[News] Trump’s Coup in Venezuela: The Full Story

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/30/trumps-coup-in-venezuela-the-full-story/ 



  Trump’s Coup in Venezuela: The Full Story

by Eric Draitser <https://www.counterpunch.org/author/eric-draitser/> - 
Janyary 30, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

The US-sponsored coup in Venezuela, still ongoing as I write, is the 
latest chapter in the long and bloody history of US imperialism in Latin 
America. This basic fact, understood by most across the left of the 
political spectrum – including even the chattering liberal class which 
acknowledges this truth only with the passage of time and never in the 
moment – must undergird any analysis of the situation in Venezuela 
today. That is to say, the country is being targeted by the Yanqui Empire.

This point is, or at least should be, indisputable irrespective of one’s 
opinions of Venezuelan President Maduro, the Socialist Party (PSUV), or 
the progress of the Bolivarian Revolution. Imperialism, and its 
neocolonial manifestation in the 21^st Century, is there to pick clean 
the bones of the Bolivarian dream and return Venezuela to the role of 
subservient asset, an oil-soaked proxy state ruled by a right-wing 
satrap eager to please the colonial lords of capital.

But in providing analysis of the situation, the Left must tread 
carefully with the knowledge that though it may be weak, disorganized, 
fragmented, and bitterly sectarian, the Left remains the principal 
vehicle for cogent analysis of imperialism and its machinations. This 
historic role that the Left has played, from Lenin and Mao to Hobsbawm 
and Chomsky, is of critical importance as analysis informs discourse 
which in turn ossifies into historical narrative.

And with that weighty and historic responsibility, the Left is 
duty-bound to understand at a deep level what we’re witnessing in 
Venezuela. Moreover, the Left must beware the pitfalls of shallow, 
superficial analysis which can lead to poor understanding of material 
reality, and even poorer anti-imperialist politics.

*It’s the Oil…Or Is It?*

One could be forgiven for immediately assuming that the blatantly 
illegal coup, and its near instantaneous recognition by the Trump 
Administration (among others), is proof positive that the US has 
instigated the overthrow of the Bolivarian Revolution in a nakedly 
aggressive action to steal oil resources. Indeed, this would be a near 
textbook example of the sort of colonial policies visited upon the 
peoples of the Global South since the dawn of the colonial age.

And there’s no doubt some truth to the conclusion. As Democratic 
presidential hopeful Tulsi Gabbard noted 
<https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1090079510291197952?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet> 
on Twitter, “It’s about the oil…again,” referencing the parallel to the 
Bush Administration’s crime against humanity known as the Iraq War which 
was, in no small part, about enriching Dick Cheney’s Halliburton, and 
the US oil industry 
<https://www.cnn.com/2013/03/19/opinion/iraq-war-oil-juhasz/index.html> 
broadly speaking.

And Gabbard is correct to highlight statements by Trump’s National 
Security Warlock, John Bolton, whose every word oozes the sociopathy 
we’ve come to expect from this most hawkish of neocons. Bolton stated 
<https://www.c-span.org/video/?457335-1/trump-administration-officials-announce-sanctions-venezuelan-oil-sector&live> 
in a press conference, “We’re in conversation with major American 
companies now…it would make a difference if we could have American 
companies produce the oil in Venezuela. We both have a lot at stake here.”

Leaving aside the likely deliberate ambiguity of these statements – What 
are these “conversations”? Does this mean there was no production plan 
before the coup was initiated? etc. – it seems obvious that oil is a 
major motivating factor.

But why, exactly?

As anyone with even basic knowledge of the global oil market can tell 
you, there are a number of reasons why we should be skeptical of the 
idea that the US simply wants to rake in profits by stealing Venezuela’s 
oil, its primary resource and export revenue generator.

First, global oil prices have remained fairly depressed in comparison to 
the historic highs of just a decade ago. With the price per barrel 
hovering somewhere between $50 and $60 today, Venezuelan crude remains 
profitable, but due to its heavy qualities, it requires somewhat more 
expensive refining technologies, making it less attractive than some 
other oil reserves, most notably shale.

This is not to say that oil companies would not be interested in looting 
this natural resource, as evidenced by ExxonMobil desperately trying to 
control the Essequibo region 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/analysis/11450> which continues to be a 
source of competing territorial claims between Guyana and Venezuela. The 
USGS estimated 
<http://cgxenergy.ca/Operations/About-Guyana/Basin-Potential.aspx> 
roughly 15 billion barrels of undiscovered oil and 42 trillion cubic 
feet of gas reserves lie under the Guyana Suriname Basin, making it 
2nd in the world for prospectivity among the world’s unexplored basins 
and 12th for oil among all the world’s basins – explored and unexplored.

