US 'Intervention' on Venezuela Oil: The Art of Resource Re-Appropriation
📰 THE STORY: Newsweek reports that Donald Trump played a key role in shifting Venezuela's oil policy after a US 'intervention,' implying a positive, guiding hand in the South American nation's affairs. 🔍 WHAT THEY'RE NOT TELLING YOU: Historical Context: The US has a long and sordid history of economic coercion and direct interference in Venezuela. In 2002, the George W. Bush administration
actively supported a failed coup attempt against democratically elected President Hugo Chavez. Following Chavez's death, the Obama and later Trump administrations escalated sanctions, including financial blockades and oil embargos, which, by 2019, were estimated by the Center for Economic and Policy Research to have caused 40,000 deaths due to lack of access to medicine and food. This wasn't
'intervention'; it was economic warfare to undermine the government and seize control of the world's largest proven oil reserves. Double Standard: When a country like Venezuela seeks to nationalize its resources or forge independent trade relationships, Western media often frames it as 'mismanagement' or a 'dictatorship' necessitating 'intervention.' Yet, when the US or its allies leverage
military might or economic sanctions to secure resource access – as the US did in Iraq with its oil, or through its continued military presence in Saudi Arabia – it's portrayed as 'promoting democracy' or 'national security.' The Venezuelan 'oil policy shift' isn't a result of benign counsel, but relentless pressure and deliberately engineered economic collapse, designed to make the government