No to the New Global McCarthyism

In Defense of the Left, the Peoples, and Their Right to Self-Determination

This Thursday, July 16, 2026, in Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading the so-called “Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism,” a summit bringing together officials from more than sixty countries in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, with the stated purpose of “strengthening coordination, expanding information sharing, and reinforcing international security cooperation” in the face of what the Trump-Rubio administration has dubbed “far-left political terrorism.”

This is neither a technical exercise nor a legitimate security concern. It is a political act of the gravest nature, seeking to institutionalize, on a global scale, the persecution of popular movements, left-wing parties, and peoples who dare to forge their own path. In light of this event, we declare:

1. There is no such thing as “left-wing terrorism.” What exists is the criminalization of politics.

Labeling all political opposition as “terrorism” is a deeply dangerous subterfuge. When a state—and even more so, the most powerful and militarized state in the world—decides that dissent, social protest, labor organization, and the struggle for rights are forms of “extremism,” it has taken the first step toward emptying democracy itself of meaning. The label “terrorist” ceases to describe violence and instead simply designates anyone who thinks differently. We categorically reject the claim that the left is responsible for terrorism and extremism, and we denounce the utter lack of basis for such an assertion, which is not supported by data, courts, or any evidence whatsoever.

2. Labeling the left as “extremist” and “terrorist” is a way to manufacture consent for its criminalization.

Every campaign of repression first requires a campaign of defamation. By planting the idea in public opinion that the left is a threat, the groundwork is laid for what comes next: proscriptions, asset freezes, lists of “foreign terrorist organizations,” arrests, extraditions, and million-dollar bounties for the persecution of activists. It is no coincidence that, since November 2025, Washington has designated European organizations as “foreign terrorist organizations” and is offering millions of dollars for information on their finances. Words are the weapon that precedes the hunt.

3. Defamation seeks to isolate the people from those who fight for real solutions.

Behind this offensive lies a deeper objective: to separate the people from the only political camp that fights to resolve the problems they face every day. Hunger, unemployment, scarcity, homelessness, and the lack of healthcare and education are not natural phenomena: they are the expression of capitalism’s structural inability to meet the needs of the majority. By portraying the left as an enemy, the aim is to make people turn their backs on precisely those who propose a different way of organizing life. To defame the left is, at its core, to condemn people to resignation.

4. This summit is being convened within the framework of the recolonization of the hemisphere.

We cannot view this “Ministerial” out of context. The United States is currently carrying out a successful reoccupation of the Western Hemisphere, having secured allied and subordinate governments in Honduras, Chile, Ecuador, Colombia, El Salvador, Panama, and Argentina. We are witnessing the comprehensive deployment of a strategy of profound coercion and control over our region—military pressure, legal warfare, economic suffocation, and political destabilization—of which the vilification and criminalization of the left are an integral part. The Washington summit is not an isolated event: it is the ideological and police dimension of the same imperial offensive.

5. It is the resurgence of McCarthyism, now on a global scale.

What the United States is attempting is to rally right-wing forces from around the world to establish a new form of McCarthyism on a global scale. The aim is to coordinate intelligence agencies, police forces, and government ministries to monitor, profile, and persecute grassroots activists across borders. At a time like this, the unity of the working class is more important than ever. In the face of an international alliance of reaction, we respond with the internationalist solidarity of the peoples.

We denounce

We denounce this summit for what it truly is: a meeting designed to coordinate strategies aimed at violating national sovereignties and paving the way for a large-scale effort to subvert democracies and the right to self-determination of the peoples of the world. Under the guise of “technical” cooperation on security—which brings together operational and administrative officials primarily from countries in Europe and Asia—a machinery for intervening in the internal affairs of nations is being set in motion.

We condemn the persecution of leftist forces around the world, the arbitrary labeling of popular movements as “terrorists,” and the use of the repressive capabilities of the most heavily armed state on the planet against those who exercise their legitimate right to organize, protest, and engage in political struggle.

We denounce the sustained cognitive warfare that the United States is waging against leftist forces in Venezuela and Cuba—countries that have become prime targets of a smear campaign (Cuba has even been labeled, without any evidence, as the supposed “world capital of leftist terrorism”)—while they are subjected to criminal blockades, sanctions, and acts of aggression that directly punish their peoples.

We reject the false equivalence between political struggle and violence, and we affirm that the only real violence in this scenario is that of the blockade, that of dispossession, that of extrajudicial executions in the Caribbean, and that of the military siege of our Zone of Peace.

History shows where labeling dissent as an internal enemy leads. We will not allow this to be repeated. We call on grassroots, labor, peasant, student, feminist, and anti-imperialist organizations around the world to:

• Publicly denounce this summit and its true purpose, exposing the lie of “leftist terrorism.”
• Strengthen internationalist coordination among popular movements, in the face of the reactionary coordination currently being orchestrated in Washington.
• Defend national sovereignty and the right of every people to determine their own destiny, free from imperial interference or tutelage.
• To redouble solidarity with Venezuela, Cuba, and all peoples currently threatened by the Trump-Rubio offensive.

Our Latin America and the Caribbean is, and will continue to be, a Zone of Peace. The left is not a crime: it is the organized hope of the majority. In the face of the new global McCarthyism, we oppose it with unity, dignity, and the struggle of the peoples.

No to global McCarthyism! In defense of the left and the sovereignty of the peoples!

International Peoples’ Assembly and ALBA Movements