However, from a pure profit perspective, Venezuelan oil remains far less 
profitable (and stable from an investor perspective) than investing in 
the Permian Basin in Texas where the fracking boom, also hampered by 
global oil prices, has continued unabated. Indeed, with the US becoming 
an exporter of oil, and potentially the most productive oil field in the 
world in the Permian Basin <#5520bb475ccb>, the appetite for simply 
snatching Venezuela’s oil supply would seem to be less.

And yet, here we are. So, what gives?

*The View from Washington and Moscow*

In fact, the fixation on Venezuela’s oil is only part of the story. The 
real story is the politics, and geopolitics, behind control over the 
oil. Put simply, control of Venezuelan oil is part of the broader 
international conflict with Russia, and perhaps to a lesser degree China 
<https://venezuelanalysis.com/news/14056>.

In 2016, as Venezuela’s economy was in freefall due in no small part to 
the historic lows in oil price ($35 per barrel in January 2016), the 
Maduro government took the controversial decision 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/venezuela-pdvsa-idUSL1N1EI1FO> to stake 
49.9% of its ownership in PDVSA’s US subsidiary, Citgo, to the Russian 
state oil company Rosneft in exchange for a $1.5 billion loan. In 
essence, the Kremlin gave Caracas a very temporary bailout with major 
strings attached. With this move, the Russians effectively became part 
owners of Venezuela’s primary asset.

But Russia, being one of the world’s leading oil producers itself, 
surely had little interest in the oil per se. After all, Russian energy 
exports remain dominant in Europe, with expanding operations in Asia. 
Instead, Venezuelan oil was to be a potent lever against the US at 
precisely the moment the US was applying political and economic pressure 
on Moscow over the conflict in Ukraine, among other things. It should be 
remembered that the Obama Administration had imposed sanctions 
<https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/the-press-office/2014/03/06/executive-order-blocking-property-certain-persons-contributing-situation> 
against Moscow in March 2014 over the Russian annexation of Crimea, and 
later involvement in the civil war in Eastern Ukraine.

With the US and European sanctions, some of which targeted Russia’s oil 
industry, the Kremlin was desperate for strategies to leverage against 
the US both to extract a cost for the sanctions, but perhaps more 
importantly for potential future negotiations. Putin & Co. settled on, 
at least in part, Venezuela’s oil sector. By providing what amounted to 
a relatively small loan of $1.5 billion, Russia immediately became a 
dominant player in Venezuela’s oil, thereby becoming a power player with 
Washington’s political and economic strategy.

And indeed this strategy, or at least recognition of it, was confirmed 
by powerful US interests in early 2018 when a still shadowy group of US 
investors made a move to try to purchase the Russian stake in Citgo.

Essentially, the plan, which was revealed to Reuters 
<https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-oil-citgo-exclusive/exclusive-u-s-investors-seek-to-acquire-russias-rosneft-lien-in-citgo-idUSKCN1GA2J4> 
by an anonymous investor who is part of the group, called for the 
investors to pay off Venezuela’s outstanding loan balance and then 
require Rosneft to terminate its lien and transfer the loan to new 
investors. As the investor told Reuters:

    “The [Trump] administration should recognize that if it doesn’t do
    something pro-active here, it will face…limited options under almost
    any scenario, whether it is an attempt to foreclose by the current
    lienholder, further restrictions on Venezuelan crude oil imports
    into the U.S., or even in the event there is a positive political
    change in Caracas… This is a private sector solution to a public
    policy problem.”

It doesn’t get much clearer than that. US elites clearly felt that 
Russia’s foray into Venezuela’s oil sector was a strategic calculation 
designed to counteract US political and economic moves against Russia. 
Moreover, it seems obvious that there is/was a lack of faith on the part 
of segments of the ruling class that the Trump Administration would 
actively block Russia’s geostrategic maneuvers effectively, hence the 
need for a “private sector” solution.

And yet here we are, less than 12 months after the news of this 
potential strategy broke, and the Trump Administration is doing 
precisely what the ruling class demanded, namely targeting Venezuela’s 
economy, specifically the oil sector. As the recent move 
<https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm594> by the US Treasury 
makes clear, the US will use Venezuelan oil revenues as part of a 
hostage-taking strategy designed to force regime change which would make 
moot the question of Russian power in Venezuela as the new government 
would be, for all intents and purposes, a US puppet regime.

