Pressure points: On Trump seeking Venezuela’s oil without costs of occupation

What is unfolding in Venezuela is naked imperialism. Having ordered the abduction of a sitting head of state and imposed a naval blockade on a sovereign nation, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that Washington would now “run” Venezuela. That he endorsed Acting President Delcy Rodriguez rather than the opposition does not diminish the criminality of these actions; it merely reveals their purpose, which was not about democracy or narcotics but about control of Venezuela’s oil. The Trump administration’s approach might appear contradictory: help retain the Bolivarian regime while strangling its economic sovereignty. But the logic is coherent. Washington wants Venezuela’s oil without the costs of occupation or the chaos of regime change. It learned from Iraq that dismantling state structures creates insurgencies. It believes that it is better to capture the existing apparatus and redirect its functions — a form of neocolonialism that maintains the forms of statehood while exercising actual control.

This arrangement places Ms. Rodriguez in a difficult position. The Bolivarian movement was built on resisting precisely this kind of American domination over Venezuela’s resources. Yet her government, battered by a decade of sanctions, must now negotiate with the very power that kidnapped her predecessor. Her statement on Sunday, “Enough already of Washington’s orders over politicians in Venezuela”, reveals the strain that she is under. She has complied with American demands on oil trade and released political prisoners as a “peace gesture”. But she cannot surrender Venezuelan sovereignty entirely without losing the Chavista base that sustains her government. The more pressure Washington applies on Caracas, the more it risks the very instability it claims to want to prevent. If the U.S. wanted a productive economic relationship with Venezuela, it should not have embarked on this marauding path. The sanctions that devastated Venezuela’s economy were American policy. The migration crisis that Mr. Trump cited to justify intervention was a consequence of those sanctions. Now, Washington offers to ease the pressure it created, but only if Venezuela submits to exclusive American control over its resources. This is not diplomacy; it is extortion. The world cannot remain silent. When Russia violated Ukrainian sovereignty, the international community condemned it and imposed sanctions. Mr. Trump’s ‘Donroe Doctrine’ threatens not just Venezuela, but the foundations of the international order. If it remains unchallenged internationally, no nation in the Global South can be safe.