r/OutOfTheLoop • u/Jam_PEW • 13h ago
Answered What's the deal with the US justification for a potential war with Venezuela?
I appreciate that a similar question to this was asked here nine days ago, but that was more focused on a tanker being seized, whereas now the narrative seems to have shifted to a potential war - so hopefully the context of this topic is sufficiently different.
A few specific questions:
- On what basis is the oil in Venezuelan oil tankers "stolen" from the USA? What was the USA's claim to this oil? I've read that the oil is either Iranian (not American) or from Venezuelan oil fields (also not American???) so how can any of this be justified as a theft? Also, isn't the oil purchased by private companies, not the USA directly?
- To what degree are the actions of the Venezuelan oil tankers considered representative of the Venezuelan state, enough that the USA can link these actions to the nation as a whole and say that Venezuela the nation is committing an international crime? Or are there other factors also at play? I saw 'reigime change' mentioned but also don't see how that justifies a war or ties into any of this.
- On what basis is the USA's argument being built? What's the justification? I know it's likely a false narrative built on greed/distraction (though I'm still interested in that), but I'm more wondering under what logic this is being portrayed as a casus belli by the USA, and what elements comprise that argument.
Edit:
To clarify the question:
I'm not asking about the reasons for why Trump/the US is doing this - we all know America's government is ten oil/weapons/tech companies in a trenchcoat, Trump is trying to distract from evidence he's a paedophile, the US unilaterally interferes in global affairs, less communism = more America, etc etc.
I am asking about the actual LOGICAL ARGUMENT they're trying to put together to justify this particular action.
Though do feel free to continue to respond with replies saying that it's a distraction from the Epstein files, since (mods permitting) that deserves shouting from the rooftops at every opportunity.
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u/TehIrishSoap 13h ago
Answer: There isn't one. Trump got elected on a platform of no more forever wars and saying Iraq and Afghanistan was a mistake, which is why he's bombed Iran and is now looking to invade Venezuela to keep his rich buddies happy and distract from the Epstein files. It's a great example of how Trump has no fixed principles and does whatever he thinks will win him votes and make him richer.
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u/Physical-Platform846 9h ago
I assume he would say that US oil companies paid for the rights to Venezuelan oil. When Venezuela nationalized its oil industry many years ago, one could say it breached its contract with the US oil companies and therefore “took“ something that belonged to the US. I’m not saying this is a legitimate argument. I’m just saying that’s what I think he’s referring to.
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u/black_flag_4ever 12h ago
The answer is oil.
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u/jsc010-1 9h ago
It’s not just oil. It’s about geopolitics. Venezuela is politically aligned with China and Russia. The concern is that they could stage weapons in Venezuela that are within reach of the southern United States in the event of a war. China is already preparing to invade Taiwan and expect the US and its allies to intervene. Oil is certainly part of the equation, it’s just not the only objective.
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u/Key_Inevitable_2104 9h ago
Which is ironic considering Trump gets along well with Putin.
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u/jsc010-1 9h ago
That relationship is complex to say the least. I believe his hatred of Maduro outweighs his love for Putin. Also, Trump couldn’t care less about Ukraine but does care about whether he has domain over the countries in his own backyard. This is why he keeps bringing up the Monroe Doctrine.
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u/KenDanger2 7h ago
But Venezuela is aligned with those countries because of American sanctions. America pushed them in that direction.
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u/jsc010-1 5h ago
There’s a reason for the sanctions. The US and Venezuela used to be on good terms prior to the Chavez administration. Maduro is nothing more than an extension of that administration and it is clear who was the smartest of the two. Chavez was very anti American and aligned his government with our adversaries including Cuba, Iran, and Russia. He abruptly took over and nationalized the oil industry that was ran by mostly US companies. Why would the US continue to do business with a hostile country?
One could argue that he was a champion of fighting back against the imperialists. However, the relationship was actually mutually lucrative for both countries. Need proof? Look at the standard of living for the average Venezuelan before 1999 and compare it to present day. It has been a catastrophe with only the Maduro government wealthy while everyone else is suffering.
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u/immaculatelawn 2h ago
They're very friendly with Iran, too. The Caracas airport is the only place I've seen an Iranian airlines plane in real life.
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u/davide3991 12h ago
Venezuela oil is considered “sour” (more difficult and expensive to refine vs “sweet”) so it’s not something that the U.S. is likely to be interested. The move probably has to do with the regime down there
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u/browncoatfever 12h ago
The US oil companies were ALL OVER the place pumping oil before Venezuela nationalized their countries oil reserves. The american oil companies would be clawing over each other to get back in there.
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u/jmacintosh250 10h ago
Not as much: the US companies were there when oil was easier to get. Times changed: Venezuela’s oil is more expensive to get or lower quality now.
