Sheffield TUC condemns USA’s military assault on Venezuela and the kidnapping of its President Nicolas Maduro
8th January 2026
Sheffield TUC, on behalf of the trade union branches in Sheffield, unequivocally condemns America’s outrageous attack on the sovereign state of Venezuela. We stand in solidarity with the peoples of Venezuela especially its trade unions and workers at this time of immense crisis.
We stand shocked and saddened at the deaths of 32 Cuban nationals who were part of President Maduro’s bodyguard and scores of Venezuelan citizens in the US assault which has been whitewashed by the mass media. This was by no means a bloodless coup and we should never forget this.
The kidnapping of its democratically elected President Nicolas Maduro, his abduction to New York in handcuffs and incarceration in a US penitentiary on dubious charges of drug trafficking and gun smuggling, is not only totally unacceptable in international law but marks a new and most dangerous escalation in the USA’s shameful history of military intervention and neo-colonial interference in the sovereign states of South America. It is shocking that President Trump, immediately after the invasion of Venezuela, has indicated strongly that other leftist/socialist governments in Cuba, Colombia and Mexico are next on his hit list.
It must be abundantly clear that the abduction of President Maduro is merely a smokescreen for the criminal theft of Venezuela’s huge oil reserves which are legally the national asset of the Venezuela state. Such a naked grab of a foreign state’s valuable national resources must be roundly condemned.
We call for the immediate release and return of President Nicolas Maduro to Venezuela, the abandonment of Trump’s illegal seizure of Venezuelan oil and an end to USA imperialist ambitions in South America. Hands off Venezuela! Hands of Cuba! Hands of Colombia! Hands off Mexico!
We call on our Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer to end his equivocation and appeasement of President Trump and come out and condemn this outrageous USA neo-colonial invasion of a sovereign state. We also demand the UK return Venezuela’s gold reserves held in London under sanctions imposed years ago and which rightly belong to Venezuela. With the USA now threatening to annex Greenland – and not ruling out using military force to do so – it should be clear that the toppling of a President not popular among western Governments is only the beginning of a new and brutal phase of USA war mongering and imperialist interventions which threaten world peace and international security.
We are proud to be part of a national and international trade union movement that has almost universally condemned USA’s imperialist crimes in Venezuela. See also
TUC statement on Venezuela: https://www.tuc.org.uk/news/tuc-general-council-statement-venezuela
ITUC statement on Venezuela: https://www.ituc-csi.org/ituc-tuca-venezuela
UNITE statement on Venezuela: https://www.facebook.com/unitetheunion1/posts/venezuela-trade-union-statementunite-along-with-the-trades-union-congress-tuc-jo/1287603416734696/GMB statement on Venezuela
UNISON statement on Venezuela: https://www.unison.org.uk/news/article/2026/01/unison-condemns-the-us-military-attack-on-venezuela/
GMB statement on Venezuela: https://www.gmb.org.uk/news/gmb-condemns-us-attack-on-venezuela
Plus statements from most of the other UK trade unions and international trade union confederations
Sam Morecroft Carrie Hedderwick
President Secretary
Tel; 07941 458770 tel; 07531 079268
On behalf of Sheffield Trade union council Executive Committee