Write a commentHenry Kissinger said, "If we cannot manage Central America, it will be impossible to convince threatened nations in the Persian Gulf and in other places that we know how to manage the global equilibrium."
President Trump had his own phrase for "American dominance in the Western Hemisphere." It's the Donroe Doctrine.
Kissinger and Trump both understood you can't rule the world (global equilibrium) if you can't control (manage) Latin America. The New York Times reported, "Top administration officials have been explicit that their overarching goal is to assert American dominance over its half of the planet." Trump's imperial ambition drove military aggression against Venezuela. Emperor Trump announced "We're going to run the country," and "We're going to have our very large United States oil companies... go in."
This imperial policy was a cruder version of the National Security Council policy articulated in 1953. "American oil operations are, for all practical purposes, instruments of our foreign policy," and "it is vastly important that the operations of the great oil fields of the world remain as far as possible in the hands of American-owned companies." It was standard policy in Washington to overthrow a foreign government and transfer it's wealth to US companies.
The desire of U.S. corporations to plunder Venezuela had a long history. The Bush administration backed a coup that overthrew Hugo Chavez in 2002. The first Trump Administration, in 2019, backed a failed coup. In 2020, they attempted to kidnap Maduro in Operation Gideon.
The first Trump administration applied maximum pressure with economic sanctions. The Center for Economic and Policy Research estimated that the sanctions "could be linked to more than 40,000 deaths," from 2017-2018.
It wasn't about Maduro being a dictator. U.S. taxpayer money props up dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Bahrain, the UAE, Kyrgyzstan, et al. Washington made deals with the "world's coolest dictator" in El Salvador and gave military aid to Netanyahu, an I.C.C. designated war criminal.
The Trump Administration embraced the fraudulent elections of the military junta in Myanmar. The Wall Street Journal reported that the military junta "killed at least 90,000 people [and] displaced some 3.6 million of Myanmar's population." Yet, of all the brutal governments the U.S. supports, we needed to "bring Nicholas Maduro to justice."
The U.S. aggression against Venezuela wasn't about narco trafficking. President Trump revealed it was all about oil. The Wall Street Journal said President Trump "talked about 'the oil' far too much." The Times knew why the President talked about the oil far too much. The goal was to "secure access to Venezuela's vast oil reserves for U.S. companies."
Barron's published an article that named the oil industry the winners of U.S. aggression against Venezuela. The business press said "The most immediate beneficiaries," of U.S. aggression would be, "companies that process oil." That included Valero and Chevron.
Washington overthrew the government of Venezuela to keep their oil reserves in the hands of US corporations. These actions prove business interests shape U.S. foreign policy.
Kindly,
Anton Porcari