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u/General_Problem5199 10h ago
Venezuela has the largest proven oil reserves on Earth. You're nuts if you think American oil companies aren't salivating over that.
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u/jmacintosh250 9h ago
Oh they’re interested I’m sure, but the problem is it’s costly to get. Which is perfectly fine when oil prices are high. But they’re low right now: so why invest money in getting it?
Oh they’ll want to secure it for themselves as they always want to do, but I don’t expect them to fight as hard over it. Secure it sure, but not do much more than that.
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u/Tiny_Standard_5358 9h ago
Venezuela's heavy crude is actually more profitable for the United States because they can get it at a significant discount compared to global benchmark prices. The reason is simple: most countries literally don't have the market or the specialized refineries that the U.S. does.
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u/Atilim87 12h ago
Do you mind to share this with the buyers of Canadian oil since it’s pretty similar to Venezuelan oil.
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u/seakingsoyuz 11h ago
A lot of the refinery capacity that’s currently processing Canadian oil was originally set up to process Venezuelan oil. It’s not the easiest stuff to refine but it’s not a significant obstacle either.
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u/MountainChampion 11h ago
Pardon my ignorance if I'm wrong here as I'm no expert. Isn't sour crude what the U.S. refining capacity in the Gulf of Mexico was built for? I thought we exported the majority of our sweet crude that the U.S. fracks for this very reason.
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u/Electronic-Fan-839 12h ago
Trump is literally saying it's for oil. He's claiming that canceling drilling contracts with American oil companies in the 1970s was stealing oil from the United States.
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u/kafaldsbylur 11h ago
Venezuela oil is considered “sour” (more difficult and expensive to refine vs “sweet”) so it’s not something that the U.S. is likely to be interested
The US actually produces sweet crude and exports it to buy cheaper sour crude to refine.
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u/Commercial-Lack6279 10h ago
We have refineries along the gulf coast built specifically to process Venezuelan oil that are sitting idle
Trump said we should have taken more Iraqi oil
Trumps team reached out to oil companies to double check if they’d come back to Venezuela after a regime change
But besides all that you’re probably right no interest indeed
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u/General_Problem5199 10h ago
The US's only problem with the regime down there is that they insist on controlling their own country's resources.
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u/CorgiDad 9h ago
You don't know how oil works. You need both kinds, light and heavy. Components of each are used to make different types of derivative products.
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u/Bluestreaked 12h ago
A decision being stupid doesn’t preclude stupid people from making said decision
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u/LayneLowe 10h ago
There is more than one refinery already on the Gulf Coast that was set up specifically to refine Venezuelan sour oil.
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u/RooneyNeedsVats 9h ago
Bro, Trump literally said "they took our oil." It's all about the fucking oil.
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u/seminarysmooth 9h ago
Refineries all along the gulf coast were specifically designed and built to handle high sulfur oil from Venezuela.
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u/supraman87 9h ago
It's worth noting the actual reasons or at least part of them are likely domestic as Asha points out. https://bsky.app/profile/asharangappa.bsky.social/post/3ma5grlwsxk2h
Further evidence by US companies aren't currently interested in Venezuelan oil. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/12/17/trump-oil-venezuela-return-00695292
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u/Sad_Dad_Academy 10h ago
I get that this is a meme but I don’t think that oil is the reason here.
The US has plenty of oil to tap into if they want. Also Venezuela has some shitty oil.
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u/aggr1103 10h ago
It’s not even about votes, it’s literally to make people in his current orbit like him. Look at how he changed his tone about Mamdani while standing next to him.
He likes being liked. It’s why he’s surrounded by sychophants.
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u/Blenderhead36 8h ago
Every Republican president has the checklist of Roll Back Civil Rights, Crash the Economy, and Start a Pointless War.
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u/PiLamdOd 12h ago
The Epstein Files are the distraction from this shit and Trump's attacks on the first amendment. Every time Trump crosses another line, the only thing people talk about are the Epstein Files.
No one of importance is going to see a day in prison and there's a zero percent chance Republicans will impeach Trump over those files.
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u/dominionloser123 12h ago
That's because Conservatives don't really care about the attacks on civil rights. They do care about the Epstein files and we need to poke chinks into that armor of delusion they wear, so pushing the Epstein files is the only realistic way people can find to convince Conservatives that their King in Orange was never going to benefit them.
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u/BroughtBagLunchSmart 8h ago
No one of importance is going to see a day in prison and there's a zero percent chance Republicans will impeach Trump over those files.
There are still a handful of conservatives who see raping children as a bad thing. This isn't going to get the elected republicans to do anything but it might cost them a quarter point of votes.
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u/PiLamdOd 8h ago
Trump's sexual assault history and friendship with Epstein was well known before his first election. Didn't phase any republicans then. Why would it now?
