Trump Admin to 'Decide' Who Extracts Venezuelan Oil
Former President Trump’s recent pow-wow with US oil bosses, as reported by Al Jazeera, to 'discuss Venezuela extraction' paints a clear picture: the 'sovereignty' of other nations is highly conditional. Trump, or any US president, simply declaring which corporations get to tap into another country's resources—without, you know, the country itself having much say—is less about free markets and more
about imperial entitlement. This isn't even new; it's the 21st-century iteration of gunboat diplomacy, swapping battleships for corporate boardrooms but maintaining the same colonial smirk. We might remember the 2002 attempted coup against Hugo Chávez, backed by the US, or the more recent sanctions designed to cripple Venezuela's economy and destabilize its government, all under the guise of
'democracy promotion.' (OpenSecrets.org shows energy sector PACs spent over $111 million in 2022 elections, influencing precisely these kinds of 'discussions.') The language used, 'decide which oil companies are allowed to operate in Venezuela,' is simply code for controlling another nation's wealth. One might ask, what happened to self-determination? Ah, that’s reserved for countries compliant
with US corporate interests.