By Hector Bernardo / Prensa Latina Contributor
Donald Trump is the most evident expression of the empire’s decline, asserted prominent Argentine intellectual Stella Calloni, adding that the question that must be asked is: “Who wields the greatest economic power in the world today, even within the United States itself?”
Calloni, one of Latin America’s leading journalists and political analysts, is an authority on the situation in Latin America, the United States’ aggression against Venezuela, and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro.
Among her prolific research work, books such as “Operation Condor: Criminal Pact” stand out, a text in which she reveals the CIA’s role in orchestrating the dictatorships of the Southern Cone to persecute and annihilate political opponents beyond their countries’ borders.
Also noteworthy are “Panama: Little Hiroshima,” in which she recounts the United States’ invasion of the Central American country, which she witnessed, and “Evo in the Crosshairs: The CIA and DEA in Bolivia,” which describes the attacks by the US intelligence agency against the Bolivian leader. For her work, she has received numerous awards and distinctions in the Americas and Europe.
The nonagenarian intellectual clearly answers questions about the tremendous events that have shaken Latin America.
—What is your interpretation of the United States’ military intervention in Venezuela and the kidnapping of President Nicolás Maduro?
“It was to be expected that US President Donald Trump would act as he did. The situation had become complicated for him. He tried to pressure the Venezuelan government of President Maduro, giving him deadlines to resign, which was already unacceptable interference, and since August 2025 he had deployed that enormous fleet in the Caribbean Sea, besieging Venezuela. He could no longer back down.
This situation was untenable. Even more so considering the hawkish cabinet Trump has, unfortunately for him, for all of Latin America, and for the world. Many of those in this cabinet are financiers of the terrorism that has been waged against Cuba from Miami, including Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who belongs to a Cuban-American lobby.
Therefore, after having failed in all his attempts and having murdered more than 100 fishermen (war crimes that are even being investigated in the United States because boats were bombed without proof that they were carrying any kind of cargo) (after all that, they couldn’t just walk away empty-handed) planned this invasion, this savage, criminal incursion.
Now we’re seeing the number of victims this left behind, but we also know that there are wounded among the US soldiers, and a helicopter was damaged.
—However, the direct US military intervention in Venezuela was surprising.
“At first, one wondered how this could have happened in Venezuela. But if we look back at the plans Washington established for the conflicts of the 2000s in Latin America (for example, the Santa Fe Document IV, which is based on the Monroe Doctrine), and also consider that the United States needs to quickly seize Latin America’s geostrategic resources—a region very rich in all kinds of reserves—this aggression is not surprising.
Faced with the advance of China and the Russian Federation, the United States is seeking refuge in what is closest to them: Latin America. Therefore, they are coming for the total plunder of the region.”
—You wrote an article in which you pointed out that these actions also represent the decline of the American empire.
“The decline began a while ago, but now it’s crystal clear. Their plan for Latin America was to create alliances between traditional political parties and new right-wing groups that they financed.
Since the 1980s in Nicaragua, Washington approved the creation of alliances where they bought off leaders of some old traditional parties and united them with this crude and ignorant new right wing. Representatives of that right wing are Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro, and Javier Milei. Perhaps the clearest caricatures of imperial decline are Trump and Milei.
The United States no longer wants intermediaries because they want to directly control all of Latin America’s resources. They have openly confessed this.
Now we have the empire laid bare, in its total decadence and savagery, because it is clearly in decline. This is reflected in the internal situation of the United States, which is extremely serious at this moment. Trump has spent enormous sums maintaining this fleet in the Caribbean Sea; it was millions and millions of dollars. To this we must add that extreme poverty, unemployment, and [the following appears to be unrelated and possibly a separate text fragment:] in the United States, extreme poverty, unemployment, and [the following appears to be unrelated and possibly a separate text fragment:] Homelessness. There are people sleeping in tents on the streets of that country.
This entire situation also has repercussions in Europe, because the countries of the European Union were the ones who paid for the weapons of the 21st-century colonial wars. They were partners in NATO’s adventures. They destroyed the welfare state that had been built in Europe.
