The US invaded Venezuela and kidnapped Nicólas Maduro to defend the dominance of the US dollar. Venezuela had been selling oil to China in China’s currency, the yuan.
Trump just sold $500 million worth of the oil the Navy has stolen from Venezuela at sea. Magnanimous guy that he is, he’s also said he'll be giving $300 million back to its proper owners via a US-controlled bank account based in Qatar. The most important consequence is that Venezuela’s oil will now be traded in US dollars, not Chinese yuan.
The fact that Venezuela was selling its oil to China for yuan, then spending that yuan on the international market, threatened US hegemony far more than the fact that it was selling them their oil. As Nigerian writer David Hundeyin has said, without the dollar’s dominance, the US will be like Brazil with nuclear weapons.
Stowing Venezuela’s dollars in Qatar also seems to shield it from international creditors whom Venezuela owes $170 billion after decades of strangulation by sanctions, otherwise known as “death by a thousand cuts.”
Acting President Delcy Rodriguez has said she’ll accept the money and use it to support workers' incomes, stabilize the currency (the bolívar), and protect purchasing power against inflation and exchange rate fluctuations. What else can she do? She doesn’t have a lot of options and she's got to think of her people, 7 to 9 million of whom have migrated to escape the hardship caused by 21 years of harsh US sanctions.
Obama escalated the sanctions in 2015 and Trump escalated them even further during the first year of his term. The Congressional Research Service reported that Biden kept them in place, offering "limited sanctions relief" to encourage elections, not escalation, but then declared the 2024 elections unfair.
Black Agenda Report contributors, including Ajamu Baraka, traveled to Venezuela as election observers, and they all concluded that it was fair.
Trump got a 30% higher price than Venezuela was getting from China, and 30% of $500 million is $150 million. China had not been giving Venezuelans a higher price than they could get, given that they were buying US-sanctioned oil, and they're one of the only buyers with the power and the nerve to ignore US sanctions. They were getting it on the cheap.
Ironically Trump’s moves possibly may make Venezuelans’ lives better, most of all if they end the "death by a thousand cuts" im1posed by sanctions. Just imagine. The UK, at US urging, might even release the 31 million metric tonnes of Venezuela’s gold, $4 to $5 billion dollars worth, held hostage by the Bank of England since late 2018.
Trump could then say he’s saved Venezuelans from the dictator and the evils of socialism while claiming sovereignty over Venezuela’s oil. Acting President Delcy Rodriguez said this week that she’s “tired of taking US orders,” but she hasn’t said which particular orders she’s tired of taking.
The Democrats and their leading flagbearer, California Governor Gavin Newsom, are of course as committed as Republicans to defending the dollar, one of the essentials of US hegemony, and to using “democracy” as their ever fraudulent excuse. On January 5, two days after the US kidnapped Maduro, Newsom provided a statement to CBS-Sacramento:
“Maduro is a thug and a criminal. But Donald Trump proposing to ‘run’ Venezuela without a coherent long-term plan beyond an oil grab is dangerous for America. The path forward must be democracy, human rights, and stability.”
Democrats and Republicans are playing the good cop/bad cop routines to appeal to their respective voter bases, making them imagine a substantial difference. Polls say that over 65% of Republicans approved of kidnapping Maduro but only 11% of Democrats approve.
They can continue that routine if Gavin Newsom is in the White House and Democrats have taken the Senate and the House.
Then they can say, “Trump was crazy! We would never kidnap a sitting president. We would never murder fishermen, civilians, without due process.” Of course there are countless examples to the contrary and whatever, without a radical uprising, the US will still control Venezuela’s oil and make sure it’s traded in dollars.
Delcy Rodriguez will likely do the best she can in difficult circumstances, negotiating sanctions relief, and trying to make sure that key elements of the Bolivarian Revolution survive: greater equality and dignity for all Venezuelans, food security, and quality education and public housing for the poor. Hopefully the revolution lives to fight another day.
What about Venezuela’s longstanding ally, Cuba? Will Venezuela be allowed to share its oil revenue, perhaps returning to the oil-for-doctors swaps? Will it be able to use its oil revenues to aid Cuba? We can hope, maybe we can help, but Secretary of State Marco Rubio is determined and the Democrats would probably rather see Cuba fall before they're back in office.
Ann Garrison is a Black Agenda Report Contributing Editor based in the San Francisco Bay Area. In 2014, she received the Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza Democracy and Peace Prize for her reporting on conflict in the African Great Lakes region. She can be reached at ann@anngarrison.com. You can help support her work on Patreon.
Afeni is a community organizer and writer who is co-authoring an article soon to appear in Rolling Stone about FBI surveillance of Aretha Franklin. Afeni is joining us from Washington DC.
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