Paul Krugman Discovers Venezuelan Oil is Actually Venezuelan
Paul Krugman, writing for The New York Times and quoted by The Hill , dismissed the 'vast wealth' Donald Trump imagines from Venezuelan oil, arguing the current regime can't extract it efficiently. What Krugman, and indeed The Hill , conveniently omits is the active role US sanctions have played for decades, specifically designed to cripple Venezuela’s oil industry and economy. From Reagan-era
policies to Bush, Obama, and Trump, the US has systematically imposed sanctions, covert operations, and even attempted coups (see 2002 coup attempt against Hugo Chávez, involving US officials) to destabilize Venezuela and prevent it from leveraging its proven oil reserves, the largest in the world. This isn't about 'imagined wealth'; it's about systematically dismantled capacity. It's rich to then
scoff at a nation's inability to produce under conditions intentionally engineered to prevent production. Perhaps the 'vast wealth' America imagines from controlling other nations' resources is merely a projection of its own interventionist history.