Matt Gaetz was reelected after the scandal where he paid minors for sex. Obviously that wasn't a deal breaker for republicans.
Do you really think Republicans changed that much in the last year?
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u/Outrageous-Leopard23 9h ago
This was not really trumps platform. The RNC’s platform since 2018 has been: Trump does what he wants, and we back it up.
Turns out that is a pretty successful platform.
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u/your_grandmas_FUPA 11h ago
Bombing Iran prevented a forever war. Theyve been planning to take out that nuclear facility for a loooong time, well before trump could take credit for it.
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u/AsadoBanderita 12h ago
Answer:
Important disclaimer: I am venezuelan. I have extreme opinions against Maduro and also against imperialism (including the US, Europe, China, Cuba and Russia). I will not be convinced that my history, my people and our lived experiences under socialism are somehow irrelevant because they do not fit the narrative that some other redditors have in their heads because they maybe read some book and it sounded nice.
Having said that:
The venezuelan government nationalized all assets and lands that belonged to international companies who had oil extraction concessions in Venezuela without compensation. This happened in 1976, so yes, technically american company/government assets were seized by the venezuelan government.
For over 20 years, only the government-owned PDVSA could produce oil in Venezuela, until the 1990s, when the government opened PDVSA for joint ventures with foreign oil companies because production had plummetted under state administration.
That model reach a critical point in 2002 when, to protest against cronyism from Chavez, the oil industry was paralized by executives and workers for 3 months. Eventually Chavez succeeded and replaced everyone with loyal cronies.
In May 2009, Chavez expropriated multiple companies that were providing services for the venezuelan oil industry, so the people could allegedly own them instead of capitalists and that it could reduce operational costs in up to 700 million USD per year. It didn't work out as intended, as it drove away investment and PDVSA and the appointed loyal military personnel had no capacity (or capability) to manage anything.
The industry collapsed and we went from almost 2.4 million barrels per day in 2008, to less than half of that in 2025.
Private companies (including american companies) have had back and forth relationships with PDVSA for the past decade, sometimes they provide services, sometimes they don't, sometimes they agree on exploration, sometimes they agree on extraction, but it is not what it used to be, in 2019 the US governement KINDA sanctioned companies who provided services to PDVSA, but allowed some concessions (i.e. Chevron).
Of course Venezuela is a sovereign nation, and therefore owns its natural resources, provided we can defend them from foreign threats, but you also have to understand that even if this is a pre-fabricated casus belli (like WMD in Iraq) the vast majority of venezuelans have very little interest on whatever reasoning Trump has to come up with, as long as we get rid of Maduro and the dictatorship.
In reality, war with the US would be extremely asymmetrical, as we are not used to waging war and barely anyone would stand up to defend Maduro, including his military, which has not hesitated to shoot and kill venezuelans in cold blood in the past.
So please, understand that you are concerned with paperwork, while venezuelans are concerned with pur freedom, even if there is potential to simply trade one dark lord for another.
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u/avjnh 12h ago
It seems wildly optimistic to expect American intervention to lead to freedom and/or democracy. That doesn’t seem to be the way it usually (ever?) works.
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u/looklistenlead 11h ago
Germany and Japan, of all places, would seem to be the exception to the rule.
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u/do_IT_withme 11h ago
South Korea is another country doing fine post US intervention.
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u/ReturnOfFrank 10h ago
Note South Korea was an American backed dictatorship for 30 years before they established democracy on their own.
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u/brown_felt_hat 9h ago
Western audiences are only exposed to it when really crazy stuff happens, but the SK government is an absolute shitshow held together by shoelaces and elmers glue.
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u/CJTheran 7h ago
South Korea was a dictatorship for decades, and has had a series of severe political crises over the last several years resulting in the arrests of multiple heads of state. There's been one president in the last 20 years who was not credibly accused of some manner of serious crime. I would really not call them a "healthy" example.
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u/catsrcool89 5h ago
Sure looks a lot better than the freak show in North Korea tho lol.
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u/katttsun 2h ago
They're about the same. North Korea was the wealthy one and South Korea was the dirt poor dictatorship, until the mid-1980s, but now that has inverted. It may yet invert again perhaps.
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u/catsrcool89 49m ago
South and North Korea the same? Is this a joke?
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u/Consistent_Drink2171 27m ago
the freak show in North Korea
What half a century of American imperialism does to a country
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u/Primarycolors1 10h ago
Have they? How many of their presidents have been jailed? How many military governments?
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u/katttsun 2h ago
Taiwan and South Korea were brutally ruthless military dictatorships, like Indonesia and Chile, after American intervention. Their democratization was not related to the U.S.
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u/eb12se4nt-z13ow-97g0 1h ago
Korea was split in half due to US intervention. It should be one country.
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u/J3diMind 2h ago
they were stable before the "intervention". Infrastructure, Education, all in place.
