CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Thieving Matters: The Trump-Venezuela Oil Steal

Photograph by Nathaniel St. Clair

When the Trump administration abducted the Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife on January 3, an open incitement to international lawbreaking was asserted.  Here was thuggish impunity, crude acquisition and harsh plunder in operation: the seizure of a sovereign leader in office on fanciful narco-terrorist charges, a violation of the territorial sanctity of a state guaranteed by Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, and the demand that Venezuela be compliant with Washington’s objectives in its vulgar reiteration of the Monroe Doctrine.  The prize was clearly oil.

Towards the end of August, President Donald Trump was in a sprightly mood on his favourite platform of choice, Truth Social.  In a post, the President announced that he had reached, with Venezuela, “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY!”  Under his direction, the US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, working with interim President Delcy Rodriguez of Venezuela in “partnership with private business, have secured majority US control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven Oil Reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American taxpayer.”

This brazen assertion of control would more than double oil reserves in the US (currently at 46 billion barrels), increase oil supply and, most importantly regarding the election prospects for the Republicans, “substantially lower Gas Prices for all Americans, long into the future, while helping to continue to set Venezuela on a course to Tremendous Success and Great Prosperity.”

President Rodriguez tried to polish what could only be regarded as a........

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