Below we publish the transcript of a speech by Myriam Bregman, a socialist congressional deputy and former presidential candidate in Argentina. Bregman is a member of the Partido de Los Trabajadores Socialistas (PTS), which is Left Voice’s sister organization. As a socialist elected, Bregman called for a general strike across Latin America, and internationally organized mobilized led by workers as the way to defeat Trump’s attacks on Venezuela and broader imperialist threats against Latin America. We’ve also published a video of the speech below:

Good afternoon, comrades. Today we have to be here in front of the U.S. Embassy again to denounce a very serious event: The direct military interference of the United States in Venezuela with the kidnapping of President Maduro.

You know that we have always been left-wing opponents of the Venezuelan regime, of Maduro’s regime, but in no way does that prevent us from seeing what is happening today. Trump, as rarely in history, has been explicit. He said he was coming for oil, he said he wanted to lead the country directly. He didn’t use arguments like in other times, like they used in Iraq, masquerading as the defense of democracy or human rights. He thinks he is unpunishable. He thinks he’s all-powerful. That is why the task ahead of us is very important.

Throughout all of Latin America it is important, but for our country even more so, because our country has a colonial occupation in Malvinas. We have to unite this fight with the cry, “English of the Malvinas.” For us this is a vital thing. It’s part of our people’s history.

We are not alone in this fight. We have to unite for an international day. All the peoples of Latin America, with the working class at the head, can build a general strike in each of our countries. Unite continentally and start standing up to Trump. We will not stop him with speeches. Some believe that by tweeting they are going to stop Trump. We have to take to the street. Everyone must be there.

We have to join together the United States’s own working class, with those young people from the United States themselves who say “No Kings, we don’t want authoritarian figures like Trump,” with the youth that has come out both under the Democratic government and under Trump to say, “NO” to genocide in Palestine. Those are our allies.

And with that, we have to seek the strength to combat this U.S. policy. We don’t want to be told that we can’t. We don’t want to be told that we don’t have the power. We must revive our anti-imperialist values. We must rebuild the anti-colonial consciousness because they have done a lot of damage to our country. A lot of damage, coming to the U.S. embassy to toast with the ambassador, having a few drinks with the ambassador. What drinks?! What embassy?! We have to reject this!

It is my pride to have been the only presidential candidate who in 2023 told the ambassador that we would not meet with him, that the Left Front would not kneel before him! We must not surrender with neither drinks nor champagne. We are not here for meetings with ambassadors. We are here to confront them in the street and to tell them, “Yankees out of Latin America! English out of Malvinas!

We will fight them with all our strength! Thank you very much comrades. Let’s build that international solidarity, that unity of the working class, to fight for the anti-imperialist consciousness, because it is not given that the U.S. has already won everything. If we join together we can stop it, and we can tell them “Yankees go home!”