Donald Trump’s campaign against Venezuela is less about drugs than power, exposing deep hypocrisy in US policy and raising uncomfortable questions for Australia about its alliance.

A repost from 5 December 2025

President Donald Trump’s actions to prevent Venezuela sending drugs to the United States are the actions of a hypocritical, lawless, rogue superpower. Trump has sanctioned the serial murders without interview, arrest or trial of over 80 Venezolanos suspected of drug-running to America. He has sought internal destabilisation of the Maduro Government without bothering to talk to it first. He threatens invasion by sending a large naval force to patrol Venezuela’s coast line.

As Michael McKinley writes in _Pearls and Irritations_, this is all part of the projection of an American psychosis – a widespread addiction among Americans to dangerous drugs. Their predicament is blamed on the suppliers, not the voracity of moneyed American users, traffickers and........

© Pearls and Irritations