US forces attacked Caracas in the early hours of Saturday, bombing targets that killed dozens of civilians, officials and military personnel and abducting President Nicolas Maduro and his wife to allegedly face federal narco-trafficking charges in New York.
The Venezuelan president was escorted off a plane at Stewart Air National Guard Base in New York state and taken to a Brooklyn jail.
For weeks, US President Donald Trump and his officials said assault on Venezuela was aimed at countering the flow of narcotics.
However, directly after the abduction of Maduro and the attack on Caracas, Trump said that Washington’s true interest lies in Venezuela’s vast proven oil reserves, – the largest in the world, estimated at about 303 billion barrels, according to OPEC data.
In a press conference at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida, the US president said the US would “run the country” for now, rebuild oil infrastructure, and “take out a tremendous amount of wealth out of the ground” to sell to global customers, including rivals China and Russia.
What the US wants is to revolve around Venezuela’s oil, which Trump and other US officials have characterised as US oil – based on the South American country’s nationalisation of its oil industry between the 1970s and the 2000s, forcing most US oil companies out.
“If you remember, they took all of our energy rights, they took all of our oil from not that long ago. And we want it back,” said Trump in December.
Oil is vital to Venezuela, and the US had used its importance to pressure the country prior to the abduction of Maduro.
US sanctions targeting Venezuelan oil have been a core element of US policy toward Venezuela since 2017, especially under combined Trump-era directives. The state-owned oil company Petroleos de Venezuela, SA (PDVSA) is blacklisted, and Washington has taken measures restricting the shipment of diluents that are needed for heavy crude.
A host of oil traders, companies and ships that transport the goods have been sanctioned, including last month, while Trump ordered a blockade of sanctioned oil tankers entering or leaving Venezuelan waters, which led to at least two tankers being confiscated.
US sanctions and pressure are some of the main reasons why Venezuela’s oil exports are not comparable to the country’s oil reserves.
Venezuela’s oil exports averaged about a meager 950,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, and the US “oil embargo” knocked them down to around 500,000 bpd last month, according to preliminary figures based on ship movements.
In comparison, major oil exporters like Saudi Arabia and Russia export millions of barrels per day on average.
"Venezuela, for the American oil companies, will be a field day," Florida Republican congresswoman María Elvira Salazar said in a recent interview on Fox Business.
"American companies can go in and fix all the oil pipes, the whole oil rigs and everything that has to do with... oil and the derivatives."
Furthermore, it possesses a substantial supply of “rare earth elements,” especially coltan and thorium, chemical elements with magnetic and conductivity properties essential for modern technology, mobile phones, electric vehicles, weaponry, and renewable energy. These riches are nestled within a geography of high biodiversity, abundant water resources, and privileged access to the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean.
In 2023, the Venezuelan government declared cassiterite, nickel, rhodium, titanium, and other rare earth minerals as strategic resources for exploration, extraction, and commercialization of this key raw material for the technology industry. The so-called black sands—a market largely dominated by China—are emerging as another prize that the US president hopes to wrest from his trade rival through the pressure he has exerted on Venezuela’s resources. such as:
- Gold: Venezuela is among the main gold producers in Latin America
- Coltan: used in batteries and electronics, with significant reserves in the Amazon region.
- Lithium: essential for electric vehicles and energy storage.
Now, after Venezuela, who’s next in Latin America?
https://x.com/zarahsultana/status/2007941723889033610?s=46&t=t_-JFgpXqgMIkVsuBfWELw
Trump threatened on Sunday to take over the Danish territory of Greenland for the sake, military action on Colombia, while his top diplomat declared the communist government in Cuba is “in a lot of trouble.”
Source: Al Jazeera, AP, and others
