Maduro, like Hugo Chavez before him, has always been objectionable to sections of the US ruling class and their foreign policy establishment. Venezuelan socialism was always overstated, but that's beside the point. The US has been denied tribute since US oil firms were effectively turfed out in 2007 - unless they submitted to giving Petroleos de Venezuela, the state-owned national oil company, a controlling share of their operation. Exactly what Trump is insisting TikTok does as the price of doing business in "his" market. The "official" reason for Maduro and Flores's arrests and the bombing of Caracas - drug trafficking - is but a pretext, regardless of the evidence of Maduro presiding over a narco state. As this piece from November by a liberal think tank argues, regime change under American sponsorship is unlikely to stop the flow of drugs. Those of us with memories will recall that when Latin America was awash with right wing, Washington-backed caudillos they weren't much of a bulwark against the rush of cocaine to the north. Where would Trump's parties in the 1980s and 90s have been without it?
None of this needs second-guessing or hard thinking about shady motives. In Trump's press conference on Saturday morning, he said that "we", as in the US, will be selling Venezuelan oil. That "we" are going to make a lot of money, and that the US running the country won't cost anything because the cash to pay for any occupation, restructuring, and US oil interests "going in" will be met from the wealth pumped from the ground. He expects some kind of reparations as well for the "damage" Venezuela has caused the United States, and for good measure, he issued casual threats in the dircction of Cuba and Colombia.
What sundry liberals and centrists either side of the Atlantic are seeing is the US as it routinely behaved toward developing states throughout the post-war period. Trump forgoes the lip service and usual hypocrisies that attend military incursions because he's blunt about US interests, and because he knows no one is going to challenge him. The European states, which fancy themselves America's peers, have either prevaricated and avoided making a comment or fallen into line. Trump knows that when he says jump, the Europeans will do themselves a mischief trying to out-leap one another. And this is part of a pattern. The brute deployment of US firepower reflects the openness with which Trump enriches himself and the oligarchs around him. A government by and for billionaires, they don't try dressing up as anything else. And this is paralleled here too. Our own government cares little for democracy or ideas. If it collectively cares about anything, it's the future advancement of its senior members after politics. The Tories and Reform offer nothing else either, apart from more racism - which even here Labour has tried outflanking them on.
Trump's international piracy is, obviously, something he and his lackeys were agreed on. But it typifies a wider trend across the West: the assertion of authoritarianism and, with that, the open and unquestioned dictatorship of capital.
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3 comments:
A few years ago, as I recall, the US tried installing a regime in Bolivia. It lasted about a year.
I wonder how Trump and his mob are intending to deal with all the Venezuelans in Venezuela, many of whom I guess might object to the US claiming their oil. A showy, short-term charm offensive, throwing bribes about like confetti? Perhaps they expect all of Maduro's former buddies and goons to be easily bought.
I imagine that Miguel Diaz Canel, Gustavo Petro and Jens-Frederick Nielsen are all checking on their security arrangement in the wake of the kidnapping, or what the BBC calls the 'capture' in his own bed, in his own country, of Maduro. They all have something Trump wants and no doubt he can come up with something to use to justify deposing them and 'running their country'. And two of the abductions would be popular with their diasporas in Florida. Can't see a 'coalition of the willing' rushing to chase the Yankee out of Greenland.
Poor old Starmer, what a life he has given himself, trying to say nothing while appearing statesman like. All to keep Trump sweet.
And the UK and France seem to be getting in on the act in bombing rubble in Syria and claiming it was an ISIS supply base. Healey will be beside himself with pleasure - a man of action, a warrior, fearless ready to bomb more rubble at £10 million a flight.
Greenland, Colombia, Cuba. And Panama, no doubt.
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