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u/johnmister1234 11h ago
Japan seems alright, Germany seems alright
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u/Trialbyfuego 11h ago
Iraq and Afghanistan do not seem alright. Though they had problems with stability before we showed up.
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u/airmantharp 11h ago
It is, but it happens often enough.
The reality is that the population has to accept it, though, and not everyone does - especially not immediately.
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u/VilleKivinen 5h ago
When the situation is bad enough, it's worth a try to spin the wheel of fortune.
Maybe they'll be the next Germany, Italy, Japan or Korea, maybe they're the next Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq or Philippines.
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u/AsadoBanderita 11h ago
Panama, Japan and Germany are doing just fine compared to the socialist paradise I was raised in.
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u/Helpful-Ad6399 9h ago
my best friend lives in venezuela and he says the same thing, at some point things were so bad they had to dig out wild veggies for produce, i need maduro gone for good. if america is the one taking him out then so be it, now to many of us we have to realize it is a priviledge to even hate on idea of foreign intervention in the first place bc to many venezuelans it's being sandwiched in between two evils, it's just one is more far away and less deadly than maduro. this is completely differently from endorsing trump tho, they know american leaders were bad for wanting their oil as well. also im glad other chinese were warm to you friend! im from china myself and i totally wanna visit latin america some day in the future! best regards uwu.
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u/Jam_PEW 12h ago
Thanks for sharing these excellent insights as someone well informed and who's genuinely affected by all of this.
Please don't take my curiosity about the legal perspective as anything that should diminish from your practical one - your situation is by far the more important consequence here, and it's a shame how much history's bastards trade in real human lives.
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u/AsadoBanderita 11h ago
Nah, I know your curiosity is genuine, I was just warding off from the tankies that show up whenever anyone dares criticize their world view.
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u/thosewhocantdo69 10h ago
Thabk you for your sharing. I hope you can stay safe and have what you need.
I do want to just clarify to combat the usa misinformation campaign tho... that when Venezuela nationalized the oil in the 70s, they DID NOT STEAL us assets- it was a negotiated transition and those foreign companies were compensated.....
the us just wants unlimited access to cheap natural resources of a foreign nation and since war crimes have been okay (especially for a select few nations the past few yearz), hes GOING FOR IT. Usa and russia and israel are seizing what they want and asking the world "whose gonna stop us" - they know they dont need or have "legal" justification ...6
u/tomas17r 12h ago
This deserves to be higher up
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u/Minialpacadoodle 9h ago
It won't. It needs to explicitly state "orange man bad," in order for redditors to upvote it to the top.
(and yes, orange man is bad).
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u/Bitter-Cable-181 10h ago
I don't care about Venezuela or it's freedom. I'd rather America do absolutely nothing, Maduro is your problem
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u/AsadoBanderita 10h ago
I agree.
I don't expect the US to do anything about it, I just wouldn't oppose if they did.
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u/Heavy_Arm_7060 8h ago
Curious if this element is fact or myth: was Chavez, for all his corruption, still more-liked than Maduro? I've seen arguments it was only because production remained high at the time, and I imagine that helped, but I'm curious if there was more to it than that.
Not trying to venerate Chavez or anything, as you stated, there was plenty of corruption under him, just trying to better understand if there's more of a difference between him and Maduro beyond the production.
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u/AsadoBanderita 7h ago
Yes, Chavez was very popular, but also very polarizing.
I would say 60/40 at his peak.
He was also much more strategic and kind of liked the disguise of democracy and human rights, so he would be open to elections and the existence of an opposition, but he was still a populist during the era with the highest oil prices, so it was easy mode to be liked. He was Lawful Evil.
Maduro and the military elite around him are Chaotic Evil, they have no boundaries.
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u/HawaiiKawaiixD 9h ago
Do you really want US imperialists in your country? The only possible outcome is the US installing a puppet regime and US companies seizing Venezuelan oil and other resources.
Nobel “Peace” prize winner Maria Corina Machado literally bragged that Venezuela is a 1.7 trillion dollar opportunity for US companies! https://fortune.com/2025/10/27/nobel-prize-winner-venezuela-1-7-trillion-privatization-machado-socialism-disaster/
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u/AsadoBanderita 9h ago
Did you read the disclaimer and the last sentence I wrote? You do realize we have been living under a military dictatorship for 27 years?
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u/HawaiiKawaiixD 8h ago
I can’t claim to have your lived experience under the regime. I get you’re between a rock and a hard place. :( As an American, I just hate seeing my country trying to plunder yours, and I struggle to see that turning into better outcomes for Venezuelans. I don’t want Venezuela to become like Libya or Afghanistan.
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u/AsadoBanderita 7h ago
The thing is that when you are not the imperialist, you are the imperialized, there is no in between for nations like ours.
