The January 15 appearance of the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, in parliament has once again exposed Madrid’s posturing. The Socialist Party (PSOE) and Sumar coalition government have cynically distanced themselves from US aggression against Venezuela in words but align with it in practice. There will be no genuine opposition to wars of plunder from a government that is also working to loot Venezuela—whether through sanctions, diplomatic activities, or active complicity with Trump.

Albares issued empty statements that commit Madrid to nothing and offer no criticism of the Trump administration’s criminal actions. He spoke of a “Global Alliance for Multilateralism,” the “defense of international cooperation and the peaceful resolution of conflicts,” and the “defense of international peace and security.” He also rambled that “no future, no community, no hope can be built on arbitrariness and violence,” and that “the questioning and flagrant violations of international law and the United Nations Charter carry a devastating cost.”

On Venezuela, which was supposedly the central focus of his address, he stated that “no solution can be imposed from outside and much less by force,” and that the “will of the Venezuelan people and sovereignty over natural resources, which are also part of the sovereignty of every country, must be respected.”

Albares spoke as if Spain bore no responsibility for the very crimes and wars for oil and resources that he now claims to oppose. But in reality, Madrid joined US-led wars of aggression in Afghanistan (2001), Iraq (2003), Libya (2011) and Syria (2011-2025). It also has provided logistical, political and military support for the genocide being carried out against the Palestinian people in Gaza since October 2023.

The PSOE-Podemos (2019-2023) and PSOE-Sumar (2023-) governments have also funded and hosted in Madrid right-wing Venezuelan opposition forces committed to regime change against the government of Nicolás Maduro. Spain has twice participated directly in coup attempts in Venezuela: first in April 2002 under the right-wing Popular Party (PP) government of José María Aznar, then in January 2019 under the PSOE’s Pedro Sánchez, when Madrid recognised US-backed operative Juan Guaidó as president.

Albares was careful never to name or criticize Trump or the US at any point, and he avoided committing to any concrete measures. Like the PSOE-Sumar government as a whole, he aimed only to appear to oppose Trump’s actions, aware of the strong opposition that the imperialist invasion of Venezuela has provoked among Spanish workers.

According to a CIS (Centre for Sociological Research) survey, only 13.6 percent of Spaniards believe that Trump acted correctly in intervening in Venezuela. Fully 61.5 percent say his actions endangered world peace. The PSOE and Sumar are well aware of this and fear a radicalization of the Spanish working class, especially as public services—particularly healthcare and education—deteriorate, housing prices keep soaring out of reach of working class youth, and wages barely allow workers to make ends meet.

At the same time, Madrid fears that the Trump administration’s policy of forcibly establishing neocolonial dominance over the entire western hemisphere seriously endangers Spanish imperialism’s interests and those of its companies in Latin America. Nearly 30 percent of Spanish outward investment is directed toward this region, with Venezuela as one of the key countries.

Thus, on January 9, while the CEO of the Spanish oil company Repsol met with other oil executives and Donald Trump to discuss carving up Venezuelan oil, Albares spoke by phone with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

The US Department of State stated only that the discussion had focused on “the need to ensure an appropriate and prudent transfer of power in Venezuela,” making it clear Albares accepted the US imperialist invasion. This means effectively endorsing Trump’s “political transition” aiming to turn Venezuela into a protectorate. Diplomatic sources cited by pro-PSOE daily El País said the conversation “addressed the situation of Spanish companies in Venezuela, such as Repsol.”

While the Spanish government maneuvered to safeguard the interests of the Spanish bourgeoisie before Marco Rubio, Repsol CEO Jon Imaz was participating in the meeting of the White House with other top executives from the world’s leading oil companies.

Prostrating himself before Trump as would-be Führer of America, Imaz conveyed to the White House his commitment to investing in Venezuela’s oil sector: “We are ready to invest more in Venezuela and to triple production there over the next two or three years.” He explained that Repsol was committed both to its presence in the US market—a way of groveling to Trump’s America First policy—and to significantly expanding its role in Venezuela.

“We are a Spanish company, but we are fully committed to investing in the United States. Over the past 15 years, we have invested $21 billion in the U.S. oil and gas industry,” Imaz said.

He continued, “We are in Venezuela, together with our partners at [Italian oil firm] Eni, and we produce the gas that guarantees the stability of half of Venezuela’s electricity grid. So we are committed to that stability. We have personnel, facilities, and technical capabilities. We are ready to invest more in Venezuela today. We are currently producing 45,000 gross barrels per day, and we are ready to triple that figure over the next two or three years by investing heavily in the country.”

Imaz, the former president of the right-wing Basque Nationalist Party and today one of the parliamentary pillars of the PSOE-Sumar government, is thus ready to actively participate in the imperialist plundering of Venezuela.

That Repsol’s interests are a central priority of the PSOE-Sumar government was stated openly last Friday by Spain’s Minister of Economy, Carlos Cuerpo. He declared that the PSOE-Sumar government is “working hand in hand with the company,” backing it “in whatever may be necessary” so that, in this so-called “moment of transition,” Repsol continues to function as an “essential factor for stability in Venezuela.”

For their part, the pseudo-left milieu of Sumar and allied parties, though it seeks to appear more critical, has limits itself to issuing rhetorical criticisms of a government it continues to support, providing political cover for its policy of financing rearmament via austerity.

Sumar has five ministers in the government that, via the comments of Albares and its collaboration with Repsol, prostrated itself before Trump. However, its deputy Santos proclaimed the need for “more Europe” and to “rebuild the EU as an international actor,” while describing the US invasion of Venezuela as “a blatant violation of international law and humanitarian law that seeks to expropriate its resources, its oil.”

Ione Belarra, secretary-general of the former government partner Podemos, went further in her rhetoric. She proposed that the Executive “recognize that NATO is dead” and that “we must leave NATO, close U.S. bases in Spain, and internationally isolate Trump.”

But, as always, these statements did not translate into any concrete action to leave NATO or compel the closure of military bases in Spain. It merely sought to legitimize the PSOE-Sumar government and its policies of rearmament and austerity. From 2020, when Podemos formed a government with the PSOE, until 2023, and since then when Sumar, a splinter of Podemos, did the same, Spain has experienced its largest rearmament in history.

According to a report by the anti-militarist group Tortuga in 2018, real military spending was €30 billion; by 2025 it had risen to over €66 billion. It is projected to reach €80 billion in 2026 (about 5 percent of GDP). This military spending disproportionately falls on the poorest: the bottom 10 percent of the population contributes 30 times more, proportionally, than the top 10 percent.

Resources that could be allocated to healthcare, education or pensions are instead used to prepare for war. This is the policy that Podemos and Sumar have actually implemented in government.

The fight against imperialist war cannot be waged via appeals to any faction of the bourgeoisie, or by pressuring governments committed to defending capitalist property. It requires a conscious break by the working class with pro-capitalist parties, forming rank-and-file organizations of struggle in the working class, and building an independent, international anti-war movement rooted in socialist principles.

Such a movement must unite workers and youth across national borders in a common struggle against imperialism, militarism, and capitalism itself. The defense of Venezuela, like the defense of Gaza and the opposition to war in Ukraine, is inseparable from the fight for workers’ power, the expropriation of the major corporations and banks, and the reorganization of society on the basis of social need, not private profit. Only through the development of socialist internationalism can humanity put an end to war, exploitation, and the descent into barbarism.