US Discovering Venezuela's Oil, Again
Axios highlights President Trump's 'strategy' to 'back a pro-U.S. government' in Venezuela and seize its oil, claiming such 'raw exercise of U.S. imperial force hasn't been seen in modern times.' (One might reasonably wonder which calendar Axios is using.) President Trump's Truth Social announcement about receiving sanctioned oil and subsequent meeting with oil executives, alongside Secretary
Rubio's demands, paint a picture not of novel imperialism, but rather a transparent continuation of the same old resource grabs the US has routinely orchestrated across Latin America for decades. This isn't groundbreaking, it's just louder. Rubio’s candid admission that Venezuela's economic woes are ‘leverage’ to force regime change is presented as a novel insight, rather than standard operating
procedure for a nation whose State Department once literally overthrew democratically elected governments in Chile and Guatemala for daring to nationalize resources. The only 'new' thing here is the lack of even a pretense of democratic concern when the oil is so openly the point. It appears the 'democracy promotion' talking point only gets trotted out when a government isn't yet fully subservient
to US corporate energy interests.