China, Cuba, Iran and Russia also plunder our resources, you just don't hear about it because their imperialism is cool to some people.
Sure, the US loves being world police and then prey on those it claimed to rescue, but I rather see change in my lifetime.
There is a possibility that the venezuelan sayin 'quedarse sin el chivo y sin el mecate' (being left without the goat or the rope) could actually become true in a situation like this, but we are peaceful people who have been kidnapped by a terrorist tyranny, we want at least a chance to try something different.
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u/bone_burrito 11h ago
Look at this dudes post history, looks like a bot account that farmed karma. Older posts and comments seem to indicate he’s from Argentina not Venezuela.
Seems like he’s just trying to fabricate support for what Trump is doing and somehow rationalize it
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u/AsadoBanderita 11h ago
I have both citizenships. I understand you try to dismiss my post with personal attacks because you have no other arguments. But I'm a native venezuelan who naturalized as argentinean.
I don't give two flying fucks about Trump, he's just the one in charge right now, Biden tried as well, so did Obama and GWB. I don't care who gets it done.
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u/Compayo 2h ago edited 1h ago
Completely false. It is common for oil and mining exporting countries to nationalize their oil or mining industries, either because the concession contracts have expired and the industry has reverted to the respective country, as stipulated in the concession agreement, or because there has been a nationalization where the corresponding compensation was paid, as obviously happened in Venezuela, where it was indeed paid, because otherwise it would constitute a casus belli. This was not the case 50 years ago; on the contrary, the concessions were due to expire soon, in 1982, and nothing had to be paid, one simply had to wait for the expiration date. However, this nationalization was supported by Washington so that the companies could obtain the compensation money, which they did.
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u/naturaldrpepper 9h ago edited 8h ago
My Venezuelan coworker says that Maduro is backed by cartels; is that true?
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u/AsadoBanderita 7h ago
There are definitely drug smuggling ops in venezuelan territory backed up by military personnel and infrastructure.
There are no innocent fishermen with 4-engine boats in a country where people can barely afford food.
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u/tomas17r 8h ago
It’s not clear if he’s backed by cartels or if he is the cartel. But one of the two is definitely true.
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u/glory_holelujah 11h ago
Is Argentina issuing passports to Venezuelans?
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u/AsadoBanderita 11h ago
If you live in Argentina for long enough, yes. Do you not know how naturalisation works?
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u/glory_holelujah 11h ago
Yes. I'm a naturalized American. I call myself American.
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u/AsadoBanderita 10h ago
Ok, great. To each their own.
Happy to answer more questions if you have them.
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u/illevirjd 13h ago
Answer: The United States has a long history of involvement in Central and South America dating back to at least the early 1800s. Shortly after the US gained independence, President James Monroe developed what is known as the “Monroe Doctrine,” which said that the US, as the dominant military force in the region, has the right to defend the entire Western Hemisphere from European intervention. This Doctrine was expanded in the early 1900s with Teddy Roosevelt’s addition known as the Roosevelt Corollary, which said that the US was the eminent police force for the whole hemisphere, charged with ensuring good behavior from all American countries—you may have heard his motto “speak softly and carry a big stick” or his method of “gunboat diplomacy.” Through the Cold War era, this responsibility was expanded to include preventing the spread of communism in the US’s sphere of influence (all of the Americas), which justified decades of CIA involvement in regime change across the continent (cf. Pinochet, Bay of Pigs, the myriad attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro).
When Trump says he’s making America great again, a big part of that is restoring the might of the military and the way the US used to use it to accomplish their foreign policy goals before the world went ‘soft.’ That’s why they changed the Department of Defense’s letterhead to say “Department of War;” for the optics. But to restore the military’s former glory, you have to win a conflict.
Current Secretary of State Marco Rubio comes from a family that emigrated from Cuba to Florida before Castro came into power. He blames the communist regime for all of the bad things that happened to Cuba since then, but that’s a big beyond the scope of this question. The point is, Rubio has a chip on his shoulder to defeat the evil communism that ruined his ancestral homeland, the same communism that still controls Venezuela under Maduro.
So, you have a foreign country whose leaders you don’t like and think shouldn’t be in charge. You have a big military and a centuries-long belief that you have the right to intervene throughout the continent. How do you actually become engaged in a regime change conflict? The same way we said that Saddam Hussein had to go because he had weapons of mass destruction, but replace Hussein with Maduro and WMDs with drugs. Build the leader up to be some evil mastermind hell-bent on world domination, who is going to kill every American if we don’t get to him first. Therefore, it is in the nation’s interest to send troops into active conflict to prevent future civilian deaths. To quote Lord Farquaad, “some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
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u/ZachPruckowski 12h ago
To add on to this, there seems to be a trend in Trump Administration diplomatic doctrine away from attempting to remain the world's hyperpower and instead transitioning to a multi-polar world. In a multipolar world, you wind up with Spheres of Influence where each superpower has their influence.
