Three cheers for Donald Trump. He began the new year doing the near impossible—uniting
media of all stripes. For the first time I can think of, alt-media like YouTube and Substack are in sync with mainstream media like The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times—all joining in condemning Trump’s actions in Venezuela.
The Wall Street Journal cited the United Nations principle that “All Members shall refrain in
their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or
political independence of any State.”
The Times, in an OpEd piece, wrote: “The attack on Venezuela harks back to a different time, before the 19th-century world order unraveled, before two catastrophic world wars and before the creation of international legal and diplomatic structures designed to stop nations from doing exactly what the United States just did.”
The alt-media joined the party. One prominent YouTube spokesperson claimed “Mossad
cooperation alleged in Venezuela.” Another predicted: “Venezuela will end in disaster” with
“WW3 closer than ever.” Another trumpeted “Blood in the water: Trump’s lust for more
military conquest.” You’d be hard-pressed to find even one positive comment about Trump.
One other comment from a popular YouTuber caught my attention:
“U.S. raids Venezuela, seizes Maduro; no resistance; government retains control; China, Brazil humiliated.”
So, should I throw in the towel on what has been my analysis of Trump’s intentions? I’ve
argued in previous blogs that Trump, in conjunction with Putin and to a lesser extent Xi, is
interested in making peace based on U.S. acceptance that the world is no longer unipolar.
That acceptance, leading to a world characterized by cooperation and acceptance, would
benefit all humanity.
Giving Trump Much-Needed Agency
So how does Venezuela fit in? I continue to believe that Trump’s major obstacle to getting the U.S. onto a path of cooperation is a lack of agency. His actions in Venezuela could solve that problem—could give him the agency he needs. While further, more dramatic actions still are possible—an attack on the aircraft carrier, for example—the arrest of Maduro could be enough to do the trick. After all, there were very few casualties, Venezuela’s government remains intact, and the recent Nobel Prize winner viewed as a likely successor to Maduro has left the country with little likelihood of coming back.
The media has largely ignored that under Maduro, Venezuela’s GDP declined 50%-80%.
Moreover, it’s widely believed that in the July 24 elections, Maduro lost to Edmundo
Gonzalez. Gonzalez even visited the U.S. and was declared by the Biden government to be
Venezuela’s duly elected president. Maduro stayed in power only through the use of force. In other words, Maduro is a thug who singlehandedly impoverished the country despite its
superabundant resources.
I want to return to the YouTuber’s comment that China was embarrassed by Trump’s
actions. It’s true that China has a well-defined economic relationship with Venezuela, based
largely on the latter’s oil reserves of about 300 billion barrels—the world’s largest, even
exceeding Saudi Arabia’s. But a critical point is that China, and for that matter Russia, had a relationship not with Maduro but with the Venezuelan government. I see nothing that
invalidates that relationship. While there was some initial negative reaction from Maduro’s
vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, regarding the seizing of Maduro, I believe that Rodriguez,
who now has been sworn in as the interim president, will quickly come to accept the absence of Maduro as a boon for the country, something that would be advantageous for her. If I am right, Venezuela’s enormous resources will play a significant role not only in enriching Venezuela but also, more broadly, in fostering cooperation among the world’s major powers.
It’s notable that Maduro, in conversations with Trump, had offered to let the U.S. fully
participate in the development of oil reserves. Why didn’t Trump simply accept this offer?
Because, as mentioned, Trump is desperate to gain agency. Working with a thug falls flat
compared to arresting that thug.
The Role of China
Relevant is that Venezuela’s oil reserves are mostly heavy oil, which require highly skilled
refining. While the Permian basin reserves, upon which the U.S. is highly dependent, also
feature heavy oil, the U.S. is not a vertically integrated refiner of them. To refine its own
reserves, the U.S. must import materials from other countries. China, by contrast, is a
vertically integrated refiner of heavy oil. China, if it hasn’t already surpassed the U.S. in total refining capacity, will do so within a month or less and will likely continue to add to its heavy reserve refining capacity. Just in terms of developing oil, China is an ideal partner for the U.S.
There is no indication—none whatsoever—that the U.S. wants to limit China’s relationship
with Venezuela, which would be a quintessential example of cutting off your nose to spite
your face.
Russia’s relationship with Venezuela is both economic and military, while China’s is mostly
economic but almost surely with a military component. I think it’s extraordinarily naive to
believe that Trump carried out his “daring” operation with the world’s two best cyber
operators remaining in the dark. Russia, for example, is currently making mincemeat out of
U.S. intelligence in Ukraine. Moreover, as we’ve discussed in earlier blogs, there is ample
evidence that China and possibly Russia have been involved in very serious cyber hacks in
the U.S.
It’s worth remembering other facets of their technological superiority, which we’ve written
about. In 2022, China sent a hypersonic missile around the world; it came close to hitting its target after travelling about 40,000 kilometers. Mark Miley, then head of the Joint Chiefs, pronounced China’s accomplishment a Sputnik moment. He was told to shut up, no doubt because unlike in the 1950s, we were hardly in a position to spend a massive additional sum on the kind of military technology infrastructure it would take to just keep pace with where China and now Russia stand in terms of military technology. Four years later we have yet to successfully test a hypersonic missile. And, of course, neither China nor Russia has stood still since then.
The near-unanimity of the press in condemning Trump reminds me of the brilliance of the
late George Carlin. One of his routines involved his love of TV news because of how it
invariably presented wars, hideous accidents, explosions, mayhem and destruction of all
sorts. Of course, Carlin was being funny—sort of. It is after all, undeniable that in the U.S. and the collective West, stories about chaos will sell more newspapers and gain more viewers than sunnier stories. One of my major themes is that the U.S. has lost its spiritual grounding, resulting in our apotheosizing the material—and putting us on track for a massive disaster.
By contrast, China and Russia, along with the Global South in general, eschew war and chaos to a much greater extent than the collective West. In other words, I believe that Carlin was spoofing America and the rest of the West rather than other parts of the world.
I’ll be following up in future blogs, but I feel a responsibility to warn how desperate our
situation could become if Trump does not succeed. A credible source recently reported that
China has told all its businesses, both public and private, to sell their U.S. assets by
November. This is an action of a country that knows it is in an insurmountable position to
win a monetary war with the U.S.
I’ve made the following point before, but it’s worth repeating. Suppose there’s a copper
shortage. No sane operator would sell copper in exchange for a currency backed by a
bankrupt country (which is where the U.S. could be headed, absent cooperation). And that
leads back to Venezuela’s oil. If the U.S. is successful in making a deal with China that leads to dramatically increasing our strategic reserves, we would have something more to back up our buck—gold—not the luminous yellow kind but the kind that’s tarry and black. Sheldon Roth in his courageous biography of Trump argued that he could become a transformational president. Whether we love Trump or hate him, we should be crossing our fingers that Roth is right.
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