Venezuela: oil coup

Beyond the drug trafficking charges against Maduro, Trump, who has the advantage of clarity, has said he seeks to "take back our oil." For Stephen Miller, White House Deputy Chief of Staff, the 1976 Venezuelan nationalization of the oil industry represented "the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property." After that first nationalization, foreign companies continued operating in Venezuela until 2007, when Chávez carried out a second recovery that reinforced majority state control of the oil industry. With the profits obtained, Chávez was able to sustain the Bolivarian Revolution: a massive redistribution project that drastically reduced poverty. The revolution enjoyed broad popular support for years, which allowed it to thwart the 2002 coup attempt, driven by an essentially anti-democratic opposition. To illustrate, the newly minted Nobel laureate María Corina Machado denounced each new election as fraudulent, regardless of Chavismo's repeated victories, even in the most recent election in 2024, since Maduro has failed to prove his triumph. The Venezuelan process was the first of the progressive Latin American governments that emerged in response to devastating neoliberal policies. In Brazil, Argentina, Bolivia, and Ecuador, among others, the left was made possible by extractivism. Commodity prices allowed for redistribution, but also fueled its decline with the subsequent price collapse beginning in 2014. In Venezuela, Chavismo failed to utilize these resources to diversify the productive system, thus cementing its structural fragility. This was compounded by inefficiency, corruption, and military control of a significant portion of the economy. But also the unilateral US sanctions, which crippled the entire national economy, especially the oil industry, which barely affected the ruling elite and caused immense social suffering. The current crisis is interwoven with these factors and with the country's dependence on China, which explains the US coup: a fierce geopolitical competition on a chessboard where the US is revolting against its loss of global hegemony.

The scenario in Venezuela is bleak and a sign of the times. Regardless of whether the coup was carried out with the agreement of a sector of Chavismo, the result is the same: a government completely subsumed by the interests of the US and transnational capital. When Maduro was captured, he already lacked the majority support of Venezuelans, a result of multiple factors including the fierce repression unleashed in the country and the abandonment of progressive policies. Today, Latin America is leaning towards right-wing or ultra-conservative governments, while Trump promotes a model of imperialism in which Chinese, Russian, and American autocrats, surrounded by multi-billionaire oligarchies, divide the world and its resources into spheres of influence.