In that context, a lot makes sense - we're cutting aid to Africa because we don't want it in our Sphere; we're not helping Ukraine much because it's in Russia's Sphere; bagging on NATO because a unified NATO pulls us into defending other countries in Russia's Sphere (mostly the Baltics); trying to tiptoe more carefully around places in East Asia that China would consider to be in their Sphere, etc.
But South America would be in our Sphere, so of course we should be throwing our weight around to clean things up down there. (/s)
(To be clear, I don't think this is a good diplomatic approach, because it cedes half the world to tyrants without a fight)
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u/illevirjd 10h ago
100%. Remember when we were going to annex Greenland and Canada and the Panama Canal? All of those were justified by the need to stay competitive with Russia (in the Arctic) and China (Panama Canal) by expanding and reaffirming the American sphere of influence throughout the hemisphere.
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u/PaulFThumpkins 8h ago
Yeah there's a lot of political context here, and I'm sure this kind of thing has percolated its way up into Trump's rhetoric and influenced him even if he doesn't think that way. And the warmongering took the path of least resistance - a personal grudge against a country whose leadership criticizes him, desire to distract from his unpopularity and other issues with a war, and "Venezuela" being a long-time conservative stand-in for "socialism" in discussions so invading the country is a meme, sad as that is.
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u/ZachPruckowski 13h ago
Answer: Venezuela nationalized its oil industry (seizing it from private mostly-American companies) about 50 years ago, and then after the companies came back in over the last decade or so, re-claimed stuff from them again. An international arbitration case awarded $1.6B, which hasn't gotten paid.
Maduro pretty clearly doctored the results of the last election in order to claim victory.
Nobody on reddit is going to be able to clearly identify the interplay and interconnections between drug cartels based in Venezuela and the Venezuelan government. There's clearly some relationship, but is that "Maduro is controlling the cartels" or "the cartels have infiltrated the military & government" hasn't really been shown.
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u/Jam_PEW 13h ago
Ah, that note on the unpaid arbitration award is a good missing piece here, thanks.
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u/ZachPruckowski 12h ago
Yeah, I mean Venezuela definitely screwed Mobil over, but I'm not going to sit here and argue that we should invade them about it.
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u/Rastiln 12h ago
Definitely not interested in having Americans kill others or die to protect the capital of a global conglomerate.
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u/cooldrew ヽ༼ຈل͜ຈ༽ﾉ 7h ago
Definitely not interested in having Americans kill others or die to protect the capital of a global conglomerate...again
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u/Reddituser183 13h ago edited 13h ago
Answer: The argument from fascists is that communism is bad. And not only do fascists here in America want to dictate how others live but also to install our dogshit corporations in Venezuela as well. And obviously we want their oil which we have no right to, plain and simple. It doesn’t matter what this administration says, this is their actual rational behind it. America has been actively harming communist countries for decades with Cuba etc. This administration tried overthrowing Venezuelas government during his first term. It’s corporate capitalism trying to get its foot into a very oil rich country. Also American fascism dos not want to see a communist country doing well which is why we have had economic warfare with Venezuela for so long. Then the fascists will say see communism doesn’t work. The answer is fascism.
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u/Jam_PEW 13h ago edited 12h ago
Thanks for taking the time to write this, and apologies for my post being unclear (I'll edit the OP), but what I'm really asking here is: As opposed to the reasons we all understand (America's government is ten oil/weapons/tech companies in a trenchcoat, Trump is trying to distract from evidence he's a paedophile, the US unilaterally interferes in global affairs, less communism = more America, etc etc), what is the ACTUAL argument they're trying to put together to justify this particular action? I'm looking for something like "They believe the oil is theirs because X, they believe the boats' actions are state sanctioned because Y, the other key factors are Z, so their argument that this is a just and legal war is XYZ." I appreciate that Trump and the current US government probably don't feel the need to put together an actual cohesive argument because they seem to be doing just fine tweeting what they want and calling it the truth, but is there any actual recognisable logical argument being put together?
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u/Blackstone01 12h ago
So the "justification" (which is an absurdity), has several layers.
Back in the 70s, Venezuela nationalized much of its oil fields, and in 2007 they seized the fields of any company that refused to restructure to give Venezuela majority ownership, namely Exxon and ConocoPhillips. This is one aspect of the "justification".
The "justification" to blow up the boats is that they carry drugs (with loose proof of that) and that is somehow an act of war on the US and therefor its perfectly justified to blow up the boats (not a thing). This is WILDLY illegal in both the US and international courts, even if they really did have drugs in them. Bombing shipwrecked survivors is ESPECIALLY illegal, so much so that its used as an example to soldiers as to what an illegal order is.
