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Eric Zuesse
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Supporters of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro embrace in downtown Caracas, Venezuela. [Cristian Hernandez/AP Photo]
Did Trump steal Venezuela in order to use its oil to pay U.S. government’s debts?
4 January 2026, by Eric Zuesse. (All of my recent articles can be seen here.)
Peter Haenseler (whom I normally don’t even mention because he doesn’t link to or otherwise cite any sources) presented a fascinating hypothesis to explain why Trump stole Venezuela:
The world is selling US bonds and America is running out of money – it’s as simple as that. With the oil that the Americans want to steal, they will once again have assets with which to refinance ailing America. Trump was therefore forced to carry out this raid, because otherwise the empty coffers in Washington would blow up in his face. Being a businessman, he even found a way to make his friends in the oil business rich at the same time.
He was also able to rely on the corrupt military and business leaders in Venezuela – even Maduro’s bodyguards abandoned him. The military, probably in consultation with the CIA, shut down its own air defenses to guarantee safe passage for the robber barons.
The parallels with Syria are obvious, with the difference that Assad smelled a rat and had himself flown out by the Russians.
If I understand correctly what he was saying, Trump’s plan is to privatize to U.S. oil firms Venezuela’s oil and then tax those firms on their profits from selling it, so that the 300 billion barrels of Venezuela’s petroleum reserves will become effectively collateral to back the U.S. dollar in order to further delay what would otherwise inevitably be the collapse in the dollar’s international value and the consequent end of the U.S. empire.
He expains why he doesn’t think that Trump’s ploy will work, for example:
The Chinese and Russians will not intervene militarily under any circumstances. Rather, it is to be expected that the Chinese will take revenge by destroying COMEX; we will know more in the next few days. The gold and silver prices should be watched closely. The higher the prices of these precious metals, the worse the situation is for the US dollar and the American public finances. We must hope that Venezuela will defend itself – by any means necessary.
What is certain is that the Western world has turned its back on the rule of law.
However, as I documented yesterday, under the headline “Why I Distrust Trump’s Takeover of Venezuela”: “ALL of this fascism by the American Government started on 25 July 1945, which was when the U.S. Government became taken over by what we call its “Deep State” or the billionaires.” The new President Truman had already (during the San Francisco Conference at which the U.N.’s Charter was drawn up) effectively watered-down his predecessor FDR’s plan for a U.N. and international laws that would have enforcement mechanisms behind them; and, so, now that Truman, on 25 July 1945, finally made the decision that the U.S. Government must take over ultimately the entire world, there would be nothing institutionalized that could prevent this outcome. The U.S. Government’s contempt for international law didn’t start with Trump, on 2 January 2026; it started with Truman, on 25 July 1945. The two political Parties play a “good cop versus bad cop” routine against the public: the only difference between the conservative fascist Republicans and the liberal fascist Democratts is that the latter pretend to be the “good cop,” so as to sucker liberals into the false belief that they don’t BOTH represent ONLY their political megadonors — the masters of the show. A 900-word Semafor report, on January 3rd, “How Trump kept Republicans behind his Maduro campaign”, had 820 words about Republicans, and only 80 about Democrats:
THE VIEW FROM DEMOCRATS
Democrats asserted for months that Trump does not have the authority to strike Venezuela or boats off of the coast of it. Sen. Andy Kim, D-N.J., said lawmakers were misled by the administration during recent briefings.
“Secretaries Rubio and Hegseth looked every Senator in the eye a few weeks ago and said this wasn’t about regime change,” Kim said. “Trump rejected our Constitutionally required approval process for armed conflict.”
The very idea that Senate Democrats didn’t know that this was all about regime-change is ludicrous — only a liberal fool would take it seriously. (That’s how much contempt they have against the public.) The billionaires of both Parties are united in favor of neoconservatism (advancing U.S. empire). Privately, even if not publicly, they favor expanding the empire. Every Senate Democrat publicly opposed but actually supported (did nothing to even try to prevent) this invasion. It was bipartisan, but the Parties pretend otherwise. It’s all just for show.
Therefore, U.S.-and-allied billionaires’ corporations will now be sucking the life’s blood out of the Venezuelan people, who will be ruled first by Trump’s appointees, and then by giving the Venezuelans elections between political contestants all of whom will have passed muster by the U.S. regime as being suitable to serve as the U.S. regime’s stooge-leaders there.
