By Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman
The elements behind Trump's war on Venezuela are fourfold.
They center on the theft of Venezuela's oil; the removal of Cuba's primary lifeline; the protection of the dollar-based petrodollar; and Trump's desperate need to deflect attention from the deepening quagmire that is the Epstein scandal.
And the ultimate question they raise is: will his blatantly illegal violation of U.S. and international law finally result in the impeachment and removal of Trump from the White House or the 2026 mid-term elections lead to an end of his destructive control of the U.S. government.
The lethal litany of reasons for Trump's invasion is led by the U.S. seeking Venezuela's huge reserves of oil-- it supposedly has 303 billion barrels compared to the U.S. with but 45. After Venezuela is Saudi Arabia with 267 and Iran with 208 and then the list drops by 100.
"Venezuela unilaterally seized and sold American oil, American assets and American platform, costing us billions and billions of dollars," said Trump after the U.S. struck Venezuela and captured its president, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife, and flew them to New York to be tried on drug charges. Venezuela "did this a while ago, but we never had a president that did anything about it. They took all of our property...The socialist regime stole it from us during those previous administrations."
"Seizing a nation's oil provides no legal basis for waging war or committing murder," said David Swanson, executive director of the organization World BEYOND War as he announced a "Global Day of Action on January 17" named "No War on Venezuela."
Swanson said: "We need to be protesting at every U.S. embassy the world over, at every state and local government in the United States, and in Washington D.C. in a manner to prevent the functioning of the Monrovian [for Monroe Doctrine] mafia."
Swanson also said: "We can call it refreshing and exciting that Trump makes no pretense about hiding this motive. But ugly reasons for crimes don't legalize them any more than beautiful ones."
U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, on the "Face the Nation" TV program Sunday, said that "you don't invade a country to grab their resources".This, from the beginning, has been about getting rid of Maduro, grabbing Venezuela's oil for American oil companies and Trump's billionaire buddies. That's what this is about. That's why Donald Trump spent so much time yesterday talking about oil. "They took out the leader, and now they're demanding access to Venezuela's oil. That's what this has been about. I mean, Donald Trump, you know, claimed that he'd been against the war in Iraq from the beginning. That wasn't true, but what we do know is he said, well, having gone into Iraq, we should have gotten their oil...I think it's outrageous that the president of the United States puts American lives at risk so big American oil companies and his billionaire buddies can profit."
As to eliminating the flow of oil from Venezuela to Cuba, this represents a high priority for the U.S. and especially Trump and Marco Rubio, his secretary of state and also national security advisor from a family that are exiles from Cuba.
As NBC News reported Sunday: "Just one day after the U.S. conducted a military operation that led to the capture of Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro and his wife, Secretary of State Marco Rubio reiterated a warning to Cuba, telling NBC News' 'Meet the Press' that he thinks 'they're in a lot of trouble.'
"]I'm not going to talk to you about what our future steps are going to be and our policies are going to be right now in this regard,' Rubio said. 'But I don't think it's any mystery that we are not big bans of the Cuban regime, who, by the way, are the ones that were propping up Maduro.'
"Rubio's latest remarks come after he and President Donald Trump signaled at a new conference Saturday that the administration could begin targeting Cuba's government next, with the secretary of state issuing a stern warning to Cuban officials: 'If I lived in Havana and I was in the government, I'd be concerned.'"
Then there is keeping the petrodollar U.S.-dollar based. "The Minority Report" ran a piece Sunday on Substack headed: "The Real Reason Why the U.S. Overthrew Venezuela. And why it all started in China in November 2025."
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