Washington’s renewed hostility toward Venezuela masks an old game in new packaging—a familiar blend of moral posturing, economic ambition, and geopolitical anxiety over China’s rising influence in America’s own backyard.
Let’s unpack how the newest round of sabre-rattling toward Venezuela looks suspiciously like a Swiss-army distraction from uncomfortable headlines in Ukraine, Gaza, and at home—not to mention an economy that refuses to cooperate with MAGA campaign slogans.
But it’s not just about crude. Venezuela’s energy deals, Chinese infrastructure money, and quiet regional diplomacy challenge something sacred in D.C.: uncontested American influence in its own hemisphere, known as the Monroe doctrine. From the threats regarding the Panama Canal to billions in “aid” to Argentina, the pattern is painted in bold strokes.
Even Nicolás Maduro—hardly the hemisphere’s most beloved voice—is publicly pleading, in English no less, for “no crazy war.” That alone should raise eyebrows.
One friend from that part of the world had a wife from Venezuela, and he told me they had to send care packages of beans and rice to her family so they did not starve. And that was before COVID-19.
As I wrote to one former US governmental energy policy advisor, ‘You are the petroleum expert. Is this about oil or just a convenient distraction from all that has gone wrong with Ukraine, Palestine, the US economy, and Make America Great Again?’ He replied:
I think they just want Madero out, which should stop the illegal immigration from Venezuela. Oil is just another factor but probably not the major one. Chevron is still there.
America has been here before: when foreign conflicts suddenly become convenient distractions, excuses pile up, and leaders wrap aggressive moves in patriotic language. The latest tension with Venezuela feels like another chapter in a long history of questionable motives and overheated political theatre.
The fact that Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves makes the country strategically significant. Even if the US were to get control of the oil, would this windfall of a new supply be a plus to the industry, or instead kick the chair out from under the US oil industry, particularly the expensive to-extract shale oil producers? Is not oil from that part of the world difficult to refine, being heavy crude, and only a few refineries can process it, with low capacity at best?
It is worth noting that the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “Crude Complications: Venezuela, China, and the United States,” details how Venezuela’s oil exports to China have risen significantly while those to the U.S. have fallen, tying China-Venezuela energy ties to geopolitical shifts.
Get out of Dodge by Nightfall
It is clear that the US wants China out of South America, not so much because of oil, but especially to curtail any influence over the Panama Canal, and Venezuela. Likely, the billions in aid to Argentina, while Americans cannot afford health care, is all connected to such a threatening agenda.
Obviously, all the sabre-rattling has little to do with what they want us to believe—drug trafficking, overcoming the policies of a tin-horn South American dictator, etc. And last but not least, Venezuela emptied its prisons into America. Castro did the same thing, and his country’s insane asylums too, which might go a long way to explaining Florida…..
What has Trump and his team so upset is that the Chinese know how to work silently as a matter of cultural intelligence and how to develop trust and long-term business opportunities.
China has steadily deepened economic and security ties in Latin America without much fanfare (including Venezuela), and this really has the U.S. simmering, as it imposes punishing tariffs, and its Third Reich-like immigration policies are turning the region as a whole away from the US towards BRIC countries, and other less threatening partners for the sake of security and economic stability.
Meanwhile, China has evolved into South America’s top trading partner, and it is now the major source of both foreign direct investment and energy and infrastructure lending. One only needs to consider the political and economic gains through its massive Belt and Road Initiative.
It is no wonder why the US, much too preoccupied with trying to control what is happening in the rest of the world, now wakes up and realizes that China is setting up more than just cottage industries in its backyard. It should come as no surprise why all the threats are coming at once. Such threats, even the lame ones, seek to draw attention away from the course of the conflict in Ukraine, the continued genocide in Gaza, and the actual State of Affairs in the US and the World as a whole.
Even domestically, for the US administration, the MAGA agenda has been hijacked for short-term political and economic gains, and not by the rank and file, but by the same elites who always seem to come out on top by putting socialism for the rich as the macro policy.
Venezuela’s Maduro to US: ‘No crazy war, please!’
Perhaps Maduro should get a peace prize based on his recent statements! In a moment when war risk increased, Maduro publicly called for peace, avoided retaliatory threats, used diplomatic language, and advocated de-escalation, thereby contributing rhetorically to regional stability. He even used English, a language that he does not know, to drive to get the message across—the language of the U.S.—to deliver his plea for peace. His genuine desire to avoid a conflict even went so far as to offer oil concessions to the US, which was rejected by Trump.
“Yes, peace, yes, peace forever, peace forever. No crazy war, please!”
Maduro’s comment came after US President Donald Trump said he had authorized covert action against the South American nation amid a military campaign targeting what Washington says are drug traffickers in the Caribbean and Pacific.
Viewed through a geopolitical lens, U.S. pressure on Venezuela is more akin to a strategic manoeuvre to limit China’s influence in the Western Hemisphere, under the guise of the Monore Doctrine, and secure regional energy interests rather than any semblance of a principled stand against authoritarianism or narcotics trafficking. Indeed, if there was any principle to US actions, it would be the first time in 150 years in the region.
It does not require a deep turn of the shovel to expose the contradictions of Trump’s efforts or rhetoric regarding waging war against a country under the guise of false pretenses and to clearly demonstrate that this is certainly not the first time in history such methods have been used. One feels like one is watching a repeat of the US lies that started the Iraq War, just with “drug trafficking” substituted for “weapons of mass destruction.”
Once again, Washington seems to be gearing up for trouble under the cover of fighting drugs and defending democracy, but—just like Iraq—oil, power, and political distraction are the real story. Trump’s tough talk ignores history, ignores the advice of leaders like Teddy Roosevelt to “speak softly and carry a big stick,” and ends up sounding more like cheap campaign noise than informed foreign policy.
Much of what he says, including his Secretary of State, is more likely lame political rhetoric—something they are both famous for as foul-mouthed demagogues who put personal economic security over real national and regional collective security interests.
It’s not just “about oil,” but oil is definitely a major strategic factor—and taking control of Venezuelan crude would not be an easy, automatic win for the U.S. oil industry or its geopolitical goals.
In the end, Trump’s bluster echoes past blunders—from Iraq to old-school gunboat diplomacy—and instead of speaking softly like Roosevelt advised, he shouts empty threats that play to campaign crowds while risking another needless war abroad.
Did he not say that he wanted not to be the president who started wars but the one who ended them?
We’ve lived through Iraq and Libya (UN 1973). We’ve lived through the Panama takeover, through every shameful chapter of US gunboat diplomacy and ‘false flags’ dressed up as moral duty and R2P. When leaders try to sell us another “necessary” conflict for “freedom” or “security,” we already know who really benefits. Don’t insult our intelligence.
History may repeat, but this time around, more of us are watching—and we already have the worn-out script in our hands!
Seth Ferris, investigative journalist and political scientist, expert on Middle Eastern affairs
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