Why Trump’s waging of war against Venezuela is more about oil than drugs

President Donald Trump has recently deployed much of the U.S. navy including the newest-constructed aircraft carrier the USS Gerald R. Ford along with several air squadrons to the Caribbean sea, raising alarms of a potential conflict in the region with Venezuela, one of the United States’ greatest strategic enemies. While the President stated repeatedly that this rapid mobilization was for controlling the drug trade between Venezuela and the United States, oil may be a far greater underlying excuse than the former.

An aerial view of the USS Gerald R. Ford, which is facilitating the bombing campaigns on Venezuelan civilian ships in the Caribbean.

The President has deployed 8 warships to the Caribbean, including the supercarrier, in an operation many officials in the Trump administration have deemed an “enhanced counter-narcotics operation.” These warships included destroyers, the carrier, amphibious assault ships, and a littoral combat ship, with roughly 10,000 American personnel in the Caribbean assisting their operations. In the beginning of October, Trump pushed the claim that certain drug traffickers were “non-state armed groups,” making the connection to that of unlawful combatants, with them later calling out the Venezuelan gang Tren de Agua a “Foreign Terrorist Organization.” Using these justifications, the administration has attempted to warrant on a legal basis their agency over the deployment of military forces against such groups.

The first strike alone, far back in September, killed 11 people, but since then at least 5 strikes have been initiated, contributing to 83 casualties at sea. The incumbent administration directed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to authorize covert operations within Venezuela’s borders, including providing real-time intelligence using satellite imagery and signal intercepts to target smuggling boats. Evidently, Trump is deeming this to be more of an armed conflict rather than a small incidence.

Venezuela, who has not been directly pointed at by the Trump administration, did start mobilizing its own military forces in response. This includes the deployment of troops and warships from their respective navy. Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro condemned the operations as violations of their maritime sovereignty, and interpreted the move as something far deeper - as a move to destabilizing the regime and potentially initiating a regime-change all together, which the Trump administration has been hinting at for months (as Trump set a large bail for the arrest of Maduro). Many analysts have labeled American military actions as a call to war against the South American country, with President Trump somewhat open to negotiations by the Maduro administration but still determined in this so-called “Operation Southern Spear.”

Initially, President Trump’s moves may look to have been the result of the eagerness for a regime change or the end of drug smuggling operations from South America. However, less visible to most in this is the hidden but very real justification for the pursuit of a single resource: oil.

Venezuela most notoriously holds the greatest oil reserves in the world, larger than that of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Iran, or Russia. In fact, most of these reserves have been untapped, especially those around the Maracaibo Bay, due to the Venezuelan restrictions and nationalization of oil operations since the advent of Hugo Chavez’s regime decades ago. Many of these affected companies were American ones who made a fortune in the extraction of oil in the coasts of Venezuela.

With President Trump committed to “cheap gas,” he has waged an all-out war against the OPEC+ nations and other rival oil producers. Just last summer, Trump raised tariffs exponentially on India for importing Russian oil. In that same period of time, he imposed a 25% import tariff on all goods imported from countries who traded Venezuelan oil per Executive Order 14245. And, his administration destroyed several nuclear research facilities in Iran, a great contributor to OPEC’s oil dominance.

Trump, most significantly, has changed the oil rights Chevron has in Venezuela under a new license. Previously, the fossil fuel company could have great operating rights in Venezuela in return for handing over much of its profits to the Venezuelan government; but, the license change has changed the outcome of the profits to go toward debt repayment rather than “free cash” for the Maduro regime, contributing to the destabilization of the region.

The U.S. would be better off economically with Venezuelan oil, but at the expense of local Venezuelans and the Maduro regime, who’ve displayed a strict anti-American stance economically and diplomatically, as seen by its cooperation with Cuba, Russia, China, and other American enemies abroad. If Venezuela were to release oil rights to external firms, the government would have much less leverage than it does right now, and much of the oil trade profits would go to private entities and investors, not the Venezuelan government. That would eventually devolve to the end of the Maduro regime due to the lack of influence by the home country against pro-Democratic forces. In a way, the underlying oil justification serves as a compliment to the more mainstream ones (regime change, drug smuggling).