In this American ‘democracy’, it makes no difference how the public vote, because all of the major Parties’ candidates are only individuals who have been pre-approved — and are funded — by billionaires. And only those political megadonors get what they want out of this Government. (The public get only promises, which only fools trust, because none of the public promises are kept.)
Under Haenseler’s hypothesis, Trump decided to take the oil away from Venezuelans so that he wouldn’t need to take that amount of wealth from America’s own taxpayers. Perhaps this is what Trump’s “Make America Great Again” is trying to do: give tne American people a cut from the booty that the U.S. Government extracts from foreign populations in order to prevent the U.S. population from overthrowing the billionaires’ Government.
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1 comment
Did Trump steal Venezuela in order to use its oil to pay U.S. government’s debts?Yes.
But there is more to it than that.
The US belligerence against Venezuela is multifactorial in origin, but by far the three key, top of the list reasons are OIL, OIL and OIL (which includes natural gas).
If you want to talk about the Dumbroe doctrine – keeping China and Russia out, or other resources such as lithium or gold or aluminium or rare earths, yes those may be part of it, however all other resources can only be physically extracted using oil, so IT ALL GOES BACK TO OIL, OIL, OIL.
OIL as the fuel for driving a materially productive economy (mining, agriculture, industry, construction, infrastructure maintenance etc).
OIL as the financial basis for the US petrodollar which props up the USD as international reserve currency, without which the entire US financial and economic system will collapse.
OIL scheme stockmarket scammery as faux collateral (fake hyped up future projected oil production) for obscene Ponzi schemes such as US shale oil and Canadian tar sands. The Venezuelan extra heavy Orinoco tar is being eyed by the US fraudsters as a vehicle to create yet another uneconomic oil Ponzi scheme.
If you want nuanced understanding regarding the above, here it is
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/disli90y1petqsz2g7noh/ITS-THE-OILCONOMY-STUPID-parts1to7.pdf?rlkey=s8ps9s14ym8g9kznc9c4o4jl0&st=ezqpebtz&dl=1
The KEY factor leading to the decline of the USD (which includes international flight away from US Tbills) is the LOSS OF US PETRODOLLAR STATUS.
Think about it. The US petrodollar began in 1974 when Saudi Arabia signed up to that Nixon/Kissinger protection racket scam. By 1977, even the USSR had signed up and it was practically impossible for any petroleum/gas importing country to obtain such critical fuels without having access to US dollars.
In 2025/6, IF oil/gas were still sold exclusively in USD, the primacy of the US dollar (and US treasuries) would still be intact, even if the USA uses it as a financial weapon (the USA had been using the USD as a weapon for DECADES and victim countries could do nothing so long as the US petrodollar was in place).
Even countries that may be able to 100% generate electricity without fossil fuels (renewables, nuclear), are STILL utterly dependent on oil/gas.
Example: Iceland may obtain 100% of its electricity from geothermal and hydro, however it still needs oil powered vessels to import food and run their fishing fleet and construct buildings and maintain infrastructure and export aluminium ingots.
Another example: If NZ eventually obtains 100% of its electricity from renewables, it will still need oil and gas to run its agricultural systems and for fertiliser.
NO COUNTRY CAN OPERATE WITHOUT OIL/GAS, we are ALL still addicted to those fossil fuels today and in certain sectors there is simply no viable replacement eg long distance aviation and the military.
Furthermore many petroleum fractions are vital feedstock for chemical products.
HOWEVER the nail in the coffin for the US petrodollar happened quietly in 2024 when Saudi Arabia refused to renew the US petrodollar agreement. The UAE had begun selling oil to China in RMB even before that. China, the largest oil consumer in the world, now obtains oil from Russia, Iran and Venezuela by trading in their mutual currencies, completely bypassing the USD. Even Nigeria is doing so, which may be the reason behind the US bombing of Nigeria on Xmas day. Soon all the oil imported by China from the Gulf States will take place through CIPS, bypassing not-so-SWIFT and the USD. This trend is accelerating worldwide, soon to be adopted by the majority of countries.
IT’S THE OILCONOMY, STUPID!!!
Note: depletion of oil/gas are intimately related to the depletion of minerals (a topic I will cover in part 8 of my oilconomy essays) which will lead to the total collapse of global industrial civilisation (unless…..to be discussed after part 8).
At long last I have found a couple of geopolitical analysts who show some understanding of the oilconomy. Paul in particular has a background in physics, hence will agree with everything I have written.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9GwFgPwbzM
Key points:
WAKE UP EVERYBODY!!! IT’S THE OILCONOMY STUPID!!!