Trump’s actions have generated great uncertainty within the United States. His actions led to the resignation of a head of the Southern Command, his party lost the mayoral election in New York and also in Miami, which is where the Cuban-American lobby, which finances and supports some anti-Cuban terrorism, is concentrated. A terrorism that today is linked to the Zionist lobby.
We have a confluence of elements that mark the fall of imperialism, and Trump’s presence in the United States and what he has done in Venezuela demonstrate this debacle.
Trump’s actions against Venezuela were questioned by Democratic and Republican legislators because they assert that, by not seeking congressional approval, he violated the United States Constitution itself. But beyond the internal situation, some claim that this act was the death knell for international law, while others point out that the genocide Israel has carried out and continues to carry out in Gaza had already marked the end of international law as we have known it until now.
– The International Criminal Court determined that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal. In other words, what is happening in Gaza is comparable to what Nazism was in World War II.
“It must be understood that Zionism is a colonialist, imperialist doctrine born in London through the collusion of Her Majesty and the Rothschild family. Who controls the world’s largest corporations? This is a question that is not being asked. Who wields the greatest economic power in the world today, even within the United States itself?
The Zionist lobby in the United States is strongly rejected by a large part of the Jewish community in New York, which does not want the victims of the Holocaust to be used to justify the extermination of an innocent population.”
—The United States representative to the United Nations Security Council, Mike Waltz, stated openly: “This is the Western Hemisphere, this is where we live, and we will not allow it to be used as a base of operations for adversaries (…). The world’s largest energy reserves cannot be under the control of adversaries of the United States.”
“That’s why they need their own governments. Intermediaries no longer serve their purposes. They need to control resources directly. That’s why Trump said Venezuelan oil was theirs.
At the end of the 20th century, a strategy was developed to infiltrate judicial structures. When, at the beginning of the 21st century, there was an extraordinary decade that materialized in the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean through the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), the United States had to quickly destroy that unity. It began by destroying the electoral tribunals. They built an entire structure to commit fraud. They interfered with the structures of the judicial branches and with the major media outlets, which they have co-opted. The state of the media is demonstrated by the international censorship they imposed to maintain the genocide and extermination of the people in Gaza.
Now we see the empire in decline, but Commander Fidel Castro Ruz had already warned us that the most brutal savagery would be expressed during the period of the empire’s fall. It’s like a caged wild tiger that lashes out in all directions, and that This is what is happening to us, and we have to be prepared for it.
– There are populations that I call “zombified.” Joseph Goebbels has been decisively surpassed; now there is a global dominance of mass media. The right of people to receive truthful information is being violated. Media mercenaries have multiplied, both owners and journalists.
“We have to ask ourselves how many millions of dollars they invest in maintaining lies, disinformation, and manipulation. A very clear example was the establishment of the narrative about the ‘weapons of mass destruction’ that they claimed Iraq possessed, or the idea that Al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, or the supposed humanitarian reasons they cited for invading Libya and assassinating its president.
We must recover that memory and understand that all of this is also part of their project when they say: The West is ours.
The United States wants these resources, and if it needs to destroy an entire population to get them, it will.
—What do we do about it?
“We must face reality, have a message for the people, and work with that mass population, because there are many people who have become accustomed to politics being decided on television. That is extremely serious.
Today, here in Argentina, the empire is governing, and it has many faces.” Here we see the presence of the United States, Israel, and Great Britain.”
– Will the international community be able to put a stop to this imperialist onslaught against Venezuela?
“It’s a difficult question: How should the international community act in this case when it is clearly no longer effective in containing situations like those in Gaza or Venezuela? The democratization of the UN has been called for some time now. Change is necessary. This is a different era, a different kind of warfare being waged.
We, the countries on the periphery, urgently need unity, to rebuild ourselves, to unite with all those experiencing the same situation, and to demand this change.”
[ SOURCE: PRENSA LATINA ]
