A- Empire's Plunder: Why Did Washington Target Venezuela?

🔴**A- Empire's Plunder: Why Did Washington Target Venezuela?**

✏️Dr.Zeinab Mehanna

The recent U.S. military attack on Caracas, which included precision airstrikes on 12 key military sites and the abduction of President Nicolás Maduro in a 4-hour special operation, is not merely a traditional "regime change" operation but a blatant declaration of Washington's "imperial plunder" phase to salvage its collapsing economy—which recorded a 2.1% contraction in Q4 2025 per Federal Reserve reports—and secure its technological supremacy in the AI era, where the global AI market is projected at $1.8 trillion by 2030. This aggression, which resulted in 47 deaths and over 200 injuries according to initial UN reports, strikes at the heart of Global South nations and poses a stark challenge to the Axis of Resistance and the "BRICS+" bloc, now comprising 10 countries representing 45% of the world's population and 37% of global GDP.

**1. Oil: The Grand Prize and Hungry Corporations: **

Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves at 303.3 billion barrels per OPEC's 2025 report, surpassing Saudi Arabia (267 billion) and Iraq (145 billion). For the United States, which imported 3.8 million barrels daily in 2025 while relying on 40% of its strategic reserves, controlling these reserves is not just about energy but imposing "real guarantees" against its sovereign debt exceeding $35.7 trillion in December 2025, or 130% of its GDP.

- **Chevron:**

The sole U.S. company operating in Venezuela under limited Biden-era licenses imported 120,000–150,000 barrels daily in 2025 from fields like Perijá, contributing $4.2 billion to its revenue. Chevron aims through this attack to regain full control over joint fields with the state oil company (PDVSA), currently producing 800,000 barrels daily, without sovereign restrictions, with plans to ramp up to 2 million barrels daily within 3 years. **- ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips:**

These firms seek to reclaim assets nationalized under Hugo Chávez in 2007, including 11 major fields in the Orinoco Belt. They demand compensation and profits over $20.8 billion, including $8.5 billion for Exxon and $7.9 billion for Conoco from international arbitration rulings. The military attack aims to convert these claims into actual ownership of land and fields, with total estimated value up to $100 billion over a decade.

**2. Minerals of the Future: Fuel for the AI Arms Race**

In a televised address broadcast by PDVSA before his abduction, President Maduro revealed the true target as "gold, gas, and rare earths," with Venezuela producing 32 tons of gold in 2025 alone.

Beyond oil, Venezuela is a global treasure trove of strategic minerals critical to modern industries, boasting reserves of up to 1.2 million tons of coltan per USGS 2024 surveys.

Coltan is essential for manufacturing capacitors in smartphones (used in 80% of devices), drones, and missile systems, with an annual market value of $2.5 billion; thorium (500,000 tons in reserves) serves as a clean nuclear fuel alternative and massive energy source for small reactors powering AI data centers (up to 1 gigawatt per reactor), with projected value of $1.8 billion; gold (5,000 tons extractable reserves) provides monetary backing and is vital for precision conductors in military and space hardware (used in 90% of space chips), boasting a global annual value of $12.4 billion; while lithium (1.5 million tons) and nickel (2.8 million tons) form the backbone of electric vehicle batteries (Tesla uses 10 kg per car) and renewable energy storage systems, valued at $45 billion for lithium alone.

**3. Targeting Venezuela as a Direct Threat to Iran **

The Caracas aggression—executed by SEAL teams with support from 45 F-35 aircraft and involving 1,200 U.S. special forces troops—cannot be separated from ongoing threats to Tehran, marking a culmination of escalating tensions since the 2019 U.S. "maximum pressure" campaign that imposed $150 billion in frozen Iranian assets. The two nations forged a strategic alliance that shattered the U.S. blockade:

🔴Venezuela shipped 2.1 million barrels of oil to Iran in 2025 via a fleet of 25 sanctioned tankers, while Iran provided $500 million in military aid, including training for 1,500 Venezuelan soldiers on Fateh-110 missiles and delivery of 200 Shahed-136 drones adapted for PDVSA security. Bilateral trade reached $1.2 billion in 2025, bypassing SWIFT through BRICS mechanisms.

