"Trump and his allies have now apparently decided to drop all pretense and stick to oil. They are publicly messaging and focused on access to Venezuela’s oil reserves as the primary goal of the military campaign."
~ Jay Kuo
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/1
https://thinkbigpicture.substack.com/p/trump-venezuela-maduro-unprepared
"During his triumphalist press conference after the abduction of Nicolás Maduro, Trump never used the word 'democracy.' He did, however, say 'oil' 27 times, declaring, 'We’re going to take back the oil that, frankly, we should have taken back a long time ago.'
Even so, whatever it is we’re doing in Venezuela isn’t really a war for oil. It is, instead, a war for oil fantasies."
~ Paul Krugman
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/2
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-emperors-new-oil-wealth
"Donald Trump has said Venezuela will be 'turning over' $2bn worth of Venezuelan crude to the United States, a flagship negotiation that would divert supplies from China while helping Venezuela avoid deeper oil production cuts."
~ The Guardian
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/3
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jan/07/venezuela-oil-trump-us-latest
“'This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!' Trump said in a post online."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/4
“'Joe, the difference between Iraq and this is that Bush didn’t keep the oil. We’re going to keep the oil.'
That’s Trump saying the quiet part out loud (again!) to MS NOW’s Joe Scarborough on the phone."
~ Pete Rothpletz
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/5
"By eschewing any notion of restoring democracy to the Venezuelan people, Trump has revealed his imperialist Big Oil mission as unadorned thuggery."
~ Sabrina Haake
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #thuggery #fascism
/6
https://sabrinahaake.substack.com/p/petroterrorism-the-new-politics-of
"A huge share of your tax dollar goes to pay for this military. This has become basically a private militia for the oil industry and Wall Street, that's also really bad for you."
~ Sen. Chris Murphy
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #WallStreet #EconomicElites
/7
https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/invading-venezuela-to-help-big-oil
A conversation about what happened and where we go from here
"See, that’s all it takes. You pick up the phone, you go on Truth Social, you say some stuff in ALL CAPS, and the world bends to your will. ...
This is how stupid Trump and Miller and Rubio are. They announced what they want to do with Venezuela’s oil. Trump used the word 'oil' twenty times in his press conference about the attack on Venezuela at Mar a Lago on Sunday."
~ Lucian K. Truscott
#Trump #Venezuela #oil
/8
Abigail Haddad notes that in the staged photos the White House released after Maduro's seizure, In one image, you can see the Director of the CIA, the Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Secretary of Defense grouped around a laptop with a screen displaying feed from X behind them. In other pictures, you can see "Venezuela" in the search box.
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #SocialMedia #X #WarasTheater #PoliticsofTheater
/9
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/life-under-a-clicktatorship
"With the best intelligence systems in the world at their fingertips, they were checking X in the midst of the mission? Combined with the curtains separating some section of Mar‑A‑Lago from the rest of the President’s resort, the images create an almost surreal air. It felt as if a group of twelve-year-old boys in a basement had been handed control of the most lethal military in history—and were using it to boost their online brands."
THEN: "We're getting out of the nation-building business and instead focusing on creating stability in the world."
NOW: "Our policy of never-ending war, regime change, and nation-building is being replaced by the clear-eyed pursuit of American interests."
Zeteo offers receipts in a video.
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #RegimeChange #AmericaFirst #NationBuilding #hemispheres
/11
The US president used to loudly oppose regime change and nation-building but now he loves it - and we have the receipts in this video.
"Our leader has determined and decreed, that the Constitution, domestic US law, the UN Charter, international law, and Senate ratified treaties with other nations no longer apply in our new Imperial age. The era of law is behind us now. American democracy, the post WWII rules-based order, the Four Freedoms, Pax Americana are now relics of a bygone era."
~ Simon Rosenberg
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #hemispheres #power #masculinity #domination
/12
https://www.hopiumchronicles.com/p/all-hail-our-new-emperor-of-the-americas
"We are entering a new age now. An age of force, of power, of MANLY STRENGTH. Stephen Miller declared the arrival of this new age on CNN on Monday night."
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #hemispheres #power #masculinity #domination
/13
“'U.S. foreign policy now is imperial, and consistently imperial,' {Nathalie Tocci, director of the Institute of International Affairs] said. 'It’s not simply pursuing an American empire in the Western Hemisphere, but Trump accepts the very notion of empire, which is why other empires can exist.'
Such a worldview allows for not only an American empire, but also Russian and Chinese ones, she said."
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #domination #imperialism
/14
"It’s not just the performative dick-swinging that is the dangling subtext to all of Trump foreign policy that is driving this new imperative. …
Rather, it is a broader assault on the reordering of the relationship among nations that emerged following the First World War," (continued in /16)
~ David Kurtz
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #domination #imperialism #PerformativeMasculinity #WorldPeace
/15
https://morningmemo.talkingpointsmemo.com/p/magas-march-of-folly-into-greenland
(continued from /15)
"when war-shattered countries moved toward replacing brute force and Darwinian principles with something approaching a principled, rules-based order to foreign relations — or at least an aspiration in that direction."
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #domination #imperialism #PerformativeMasculinity #WorldPeace
/16
"Trump has a childlike fascination with the great power politics that predated the current world order, and his foreign policy is broadly centering on organizing the globe into three spheres of influence — American, Russian, and Chinese — in which the leading powers largely have free rein."
#Trump #StephenMiller #SpheresofInfluence #domination #imperialism #PerformativeMasculinity #WorldPeace #Russia #China
/17
"The energy secretary of the United States of america now says that United States of America will control Venezuela's oil indefinitely. After little Marco Rubio on Saturday tried to clarify Donald Trump's remarks that, oh, no, no, we won't control Venezuela, Donald Trump comes out later and says, we're going to rent it, we're going to control it."
~ Wajahat Ali
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #EconomicElites #imperialism #domination
/18
https://anneapplebaum.substack.com/p/the-inevitable-blowback-to-trumps
A recording from Anne Applebaum and THE LEFT HOOK with Wajahat Ali's live video
"Yesterday, Donald Trump, in a very, I think, illegal post, openly talked about capturing Venezuela's oil and selling it at market price, and then he alone will control the money for the benefit of the United States and Venezuela."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #EconomicElites #imperialism #domination
/19
"I think it's an episode that is useful in really explaining and defining what what Donald Trump means by control and what he thinks U.S. foreign policy is for. So it's not for building alliances, making America prosperous, creating trade relationships that are reliable. It's not for fixing global problems like climate change or solving wars. The purpose of foreign policy is to enrich people around Donald Trump."
~ Anne Applebaum
"That’s the whole framework: power and oil. The White House isn’t hiding it anymore—likely because Trump can’t stick to the approved talking points."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #EconomicElites #imperialism #power #SpheresofInfluence
/21
his grandparents would be *very proud* of him 😏
William Lindsey 
GJ Groothedde 🇪🇺
RainbowFrog
Gondor
Roknrol
oldguycrusty
Marianne