Venezuela: into the unknown

The incursion resembles many similar actions in the past. But there are significant differences, and as a result, this one steers America into uncharted waters.

A few days ago a team effort by U.S. military, intelligence, and law enforcement personnel seized Venezuelan strongman Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores, and took them into American custody. The move has overwhelmed the news cycle across America, and much of the world as well.

The couple, now arraigned and in federal detention in Brooklyn, New York, will be tried in federal court on charges involving narcoterrorism conspiracy, cocaine importation, high-powered weapons possession, bribery, and fomenting kidnappings and murders.

There’s way too much involved here to unpack fully in a column like this one. The challenge is to drill down to the incident’s essential significance: why did it happen? what important events led up to it? and what is it likely to mean for the people of Venezuela and their resources?

In some ways, this U.S. intervention in Venezuela is just the latest in a long, long line of intrusions into Latin America. It has the earmarks of dozens of such actions over the past couple of centuries, some arguably for the benefit of the local country’s citizens, but sadly, much more often for the enrichment of American corporations and investors.

A case could be made that exploitation of Central and South American resources began with the 16th Century Spanish conquistadores like Cortez and Pizarro, who hauled back to Europe many tons of New World gold and silver possessed by indigenous people.

In the 1840s came the United States victory in the Mexican War, resulting in the United States grab of a huge chunk of northern Mexico territory. And a major American corporate presence south of the border took shape in the mid-19th Century, in economic sectors like sugar, bananas, and minerals, and exploded after the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War in 1898.

President Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900s proclaimed the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, which claimed a U.S. right to intervene militarily in Latin American countries to “maintain public stability” and protect American corporate investments. Since then the United States has intervened more than 50 times, using the military and/or the CIA, in at least 17 different sovereign nations in the Western Hemisphere.

The term “banana republic” was coined by American author O. Henry in 1904 to describe American economic and political domination of countries like Honduras. Before long the banana republic became a model that characterized all of Central America, with United Fruit Company and Standard Fruit Company as the primary beneficiaries.

American oil companies mirrored that pattern after discovery of huge oil deposits in Venezuela in the 1920s. In league with the friendly Venezuelan dictator of that time, companies like Exxon, Gulf Oil, and Chevron built massive infrastructure installations there including wells, transportation, housing, and commercial outlets to support their investments.

The Venezuelan government inserted itself into its nation’s oil industry starting in 1976, and to a greater extent in 2007, with partial nationalization that required American oil producers to hold no more than a 40 percent minority interest in Venezuelan oil production. Two companies, ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, refused to comply, and Venezuela took total control of their holdings. Three others, Chevron, Total, and BP, agreed to the requirement, and they continued to operate in Venezuela under that nation’s rules.

The oil nationalization is what President Trump refers to as “the largest recorded theft of American property,” and it serves as one of his justifications for the United States takeover of Venezuela. Trump says the United States will now “run” Venezuela. He promises to turn Venezuela’s oil production over to United States oil companies, claiming that doing so is in the interests of the Venezuelan people.

So Trump’s January 3 intervention in Venezuela could be seen as one more incident driven by U.S. corporate interests.

But there’s more to it. The Trump Administration also charges Maduro’s government with an alliance with Colombian and other illicit drug organizations, something from which Trump says the American people need to be protected. That accounts for the aerial destruction of at least 36 alleged drug boats off the Venezuelan coast.

Another reason stated by the Trump Administration: Venezuela has given American adversaries like Iran, China, and Russia a “beachhead” in the western hemisphere, and it has particularly propped up Cuba economically. Trump’s people hope that the U.S. takeover of Venezuela will create enough economic despair in Cuba that Cubans will rise up and depose the Cuban regime.

Another reason: by eliminating the Maduro regime, Trump hopes to restore enough economic prosperity in Venezuela to induce some Venezuelan migrants—there are now eight million of them—to return home.

Finally, with the U.S. “running” Venezuela, human rights abuses there can theoretically be cut way back.

All these possible outcomes generated the Maduro/Flores capture. Things may work out to general satisfaction.

But there are other possible outcomes not so desirable to many Americans:

—Exploitation of the oil resources for the benefit of corporations rather than the Venezuelan people.

—Installation of a right-wing government friendly to wealthy Venezuelan families and circles (and American investors) rather than to the more liberal government that, by all evidence, was overwhelmingly elected by Venezuelan voters in 2024 but was denied office by Maduro.

—Failure to hold future elections despite American promises to do so.

—Antagonism to U.S. control of Venezuela by other Latin American nations.

—An effort costly to American taxpayers that eventually fails to result in a safe, democratic Venezuela for the citizens of that nation.

The outcome of this latest American adventure will be all-important to the people of Venezuela. We have yet to learn whether the people of the United States really care.