Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro has sent a letter to heads of state across Latin America and the Caribbean, denouncing an escalation of U.S. acts of aggression against Venezuela and warning that the actions pose serious risks to regional stability. 

This is the full text of the letter:

Caracas, December 22, 2025

Your Excellency,

It is an honor to extend fraternal greetings to you on behalf of the People and Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, and on my own behalf, as I reaffirm that today our nation lives in peace, with institutional stability, sustained economic growth, and a firm commitment to dialogue, cooperation, and understanding among nations, despite having been subjected for years to unilateral coercive measures and external pressures.

It is precisely because Venezuela is progressing, recovering, and sovereignly exercising its rights that I am writing to you to alert you to an escalation of extremely serious aggression by the Government of the United States of America, the effects of which transcend my country's borders and threaten to destabilize the entire region and the international system as a whole.

On August 14, 2025, the U.S. government ordered the largest naval and air deployment in the Caribbean Sea seen in recent decades, including a nuclear submarine off the Venezuelan coast, under the pretext of an anti-drug operation called "Operation Southern Spear."

This act constitutes a direct threat of the use of force, prohibited by Article 2, paragraph 4, of the Charter of the United Nations, and violates both the 2014 declaration of the Zone of Peace by the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) and the Treaty of Tlatelolco, which designates this region as nuclear-weapon-free. In this regard, I must emphasize that Venezuela has not committed any act that justifies such military intimidation.

Between September 2 and December 18, 2025, U.S. forces perpetrated 28 armed attacks against civilian vessels in the Caribbean Sea and the Eastern Pacific Ocean, resulting in the extrajudicial killing of 104 people, many of them shipwrecked.

These acts directly and repeatedly violate: the right to life (Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Article 6 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights); the 1949 Geneva Conventions, which mandate the protection of civilians, the wounded, and shipwrecked persons at sea; and Additional Protocol I of 1977, which requires the absolute distinction between civilians and combatants.

These are not isolated incidents, but rather a systematic practice of the lethal use of force outside any international legal framework and even outside the constitutional framework of the United States of America, where an intense debate is currently underway, both in Congress and among the public, which overwhelmingly condemns such actions.

In December 2025, the United States seized and stole two ships on the high seas, carrying approximately four million barrels of Venezuelan oil, and announced a total naval blockade against tankers transporting Venezuelan energy.

These actions constitute acts of piracy, according to customary international law and the codified practice of the United Nations, as unlawful acts of violence, detention, or depredation committed on the high seas against ships and their cargo.

The primary objective of combating piracy is to protect freedom of navigation and the inviolability of ships on the high seas, making it a universal principle, clearly violated in the illegal operations described above.

The fact that these acts were carried out by the armed forces of a State makes them even more serious, as they also constitute:

•Acts of aggression, as defined in UN General Assembly Resolution 3314.

•Violations of the 1958 Convention on the High Seas, ratified by the United States of America, which recognizes the exclusive jurisdiction of the flag State.

•Direct attacks against the safety of maritime navigation and international trade, which are prohibited by the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts against the Safety of Maritime Navigation

The perpetration of state piracy is a direct threat to the international legal order and global security.

Your Excellency, history has taught us that inaction in the face of aggression and contempt for international law has devastating consequences.

In the 1930s, the silence and passivity of the international community in the face of the rise of Nazism led to an unprecedented human tragedy: the Holocaust and a world war.

Today, despite historical differences, the logic remains the same: if the unilateral use of force, the execution of civilians, piracy, and the plundering of resources from sovereign states are tolerated, the world is heading toward a scenario of global confrontation of unpredictable proportions.
In this context, Venezuela reaffirms its commitment to peace, but also declares with absolute clarity that it is prepared to defend its sovereignty, its territorial integrity, and its resources, in accordance with international law.

However, we responsibly warn that these aggressions will not only impact Venezuela.

The blockade and piracy against Venezuelan energy trade:

•will affect the supply of oil and energy.

•will increase the instability of international markets.

•will negatively impact the economies of Latin America, the Caribbean, and the world, especially the most vulnerable countries.

Energy cannot be used as a weapon of war or an instrument of political coercion. For all the reasons stated above, I respectfully and responsibly make this appeal, emphasizing that together we must:

1.Explicitly condemn these acts of aggression, piracy, and extrajudicial killings.

2.Demand the immediate cessation of    the military deployment, the blockade, and armed attacks.

3.Activate the mechanisms of the multilateral system to investigate, punish, and prevent the recurrence of these acts.

Defending Venezuela today is defending peace, international law, and global stability.

Please accept, Your Excellency, the assurances of my highest regards.