Why did Donald Trump target Venezuela? Regime change to abolish socialism, crude oil reserve and foist stooge in Latin America?

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is detained in the USA.

In November, when US President Donald Trump publicly admitted that he had asked the CIA to launch an operation against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, people recalled the 1973 coup in Chile, another Latin American country. General Augusto Pinochet, with the help of the US intelligence agency, staged a coup against the Marxist government of Salvador Allende. The Cold War is over, not just the US policy of removing socialist governments from power around the world. The US military attacked Venezuela on Saturday night, killing more than 40 people and capturing the president and his wife. Washington made its intentions clear when Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated that Cuba, another socialist country, could be the next target.

Donald Trump targets Venezuela

Although the socialist movement has suffered a major setback and most communist governments have either changed their ways or ended abruptly, the struggle between capitalist and socialist forces is far from over. Donald Trump has repeatedly cited Venezuela as evidence of the failure of socialism, and his administration has branded Maduro’s government a “dictatorial socialist” regime that is “destroying a once prosperous country.” Trump overruled the Venezuelan government, slapped it with economic sanctions, and plunged it into economic collapse. When all measures failed, he resorted to gunboat diplomacy. He became uneasy when coercive measures did not put an end to the Maduro regime. He deployed the U.S. military with more than 150 fighter jets, dozens of attack helicopters, naval ships and an aircraft carrier.

(Nicolas Maduro is on the US aircraft carrier.)

The policies adopted by Hugo Chavez before heavy sanctions were imposed on the Latin American country left the Venezuelan economy in bad shape. Under the Bolivarian Mission, Chavez provided free medical care under Barrio Adentro, free education under Mission Robinson, highly subsidized food shopping under Mission Mercal, and direct cash assistance to the poorest of the poor. The government also offered subsidized gasoline, heating oil and software to its people. Although the cash-rich Venezuelan economy was in good shape, the crisis broke out when the oil flow stopped due to US economic sanctions.

USA imposes sanctions on Venezuela

Although Donald Trump invited President Vladimir Putin for talks and went to extreme lengths to stop the Ukraine war, he did not like the China-centered axis that includes Russia and Venezuela. The banning of opposition leader Maria Corina Machado and the loss of opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez in the 2024 presidential election has become unbearable for him. Maduro was accused of stealing the election. Machado was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Now the US president is focused on regime change, fake or fraudulent. Trump announced that the USA would govern Venezuela until the transition period; He didn’t say how long it might take.

(USA is attacking Venezuela.)

Nicolas Maduro was accused of having a narco-terrorist connection and smuggling cocaine into the United States. The Trump administration has said hundreds of thousands of Americans have died from drugs supplied by Venezuela. After his capture, Maduro was brought to New York and charged with four crimes: narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices. There are also accusations against Maduro’s wife.

The USA turned its attention to Venezuela’s oil reserves

Donald Trump’s intention became clear when he announced that the USA would buy Venezuelan crude oil after Maduro’s capture. The South American country has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, with an estimated 300 billion barrels. State-owned SA Oil reserves in Venezuela are the largest in the world, and state-owned PDVSA has a monopoly on the oil business in the country. But Trump passionately said that Washington would seize the oil reserves and that US firms would have access to vast reserves. Addressing the media at his Mar-a-Lago resort, Trump said, “We’re going to have our very large U.S. oil companies, the largest in the world, come in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

Chevron is currently the only US company operating in Venezuelan oil fields. The operations of Exxon Mobil and Conoco Phillips were nationalized by Hugo Chavez. These and other countries may go to the Latin American country to extract crude oil, refine it, and sell the oil products worldwide. Author and Thiruvananthapuram MP Shashi Tharoor summed it up: “Strength is right”.