Trump, Venezuela, cryptos

Good discoverers of garlic soup, our Mr. Esteve's Trumpists point out very excitedly that the tremendous inoperability shown by Venezuelan public services in facing the tragedy of the double earthquake is a direct consequence of the corruption of the Chavista regime. That Chavismo was, and is, corrupt to the bone is an unquestionable truth; we thank them for their clarity. It is a pity that the sharp analysts of the wretched right-wing forget that Venezuela has been a kind of protectorate of the USA and the Trump administration for half a year, which they usually find so admirable. The incursion of American troops and special forces on January 3 in Caracas was a real coup d'état and a wild and blatant violation of international law, in line with the role of global sheriff that Trump likes to play so much.In these six months, it's not that the Yankee government has done anything to free Venezuelans from the Chavista dictatorship: it's that it has maintained it just as it was, with the only difference being that we have heard nothing more about Nicolás Maduro (he is locked up, awaiting trial, at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, or so they say) and that in his place is now his former vice president, Delcy Rodríguez. She and the rest of Chavismo remain intact in power, only in the role of US puppets, which Delcy Rodríguez and her colleagues do not care about at all because they completely disregard what dignity might be. The other big difference —the only fundamental difference— is that now Venezuela's oil is in the hands of the US: Venezuela has ceded up to about 50 million barrels of crude oil that Washington directly markets, with profits of about 2.8 billion dollars. (Trump must be credited with a funny moment, when he let María Corina Machado, idol of the Spanish and Catalan right, know that he did not count on her as president of the new/old government, a snub to which she responded by offering to share the Nobel Peace Prize, as if it were a hamburger with double bacon.)After being impetuously freed from the dictatorship, the Venezuelan citizenry continues to be as screwed, mocked, and helpless as ever. And when tragedy struck in the form of an earthquake, the US government's aid was crumbs (at least Venezuelans can be grateful they weren't sent J.D. Vance to make things even worse). We have learned —you can read it in this newspaper— that Trump has increased his personal fortune by 1.4 billion dollars during the first year of his return to the presidency, thanks to the cryptocurrency business. His emulator Milei also encouraged Argentinians to invest in a cryptocurrency, and it was a fraud. Since they imitate the MAGA movement down to the pattern on the curtains, it's only a matter of time before some of the brains in Spanish politics, after some economics master's degree, tries a crypto-scam from within the institutions. How bad is Chavismo.