"The Trump administration is pursuing plans to sell oil from Venezuela and control the proceeds itself, Energy Secretary Chris Wright announced on Wednesday in an extraordinary assertion of American authority over another country’s natural resources."
~ Akalyla Gardner and Vaughn Hillyard
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/1
"As to Venezuela, administration announcements on Wednesday dropped all pretense of the invasion into Venezuela being about drugs. Instead, the administration said it would assume control of Venezuela’s oil production indefinitely."
~ Robert B. Hubbell
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/2
"It now appears that Trump believes he used 15,000 US troops, 150 planes, and 25% of the US Navy to invade Venezuela so that he could gain personal control over billions in oil revenue kept in offshore accounts.
The arrangement is so shockingly unconstitutional and corrupt that it is unfathomable that congressional Republicans will not object to the arrangement."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/3
"[Stacie E.] Goddard and [Abraham] Newman have received well-deserved attention for their analysis, which states that Americans should stop believing that U.S. foreign policy serves U.S. national interests. Instead, they argue, we must recognize that in many ways we’ve been transported back to the 16th century –"
~ Paul Krugman
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/4
https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/the-looting-of-us-foreign-policy
(continued from /4)
"a time before nation-states existed, when international affairs were a game played by dynasties serving their interests.
The result of Trump isolationism is that the world is less safe, and no one is better off economically except billionaires. ... Trump's mix of isolationism and interventionism is disastrous for America and the world."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/5
"The bottom line is that to understand what Trump is doing around the world you must disabuse yourself of the notion that any of it is about serving America. It’s all about glorifying himself and enriching his clique."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/6
"If a country has oil, they get subjugated to U.S. oil companies and to the petrodollar. If not? Anything goes. The U.S. has run this game in Central America, South America, the Middle East, Asia and Africa. The stated causes change, from “fighting communism” to 'liberating the people,' but the endgame is always the same:"
~Joy-Ann Reid
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/7
"U.S. companies wind up with control over the natural resources of the country, and those resources get traded in dollars."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/8
"Trump also said that the american taxpayers are going to have to help reimburse big oil when they incur all the expenses to have to rebuild the venezuelan oil infrastructure because the amount of barrel output right now has has plummeted after the nationalizationof oil by Venezuela."
~ Katie Phang
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/9
https://www.joyannreid.com/p/trumperialism-some-old-american-empire
A recording from Joy-Ann Reid's live video
"And so apparently big oil, we're not only going to be helping them get richer, but who the hell cares that we're spending billions of dollars on military operations when we can't even get healthcare for basic Americans can't get their healthcare right now."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/10
"And the Trump donor who bought Citgo is about to maybe be a trillionaire. We're basically enriching oil companies. And then, yes, you, the taxpayer, you can't get health care, but you're going to pay these oil companies to develop.
~ Joy-Ann Reid
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/11
https://www.joyannreid.com/p/trumperialism-some-old-american-empire
A recording from Joy-Ann Reid's live video
"On Monday, Popular Information reported that the U.S. military raid that removed Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro from power could be a financial windfall for Paul Singer, a Trump-supporting billionaire."
~ Judd Legum
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/12
"On Tuesday evening, Trump announced on Truth Social that Venezuela would be 'turning over' between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. The heavy crude will be 'brought directly to unloading docks in the United States.'
The Wall Street Journal reported that Trump’s announcement was 'good news for Gulf Coast refineries that are configured to run heavy crude including from Venezuela.'”
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/13
"At the top of that list is Citgo, a company designed to process Venezuelan oil in the U.S. Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that Citgo 'may emerge as one of the biggest beneficiaries of President Donald Trump’s plan to bring millions of barrels of the country’s oil to the US.'”
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/14
"Trump doesn’t see nations; he sees balance sheets. He doesn’t respect sovereignty; he prices it. He doesn’t ask what’s legal or moral; he asks what he gets to keep.
From Iraq to Venezuela. From oil fields to ice fields. From the 26th floor of Trump Tower to the Oval Office.
It was about the oil then.
It’s about the oil now."
