumming-up support to steal the oil-resources of other countries.