One can almost hear the shrill cries of Trump’s apologists on left and 
right who will cry in the night about the Deep State forcing Trump to do 
this, that he has no choice as it is the will of the ruling class which 
has weakened him with the Russiagate hoax.

But, leaving aside the unbearable blitheness of being MAGA-adjacent, the 
reality is that Trump has warmongered against Venezuela since well 
before the recent escalation, including in an infamous 2017 meeting at 
which ExxonMobil’s State Department CEO Rex Tillerson and former 
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster both were “stunned” at the 
stupidity of Trump’s expressed desire to invade Venezuela. According to 
the Associated Press 
<https://www.apnews.com/a3309c4990ac4581834d4a654f7746ef>:

    “Trump alarmed friends and foes alike with talk of a “military
    option” to remove Maduro from power. The public remarks were
    initially dismissed in U.S. policy circles …But shortly afterward,
    he raised the issue with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos,
    according to [a] U.S. official. Two high-ranking Colombian officials
    who spoke on condition of anonymity to avoid antagonizing Trump
    confirmed the report.”

So, it seems Trump never needed any help getting to the war criminal 
perspective on Venezuela. In fact, it could be said that, ironically 
enough, it was an oil man and a Pentagon man who tried to talk him out 
of it. So much for the Deep State. Instead, it was simply that Trump 
needed the right kind of crazies around him to indulge his imperialist 
insanity; he has them now with a messianic Secretary of State in Pompeo 
and the aforementioned National Security Warlock Bolton.

*Imperialism a la Carte*

I’ve tried to highlight the more nuanced analysis of the energy issue, 
and how it ties to broader geopolitical questions so that, hopefully, 
leftists can see the full picture of the political context, rather than 
a one-dimensional, reductionist one. However, it must be said that oil 
is not the only issue requiring careful analysis.

There is also the question of mineral extraction, and there too Russia 
figures centrally. In late 2018, President Maduro, desperate to get 
additional financing amid crippling sanctions, announced that Venezuela 
had offered Russian mining companies access to gold mining operations in 
the country. While the Kremlin’s media platforms like RT and Sputnik did 
their usual spin 
<https://sputniknews.com/business/201812261071014137-russia-participation-Venezuela/>, 
presenting this as simply mutually beneficial, friendly, and downright 
altruistic policy from Putin, the reality is that Russia sees in 
Venezuela much the same as what US interests see: a cash cow on its 
knees, easily controlled and exploited.

And of course, in addition to gold, there are plenty of other mining 
prizes to be had in Venezuela including nickel, diamonds, iron ore, 
aluminum, bauxite, natural gas, etc. Both Russia and China have a 
significant interest in all these minerals, and projects necessary to 
exploit them.

Washington is not necessarily most concerned with Russian and Chinese 
billionaires enriching themselves in Venezuela, though it is undoubtedly 
irksome.

Rather, the strategic planners inside the Beltway see in Venezuela today 
an opportunity to strike a death blow to socialism and anti-imperialist 
politics in Latin America. While they shed crocodile tears over 
elections, democracy, and corruption, the reality is that the vultures 
of Empire are circling around what they feel is a carcass to be stripped 
clean. No more Bolivarian Revolution means not even the pretense of, let 
alone substantive movement for, regional integration.

With Chavez gone, and Venezuelan people hurting and desperate, people 
like war criminal and newly appointed envoy to Venezuela, Elliott 
Abrams, see an opportunity to win a major victory in their endless fight 
against socialism on the one hand, and petro-capitalist Russia on the 
other hand. And if they can stick it to China in the process, depriving 
it of a significant export market and diplomatic foothold in the Western 
Hemisphere, all the better.

Ultimately, what we’re witnessing is the classic Monroe Doctrine policy 
from the US, albeit under 21^st Century conditions. With a consolidated 
right-wing front already in place under Duque (and his puppet-master 
former President Alvaro Uribe) in Colombia, Macri in Argentina, and 
Bolsonaro in Brazil, Washington sees Venezuela as perhaps the last 
domino to fall in South America (Bolivia notwithstanding). And with its 
demise, the region will be America’s backyard once more.

Unfortunately for the Empire, I’ve seen the Bolivarian Revolution with 
my own eyes 
<https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/12/18/venezuela-a-revolution-that-will-not-die/>, 
seen the commitment of poor and working-class people to the ideals of 
Chavez’s vision and of socialism from the ground up. These people, in 
their millions, are not simply going to watch as the US takes everything 
they’ve bled for these last twenty years. They’re not going to sit idle 
and play the victim.

If Trump thinks he will take Venezuela without a bloody fight, he’s even 
dumber than we thought.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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