~ Michael Cohen
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/15
https://www.meidasplus.com/p/trumps-hostile-takeover-doctrine
"The U.S. attack on Venezuela has no defensible legal rationale, no international coalition, and no occupation force to manage the situation. With the exception of Israel, it has elicited widespread concern around the world, which is no doubt muted given Trump’s volatility and trigger happiness with retaliatory tariffs."
~ Nicholas Grossman
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/16
https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/trump-is-ensuring-that-his-venezuela
"The broad impact will be destabilization, with uncontrollable consequences for the region and the world."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #Citgo
/17
"The result of Trump isolationism is that the world is less safe, and no one is better off economically except billionaires. ...
Trump does not pretend he is defending democracy and human rights. He is not supporting the installation of the actual winner of the last Venezuelan presidential election."
~ Thomas Reese
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/18
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/trumps-foreign-policy-disaster-america-and-world
"Trump bluntly says it is about oil, even though American oil companies are not eager to invest billions in Venezuelan oil production granted the political uncertainty. In addition, since Venezuelan oil is high in sulfur and difficult to refine, it sells for about $15 a barrel less than brent crude oil, which is currently selling at about $60 a barrel."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/19
"Despite Trump's infatuation with fossil fuels, Venezuelan oil may not be a good investment, especially now that wind and solar energy is cheaper than fossil fuels.
Trump's war is illegal, unwise, immoral and a waste of money. It harms both Venezuela and the United States."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/20
"Worst of all, it encourages Putin to continue his war in Ukraine and gives the green light to China to use its military to take over Taiwan and bully other Asian nations.
Trump's mix of isolationism and interventionism is disastrous for America and the world."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/21
"In the long list of Trump's brazen deflections and acts of unbridled arrogance, his invasion of Venezuela and capture of Nicolás Maduro certainly competes for top of the list. It was a breathtaking example of his self-absorbed and illiterate approach to foreign policy. ...
He wants the oil. He wants revenge. He wants to distract."
~ National Catholic Reporter
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/22
https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/editorial-venezuela-trump-dares-us-confront-what-weve-become
With his invasion of Venezuela and capture of its leader, President Trump dares us to take stock, dares us to say that he has gone too far, and dares us to engage in acts of resistance equal to his destructive behavior.
"The aspiring autocrat knows how to survive. The Venezuela venture was another act of lawless chaos that further emboldened Trump to look around the hemisphere and wonder aloud at taking over Colombia, Mexico, Cuba and Greenland.
In any previous era such would be considered the unhinged ravings of a madman. Today? He's daring us to look the other way."
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism #isolationism #GlobalPeace
/23
"Call it neo-royalism, call it gangsterism, but Trump is determined to create a world of chaos where he can plunder what he wants. … Put simply, America is now a rogue state. …
As we’ve seen in Trump’s successful efforts to tear apart the federal government, it’s much easier to destroy than to build. Rebuilding a world order where something other than gangsterism prevails will take an awfully long time."
~ Paul Waldman
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #EconomicElites
/24
https://paulwaldman.substack.com/p/america-is-now-a-rogue-state
"[With] MAGA and with Trump...it's not America first. It's what America wants to do when America wants to do it. And the tension there is, OK, well, if we feel like there is a monetary benefit, an extraction benefit from going into another country and essentially taking over their regime, then the United States will go ahead and do that," (continued in /26)
~ Nayyera Haq
#Trump #Venezuela #oil #BigOil #FossilFuels #EconomicElites #imperialism
/25
https://www.lincolnsquare.media/p/whats-really-happening-in-south-america
A recording from Lincoln Square's live video
(continued from /25)
"because we're not -- this is the key point as we watch this unfold since the weekend -- this is not the old regime change.
The Trump administration has not toppled the horrible Maduro government. It took out Maduro and is now telling the vice president there, Maduro's vice president, that the entire apparatus can stay the same as long as they give two months of daily oil barrel production to the United States."
"It is very blunt and direct what Trump wants from this right now. And there's no fig leaf of international law. There's no fig leaf of this is about helping people.
We used to see those fig leaves before. Now it's a very blunt colonial imperial extraction enterprise."
"We suddenly discovered we had already surrendered."
SearingTruth
William Lindsey 
SearingTruth