So, some stuff has begun to come out though so far it’s all from the US and I haven’t seen Venezuelan confirmation. First, Trump:
Second, the oil blockade per Hegseth (Secretary of War):
And third, Miller:
Meanwhile a Russian flagged oil tanker was seized. I’m not sure that it’s legitimately Russian flagged, there’s some indication they may have changed the flag in the last two weeks, but if it was, the Russians now have a quandry. The only real response is something symmetrical: seize a US bound freighter, like Iran has. We’ll see if Putin has the guts. He’s overlooked too many red lines in the past for me to be confident in his response.
Anyway, the play is obvious: no oil gets in and out of Venezuela without going thru the US first. The current government may or may not be allowed to stay in charge, we’ll see, but the Venezuelan economy can’t survive without oil exports so the US expects submission.
If neither Russia nor China are willing to intervene and Venezuela isn’t willing to take horrific losses (they’d probably win, but they’d get hurt doing so), then this is what will happen. If I were China I’d probably just end all military and dual use exports including all rare earths while there’s any blockade. What America is doing is clearly piracy. US law does not determine whether other countries can trade with each other—not de jure, anyway.
If there’s to be any remaining shred of freedom of trade it’s going to have to be enforced.
The next question is Greenland. If the US seizes that, then NATO is finished. Anyone MAGA friendly in Europe will be annihilated. Everyone will fall into China’s grasp, there’s no other alternative and there will be a mad scramble of nuclear proliferation. (Should have happened long ago, but people didn’t want to admit the US was an evil overlord.)
Trump may be able to coerce Venezuela (though China could stop him, it seems unlikeley they will) but he is accelerating the collapse of the American Empire something fierce. Again, the US is auto-catabolic in economic terms, and this is just the mad thrashing of a dying Empire, dramatic as it is.
Venezuelan crude is heavy oil. It will be of little value to the US economy, China can replace it without much difficulty and Russia doesn’t need it. This is seizing a wasting asset, acting like it’s 1935 or 1970 and oil is the most important strategic resource. It isn’t. It isn’t even close any more, as long as you have enough. China is aggressively moving away from dependence on oil, in particular, and China is who matters.
Trump’s just an aggressive moron. None of this will stop or even slow US decline where it matters. Instead it will speed it up, and in the longer term, the US will not keep control of Venezuela either.
No one’s talking about Trump being a pedophile right now, however, so I guess it’s “Mission Successful.”
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