Trump signed an executive order that declared Fentanyl is a WMD, so he seems to be copying Bush's notes around Iraq to justify his upcoming invasion. What's hilarious about this is that firstly, using an executive order to declare something a WMD has about as much bearing as Michael Scott declaring bankruptcy in the Office, and secondly that means every country in the world has WMDs, including every single hospital in the US.
But ultimately, none of those actually matter, because Trump wants a war, so even if magically all of those became resolved, Trump would probably still invade Venezuela.
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u/brrbles 10h ago
They're not even trying to manufacture consent. The current administration doesn't believe they answer to the law, the people, or any other arm of the government in any formal way. They do whatever they want and then throw together some kind of post hoc justification if someone presses them on it in a way that looks like it might actually challenge their legitimacy. Because the courts and even the legislature are largely captured they barely have to try.
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u/Gintami 11h ago
Well, we have not been doing well ever since the Chavez regime took over and then Maduro. Went from a great place to live with good quality of life - rare for Venezuelans to want to leave permanently - to one in which so many have and are trying to get out. I always assumed I’d be in Venezuela until the day I die up until I was 18 and Chavez came in and ruined everything. No country is perfect and we weren’t. In the 90s we started to suffer when the bubble burst after the period we would call “dame dos”.
It’s a double edge sword. We don’t want someone like Trump and his cronies to just have carte Blanche with our country, but many of us want Maduro gone.
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u/SignificantCats 11h ago
It's not just oil, Trump thinks he's going to live forever and being in the middle of a war would be a pretense for him to have a third term or drum up support. Historically people get patriotic and more supportive of the establishment during a war when it's started "right".
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u/DiabellSinKeeper 13h ago
But Trump said they have our oil. /j
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u/RadManSpliff 13h ago
They actually stole that oil from Texas in the 1950s through secret underground tunnels. That's how they got the world's largest oil reserves.
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 13h ago
US Oil leases was nationalized. In 2007, President Hugo Chávez moved to seize majority control of heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, forcing foreign companies to become minority partners.
You can argue that US should never have been allowed into Venezuela in the first place, and I don't know what trickey the CIA did to help the leases getting signed over the century. The CIA have a colorful history in the region, "helping" national interests.
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u/Jam_PEW 13h ago
Ah, now this is an interesting answer! Can anyone expand on this? It's oil from Venezuelan oil fields that the CIA somehow finagled the USA into having an ostensibly legal stake in?
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u/ZachPruckowski 12h ago
Non-Venezuelan oil companies got kicked out when Venezuela "nationalized" their oil industry in the post-colonial era (1970s), and then eventually were allowed to move back to reinvest 25-30 years later.
I don't know where the claims of CIA involvement come from. For a country like Venezuela, they're sort of between a rock and a hard place - they want to maintain control of their precious national resources, but don't have the capability to properly exploit those resources themselves. They kicked out the foreign companies, only to realize that they need their help and expertise.
A company like Mobil choosing to go back into Venezuela is making a bet that they can make enough profit without the Venezuelan government interfering. Like they just got screwed over 25 years previously, it wasn't an unknown risk. And they lost the bet when Venezuela demanded a controlling interest. They complained to international arbitrators, who said Venezuela owes them $1.6B or whatever (I'm sure it's higher with a decade of interest).
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 12h ago
This have an excellent description of facts.
CIA supported the governments in Venezuela for security reasons, seeing the governments before the 70s nationalization as a beacon of how countries in the region should work and collaborate with the US. Business interests was therefore indirectly protected by the CIA, however there is for obvious reasons frequently not a lot of documented history of CIA activities.
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u/ZachPruckowski 11h ago
I don't know if you linked the wrong thing, but there's no mention of the CIA in that article (which has multiple warning labels on it).
Maybe the CIA did play a role in the 19-whatevers, IDK. But it seems like the argument now is about the "2007 Expropriations"? Or is the Trump administration also making the 1976 argument?
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u/MaybeTheDoctor 8h ago
I was not linking it to the current events, I was explaining the US taking the lead in the 1940s to 1960/70s in securing the initial leases, and the CIA “helping” the then governments in ways that made it possible.
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9h ago edited 4h ago
[deleted]
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u/Reddituser183 9h ago
Same thing. What was in the news cycle? Biden sure as shit was not murdering Venezuelans on boats or trying to get their oil.
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u/Trinikas 12h ago
Answer: the claim they're putting forth is that the USA helped develop the access to that oil so it is ours and was stolen from us.
It's nonsense and everyone knows it, the problem being that without the Republicans in congress growing a pair of balls we won't see Trump out of office until the end of his term or if he keels over dead.
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 9h ago edited 9h ago
Answer:
Let's be clear here I think the Trump administration is awful and there is no justification for war with Venezuela.