**- Dangerous Precedent:**

By abducting a sovereign state's leader in a raid reminiscent of the 1989 Panama invasion (which killed 3,000), Trump sends a direct threat to Iran's leadership, signaling tolerance for "decapitation strikes." As Senator Lindsey Graham tweeted on January 2, 2026: "If I were Iran's leader, I'd head to the mosque to pray." Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei responded on state TV: "Caracas today, Tehran tomorrow—resistance will prevail." **- Next Plot: **

Resistance Axis experts, including analysts from the Tehran-based Center for Strategic Studies, view Venezuela as a "testing ground" for a new model of lightning raids (Operation "Southern Thunder," per leaked Pentagon docs), potentially targeting IRGC commanders in Tehran or Quds Force bases.

This follows Trump's Fox News statements on January 1, 2026, pledging support for Iranian internal movements like the 2022 protests (which drew 500,000 participants) and readiness for military force, amid U.S. deployment of 3 carrier strike groups (USS Eisenhower, Truman, and Lincoln) in the Persian Gulf carrying 150 aircraft and 15,000 sailors. Iranian FM Abbas Araghchi warned of "asymmetric retaliation" via proxies in Yemen and Iraq, where Houthis have sunk 12 U.S. vessels since 2023.

**4. Entrenching the "Monroe Doctrine" and Challenging BRICS**

The attack is a desperate bid to reclaim America's "backyard," where U.S. influence in Latin America fell from 70% in 2010 to 42% in 2025, and to curb China's expansion ($65 billion invested in the region) and Russia's (arms sales of $4.2 billion) alongside Iran. Washington fears Venezuela's formal BRICS+ entry at the 2026 summit, which would remove the world's largest energy reservoir (303 billion barrels) from dollar dominance—a currency that lost 15% against the yuan since 2023.

**5. Trump’s Statements: When Language Becomes a Doctrine of Plunder**

Understanding the assault on Venezuela is incomplete without pausing at Donald Trump’s public rhetoric, which was never diplomatic but rather a blunt declaration of a doctrine rooted in force and plunder. Unlike traditional U.S. administrations that cloaked their interventions in the language of “values” and “international law,” Trump openly expressed his worldview as one of deals and spoils.

On multiple occasions, Trump directly linked U.S. foreign policy to resource acquisition. In a well-known 2019 speech about Venezuela, he stated:

__“Venezuela is very rich… incredibly rich. We’re talking about one of the greatest oil reserves in the world.”__

This statement, in Trump’s logic, was not a neutral economic observation but a preemptive political justification for intervention. In this worldview, “resource-rich” countries become legitimate targets if they defy American obedience.

🔴In an even more brazen remark during a 2020 television interview, Trump said:

__“We protect a lot of countries. Without us, they wouldn’t have anything. Sometimes you have to get something in return.”__

This statement encapsulates the essence of what’s unfolding in Caracas: protection in exchange for plunder—or more precisely, sovereignty traded for oil and minerals.

On the matter of direct military threats, Trump consistently employed the language of “__preemptive strikes”__ and “__cutting off the head.”__ In reference to Iran, he famously declared:

__“If they do anything, the response will be swift and harsh.”__

This same rhetoric materialized in the attempted kidnapping of President Maduro, turning Venezuela into a live laboratory for Trump’s taboo-breaking policy: stripping sovereign immunity, bypassing the United Nations, and normalizing the idea of abducting heads of state.

More dangerously, Trump never concealed his overt hostility toward international law. He repeatedly described the United Nations as a “useless club” and dismissed international arbitration as “a scam used against America.” Thus, Washington’s disregard for legal accountability following the attack on Venezuela is not an anomaly—it’s a full alignment with Trump’s vision of the world as a jungle, not a system of law.

In other words, the assault on Venezuela was not a misstep or a miscalculation—it was a literal enactment of Trump’s own rhetoric :

**The world runs on force, resources are seized, and dissent is punished.**

**Conclusion: Resistance as the Only Option **

What is happening today is "state piracy" under the guise of "defending democracy," with U.S. justifications citing "human rights violations" despite Human Rights Watch reporting a 28% improvement in 2025. Venezuela, with its people's resilience (85% support for Maduro in 2025 polls), army (250,000 active troops), and Global South allies, stands today as the last bulwark against the unipolar power's barbarism—one that lost military prestige to Russia ($500 billion Ukraine losses), trade to China ($900 billion U.S. deficit), and is left with direct plundering of peoples' resources.

**🔵**[Link to the article in Arabic ](https://t.me/almuraqb/346)