#venezuela
5 entries with this tag
"This Is Imperialism": Eight Months After U.S. Special Forces Seized Venezuela's President in a Raid on Caracas, Trump Announced the United States Had Taken "Majority Control" of More Than 65 Billion Barrels of Venezuela's Oil — a Stake Second Only to Saudi Aramco — Struck With the Government That Replaced the Leader America Captured, to Paper Over the Record Gas Prices His Own Iran War Created
On August 28, 2026, Trump announced on Truth Social that the United States had secured "majority control" of more than 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's proven oil reserves — through a new company, structured with private business, in which the U.S. would hold a 55% stake and the right to buy oil at cost, making it the second-largest corporate holder of proven reserves in the world after Saudi Aramco. He offered few details. The context is what gives the announcement its weight: in January 2026, U.S. special forces raided Caracas and seized Venezuela's president, Nicolás Maduro, spiriting him to the United States to face narcoterrorism charges. The oil deal was then negotiated with the government that took his place, led by acting president Delcy Rodríguez. So the sequence is: the United States removed a foreign head of state by military force, and then took majority control of his country's oil from the government installed in his wake — to lower American gas prices driven to record highs by Trump's own war in Iran and the Strait of Hormuz standoff. Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia, named it in three words on MS NOW: "This is imperialism." Other analysts called it "colonial" and urged Congress to stop it, while critics called it "yet another Trump grift." A superpower seizing a weaker nation's oil after decapitating its government is the oldest story in the imperial book, and the United States just told it out loud.
The U.S. Military Has Blown Up More Than 220 People on Alleged Drug Boats — Without Trial, Warning, or Public Evidence — Under a Secret Legal Memo Experts Call "a License to Kill." Now a Pentagon Report Claims It Killed Zero Civilians, a New Yorker Investigation Points to an Innocent Ecuadorian Fishing Boat, and the Prosecutor Investigating the Strikes Was Assassinated
Since September 2025, the Trump administration has carried out a campaign of lethal military strikes on small boats in the Caribbean and Pacific, and now on land in Latin America — killing more than 220 people it labels "narcoterrorists," without trial, without warning, and without publicly showing the evidence. Legal experts across the spectrum call the strikes extrajudicial killings inconsistent with international law: the administration asserts, in a secret legal memo, that the victims are "unlawful combatants" in a "non-international armed conflict" between the United States and a classified list of drug cartels. Former Defense Department attorney Sarah Harrison said the policy asserts "a license to kill"; former State Department lawyer Charlie Trumbull called it "more problematic than Iran" because it rests on "the president just waving a magic wand"; Rep. Jason Crow, who reviewed the memo, called it "a pretty farcical analysis." Now the accountability is collapsing on every front at once. In August 2026, the Pentagon released a review claiming its 2025 strikes killed no civilians — a report The Intercept called a "total whitewash," given the more than 120 civilians documented killed. A New Yorker investigation into the disappearance of the Ecuadorian fishing vessel Fiorella suggests the U.S. is striking boats it will not even acknowledge, opening a "hidden front" under Operation Southern Spear. And an Ecuadorian prosecutor investigating the boat strikes was assassinated. Rights groups, the families of dead men, and the Pentagon's own inspector general are all now demanding answers the administration is fighting to withhold.
Trump Is Now in an Open Feud With the Pope — Demanding the First American-Born Pontiff Stop Criticizing His Wars and Deportations, Questioning Whether Leo XIV Was Even Legitimately Elected, and Summoning a Vatican Diplomat to the Pentagon for a "Bitter Lecture" to Get in Line
A diplomatic rift between the United States and the Holy See that began in early 2026 has escalated into an open feud between Trump and Pope Leo XIV — the first U.S.-born pope. Leo has criticized, on moral and humanitarian grounds, the administration's foreign and domestic conduct: the war on Iran, military action toward Venezuela, the Greenland and Cuba crises, the halting of foreign aid, and the mass-deportation operation known as Operation Metro Surge. Trump's response has not been to answer the criticism but to try to silence the critic. He has demanded that Leo refrain from criticizing U.S. policy, and has gone so far as to question the legitimacy of Leo's election as pope. A top Vatican diplomat was summoned to the Pentagon and given what was described as a "bitter lecture" demanding the Pope get behind Trump. The White House invited Leo to celebrate America's 250th birthday in Washington; he declined. Secretary of State Marco Rubio — himself Catholic — was dispatched to meet the pontiff to manage the damage. It is an extraordinary spectacle: the President of the United States pressuring the Vatican to stop making moral objections to his killing and deporting, and impugning the validity of a papal conclave because the man it chose will not bless his policies. A president confident in the morality of his actions does not need to lecture the Pope into silence.
Invaded Venezuela and Captured Its President
The U.S. launched a military invasion of Venezuela, capturing President Maduro and killing at least 80 people. Trump declared the U.S. would "run the country." Brazil, France, China, and most of the world condemned it.
Alien Enemies Act Deportations to CECOT Prison
Trump invoked the 1798 Alien Enemies Act to deport Venezuelans to El Salvador's notorious CECOT mega-prison without due process. Courts found the deportations violated due process and held the administration in contempt.