As the Donald Trump Administration dramatically escalates its demonstration of force against Venezuela, with the arrival of the USS Gerald R Ford, the largest aircraft carrier of the US, in the Caribbean, the State Department is moving ahead with plans to organise a US-friendly coalition in South America to counter the influence of China, the BRICS and Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva personally in the region. US Secretary of State Marco Antonio Rubio has reportedly recruited Argentina’s ultra-liberal President Javier Gerardo Milei to consolidate such a group of right-wing leaders, which would include Daniel Roy Gilchrist Noboa Azín of Ecuador, Santiago Peña Palacios of Paraguay, Bolivia’s new President Rodrigo Paz Pereira, and the next President of Chile, if it turns out to be José Antonio Kast Rist.

The first round of Chile’s Presidential Elections on November 16, 2025 saw big gains for Kast, who won 24% of the vote against the 27% garnered by opponent Jeannette Alejandra Jara Román, which was much lower than anticipated. She served as Labour Minister of the outgoing government, where she succeeded in raising the minimum wage, enacted pension reform and focussed on strengthening social protections. Although coming in first, Jara is unlikely to gain enough votes from those who voted for the other two right-wing candidates to win the December 14 runoff.

The last several years have seen a notable increase in organised crime and drug cartel activity in Chile which has frightened the population, and Kast’s call for getting “tough on crime” which he blames on illegal immigrants, resonated with people. A fierce defender of Augusto Pinochet’s 1973- 80 fascist military dictatorship whose German father was reportedly a member of the Wehrmacht, Kast has already claimed victory. He vows to slash the budget by USD 6 billion in the first 18 months of his presidency, and one of his first tasks, he says, will be to deport 330,000 illegal immigrants, the majority of whom are Venezuelans who fled that country during the severe economic crisis associated with the pandemic.

That brings us back to Venezuela. In addition to the US military buildup in the region, Rubio has now declared the President of Venezuela Nicolás Maduro Moros to be the head of a foreign terrorist group, the Cartel de los Soles. This sets the stage on two levels for an imminent attack, militarily and legally.

The Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) Strategic Alert weekly newsletter (Volume 39, No. 47) published this article on November 20, 2025.

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das