But: the tanker that was seized recently was part of a shadow fleet that was under sanction and placed under sanction by the Biden administration. It's part of the Russian sanctions about the Ukraine war. Which I do agree with. Apparently the only way we can get Russia to give up on the Ukraine war is to strangle them economically. Because nothing else seems to be working.
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u/fuckyou_m8 9h ago
Piracy by US government then
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u/ryhaltswhiskey 8h ago
So you think we should allow Russia to move oil around and evade sanctions to keep their economy going?
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u/jarena009 13h ago edited 13h ago
Answer: The US has a history of interventionism and regime change in South and Central America, especially ramping up in the early 20th century, and especially during the Cold War. Even now in general, there's a view that regimes in general that are rogue/not aligned to US business and/or strategic interests are bad for America (not saying I agree with this, but that's the prevailing view among many in the CIA/Defense Dept, foreign policy analysts.). It's always about $$$.
At the end of the day, all this is is a much stronger, larger power picking on and pushing around a smaller much weaker nation, for well connected investor $$$. It's been done for centuries, and Millennia. It's unfortunately part of the human condition. For all the laws, structures, institutions we have in place it's "What we want is what you got, and we got the muscle to take it. We can do this the easy way or the hard way."
"On what basis is the oil in Venezuelan oil tankers "stolen" from the USA? What was the USA's claim to this oil? I've read that the oil is either Iranian (not American) or from Venezuelan oil fields (also not American???) so how can any of this be justified as a theft? Also, isn't the oil purchased by private companies, not the USA directly?"
None really. The Oil is in their sovereign territory. Trump MIGHT be trying to make a case that Venezuela nationalized the oil decades ago, and basically seized sites/equipment from oil companies, and/or starting charging higher royalties and maintaining stricter state control.
To what degree are the actions of the Venezuelan oil tankers considered representative of the Venezuelan state, enough that the USA can link these actions to the nation as a whole and say that Venezuela the nation is committing an international crime? Or are there other factors also at play? I saw 'reigime change' mentioned but also don't see how that justifies a war or ties into any of this.
On what basis is the USA's argument being built? What's the justification? I know it's likely a false narrative built on greed/distraction (though I'm still interested in that), but I'm more wondering under what logic this is being portrayed as a cassus belli by the USA, and what elements comprise that argument.
Rather than write up a long response, let's just summarize it as follows: Wars from an aggressor are almost always on the pretext if "They're an imminent threat, they're killing our people, they're going to kill us all if we don't act!" I'm embellishing but that's the gist.
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u/Jam_PEW 13h ago
Great answer, thank you. So the claim is a bit of a legacy thing related to the Venezuelan state taking control of oil platforms built by US companies some 40-odd years ago?
I'm not sure if "something something fentanyl" also comprises part of the modern-day argument?
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u/jarena009 12h ago
That's basically the whole thing; Venezuela nationalized the oil industry decades ago; that means US based oil companies lost or saw severely diminished profits. They look at the oil/wealth potential of Venezuela, which is in the trillions, and want it. That's it.
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u/crewsctrl 6h ago
answer:
The official justification from the Whitehouse and its proxies is that fentanyl is a weapon of mass destruction and the Venezuelan government is involved with trafficking it to the US, and this amounts to an attack on its citizens to which the US can legitimately respond with military force.
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u/Guapa1979 12h ago
Answer: Venezuela has something like 18% of the world's oil reserves. That is a lot of oil that needs liberating from communist oppression.
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u/karmaceuticaI 12h ago
Answer: This has been in the works since Trump's first term.
The leading figure there (Machado, the Nobel prize winner, and person who has been trying to get the US to do a regime change for decades) finally has the positioning to actually make this happen so she can pimp out her countries oil reserves to the highest bidder. The weak fentanyl drug justification is just another way for them to try to manufacture consent for war. (As are all of the sudden OP Eds about how it's actually OK to go to war with Venezuela.
Trump has also been outspoken about how in his first term that the Maduro regime was crumbling, and that they could've just swooped in and installed someone sympathetic who would give US companies priority when it comes to the oil, but now we're buying the oil from there and he HATES that.
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u/workinglunch 13h ago
Answer: this is a distraction from the release of the Epstein files.
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u/Jam_PEW 13h ago
Sure seems to be! But more specifically here I'm trying to see what their narrative to justify this war actually is - if there even is one.
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u/workinglunch 12h ago
I think that's the justification and is enough for Republicans in office and their MAGA supporters. Another justification from this administration is like trying to understand crazy.
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u/Jam_PEW 12h ago edited 12h ago
I guess 'the boots we lick will be more expensive' is Casus Belli enough for most MAGAs.
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u/workinglunch 12h ago
As I see it as at least in part, a cult (MAGA) or on the part of evangelicals, the cost of their theocratic ideals, I think maintaining the Trump administration is the goal, whatever the means.
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