On Saturday 3 January, we awoke to the news that Trump’s America had attacked Venezuela, abducted its president and was taking him to the US for a trial. But what is really behind this unprovoked attack, which breaks international law?
First signs of conflict
The first sign of the conflict that was to come came in February 2025, soon after Trump had regained the presidency of the United States. It was reported on 27 February last year that President Donald Trump had announced that he would revoke a licence which enabled Venezuela to still export some of its oil to the US despite sanctions.
The licence had provided the provided the Venezuelan government with a vital income in dollars, through a partnership between the US oil giant Chevron and the Venezuelan state-run oil company. Consequently, this decision by Trump was a major blow to the Venezuelan government.
The licence had given Chevron permission to operate in Venezuela was being revoked by Trump, because he claimed that the Maduro government had “failed to meet ‘electoral conditions; and had not transported ‘violent criminals’ deported from the US at a quick enough pace”.
The Venezuela government said that the decision could increase migration to the US and “called it damaging”.
Escalation in December
The situation really began to escalate in December, with attacks by the US on Venezuelan oil tankers. It was reported on 22 December that the US had intercepted two oil tankers off the coast of Venezuela, an action which lead other Latin American countries to “prepare for potential land strikes”.
It was noted that the US Coast Guard had “approached the two vessels on Saturday, boarding one named Centuries and on Sunday pursuing another, Bella 1, which sailed away and is still on the move.”.
This action then led to speculation that Trump’s motives for putting pressure on the Venezuelan regime, previousl said to have been around concerns regarding narco-trafficking had become less clear.
Trump wants control of Venezuelan oil
Then came the attack on 3 January which left the world wondering what exactly Trump’s reasons for such a flagrant violation of international law really were.
In the hours after the attack on Caracas, the Americans seemed to want to make the issue about criminal behaviour by Maduro. Pam Bondi, US attorney General was reported as having said:
“Nicolás Maduro has been charged with narco-terrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation conspiracy, possession of machine guns and destructive devices, and conspiracy to possess machine guns and destructive devices against the United States. They will soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts”.
However, a few hours later, it was also reported that Trump had said that the US would be ‘very strongly involved’ in the Venezuela oil industry. Trump commented: “We have the greatest oil companies in the world, the biggest, the greatest, and we’re going to be very much involved in it”.
In a press conference later on the same day, Trump stated: “We’re going to run the country until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition”. It was reported that Trump had given no details of how exactly the US were going to do this, before saying:
“We’re going to have our very large US oil companies, the biggest anywhere in the world, go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country and we are ready to stage a second and much larger attack if we need to do so. So we were prepared to do a second wave.”
No evidence from Trump
It was also noted on 3 January that Trump had previously accused Maduro of being a top-level member of a drug cartel called Cartel de los Soles. Trump has claimed that this cartel is trafficking drugs into the US but has not shared any evidence of Maduro’s involvement.
It was also noted that Venezuela is rich in oil and many other resources, including important minerals and that Maduro himself had claimed that Venezuela has $1.36 trillion of mineral wealth.
Carving up the world
A number of commentators have seen the actions of Trump and the US military in Venezuela as part of a wider process, involving three countries; the US, Russia and China.
Katie Stallard has argued convincingly that the attack on Venezuela is part of an American policy to establish a modern version of the Monroe Doctrine and to ensure that they dominate the American continent north and south.
Meanwhile Russia and China are also busy carving out their respective spheres of influence. The intended result of these actions is for there to be a tri-polar world, dominated by the US, Russian and China.
Stallard noted how dangerous this might be, stating that rather than Trump’s actions helping to bring stability to the world, “it is more likely that he has just unleashed an almighty struggle for power, both in Venezuela and much further afield. Xi Jinping likes to say that the world is now experiencing “great changes unseen in a century”. On this, at least, he is correct. We are witnessing the birth of a new world order, but neither Trump, Putin nor Xi yet knows precisely what form it will take.”
Another commentator reminded us that a few months before the election in 2024, Trump had commented: “When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it up, and we would’ve gotten all that oil. It would have been right next door.”
Trump’s interest in oil
Bill McKibben, the highly respected US environmentalist and social commentator commented in an email to subscribers:
“I think we can take it for granted that the stated charges from the attorney general this morning are not the reasons, since pretty much everyone agrees that that Venezuela is not a big drug exporter to the US and the president just pardoned the president of Honduras who actually was a serious pusher. Oh, and ‘Possession of Machineguns and Destructive Devices, and Conspiracy to Possess Machineguns’ is something we now encourage for Americans.”
McKibben then went on to show that the countries on earth with the biggest oil reserves, “are almost without exception the same places we’ve been involved in endless fighting or, in the case of Canada, endless threatening. (Greenland, by the way, also has significant oil reserves; it put them off limits in 2021, banning oil exploration on climate change grounds). We probably don’t care much about human rights violations in Venezuela, because human rights are not currently on the top (or the bottom) of our State Department’s concerns (except for white South Africans). But we almost certainly care deeply about that oil”.
A resources grab
There is no doubt that there is evidence that Maduro has acted as a dictator on numerous occasions in his time as President of Venezuela. However, as Bill McKibben points put since when did the Trump regime suddenly become concerned about human rights? And who can believe what Trump says about Venezuela when he fails to provide any evidence?
Trump’s actions in Venezuela will almost certainly embolden other world leaders, such as Putin and Xi Jinping to grab resources from other countries and will also help to keep oil as a major fuel source, while the climate continues to warm.
All this will simply lead to greater instability and uncertainty in an already dangerous world. One thing is clear. however. The award of a FIFA peace prize to Trump by FIFA director Gianni Infantino looks even more ridiculous today than it did a month ago.
