By Doug Casey
International Man
January 30, 2026
International Man: President Trump justified the operation and capture of Nicolas Maduro by saying it was because of drug trafficking and illegal immigration.
What is the real objective of the US involvement in Venezuela?
Doug Casey: The lies that the US government has put out regarding Venezuela are shameful. The amount of drug trafficking done in and from Venezuela is trivial. But the killing of at least 80 people on the high seas with no proof of wrongdoing is very serious. We may never know what the real truth is, but drugs have little or nothing to do with it.
It may be Venezuela's oil resources. Note that I said "resources", not "reserves." These are well-defined technical terms in the mining and oil businesses. A "resource" simply means that a mineral exists. That's very different from a "reserve", which is a resource that can be economically recovered at existing prices with existing technology.
The 300 billion barrels of oil that's always mentioned in the press materialized out of thin air after oil briefly hit $140 a barrel in 2008. The Venezuelans arbitrarily raised their reserves to 300 billion barrels based on politics, not geology. And everyone has slavishly and stupidly repeated that number ever since. What we know for sure is that under the socialist Chavez and Maduro regimes oil production has dropped from 3 million BPD to under 1 million BPD. That's because most competent oil men have left the country over the last 30 years, there's been minimal maintenance of old facilities, and no new investment. The regime has used all the cash flow to stay in power.
Reserves are probably about 30 billion barrels right now-10% of the touted number. Paradoxically, resources may have gone up to a trillion as technology has enhanced discovery and recovery. But who knows ? It's pure guesswork. The bottom line is that there's little economic oil in Venezuela at the moment. And their one million BPD is a rounding error on world production of about 82 MBPD.
Trump being who he is, perhaps it comes down to his having no personal relationship with Maduro and finding him annoying. But I've got to say it was clever to just kidnap Maduro, avoiding a messy invasion. Maduro was a slimy criminal, and good riddance. The criminals who remain in power, led by the ex-VP Delcy Rodriguez, will probably do as they're told, if they know what's good for them. And it acts as an example to other governments-bend the knee to The Donald, or you could be next.
Of course, what the US is doing with Venezuela is nothing new in world history, and is relatively mellow. Going back to the days of the Peloponnesian War, Athens insisted that the island of Melos join their Delian League in the war against Sparta. Melos said that it wanted to be neutral. Athens gave the Melians an ultimatum, and the Melians didn't comply. Whereupon Athens-the original enlightened "city on a hill"-attacked, killing or enslaving the entire population.
Thucydides said: "The strong do as they will, and the weak endure what they must." It's been true throughout history, and it's true today. Trump knows nothing about history, but he's got the street instincts of a bully-which can work. For a while...
International Man: What do you make of the US interest in Venezuela's oil ? Is it about controlling a strategic asset or denying leverage to rivals like China?
Doug Casey: While Venezuela has a lot of hydrocarbons, what's not very well-known is that their oil is sour (it has lots of deleterious sulfur content) and heavy (it's very viscous, verging towards tar). That means it's extra expensive to produce and refine.
To capitalize on Venezuelan oil, especially after 30 years of non-investment and mismanagement, it will take scores of billions to renovate and improve the antiquated Venezuelan plant. But what company will-willingly-make that kind of investment in a notably unstable country, when they're barely making money on light sweet oil right in the US?
As the chairman of Exxon told Trump-which greatly annoyed Trump-Venezuela is "uninvestible" because it's so unstable. There's no way of telling when stability will return to Venezuela. I've been there three or four times over the years, and can only say I have no desire to look for a "crisis investing" opportunity. I say that for a half-dozen reasons that we can discuss at some future date.
Maybe Trump wants to "run" Venezuela because he thinks increasing its production will keep energy prices low. Maybe-in 20 or 30 years. But by then, the whole world will be radically different. In the meantime, almost all of Venezuela's production goes to China. A million BPD of low-grade oil from the other side of the world isn't that important to China, but I'm sure they'd like a return on-or of-the $80 billion they're said to have invested there.
Venezuelan oil is unimportant to the US or to American oil companies. And the Venezuelan drug trade is a fabrication. I think Trump invaded mainly to show everybody "Who's their Daddy". Yeah, that's the ticket... It's always worked really well for the US in the past.
International Man: Do you see US actions in Venezuela as part of a broader pivot to reassert dominance over the Americas, effectively treating the Western Hemisphere as a strategic fortress in an increasingly multipolar world?
Doug Casey: It's funny. Though the US is only 4% of the world's population, its fiat currency is failing, its government is bankrupt, and it's been de-industrializing for decades, it thinks it can control not just the hemisphere, but the entire planet. I suppose that's why Trump insists on increasing the War Department's budget by 50%, to $1.5 trillion...
But what do the Central and South Americans think about being considered part of the US empire and under our direct control ? I believe they'd prefer to work with China. The Chinese present absolutely no direct threat to Latin America, but the US does. Furthermore, the Latinos have always resented the US sending in the Marines or the CIA to bully them on numerous occasions.
They resent being made part of the Greater American Empire, especially if they're denied full access to cheap Chinese goods, which is clearly part of what passes for 4D chess in Trump's increasingly megalomaniacal mind. So, although the US might want to make Venezuela part of our rickety empire, I doubt that the Venezuelans, or any other Latin American country, feel the same way.
The kidnapping of Maduro, just like the similar invasion of Panama and the kidnapping of Noriega in 1989, or Grenada in 1983, inclines them to be more friendly to the Chinese than the US. There's very little that they can buy from the US that the Chinese can't provide much more cheaply, and with less risk.
International Man: How much of Washington's Venezuela policy is really about China's growing economic and political footprint in Latin America, and do you think the US is late or desperate in responding to that shift?
Doug Casey: Quite a bit of it, actually. The US government wants to damage China, both in its own backyard by intervening with Taiwan, and by keeping China out of the Western Hemisphere.
I'm afraid that we're going to fail in that regard because, looking at it from the Latin American point of view, China is non-threatening militarily, economically, or culturally. It's a huge source of capital and provides very favorable trade benefits. None of this is true with the US anymore.
International Man: If the US succeeds in tightening control over Venezuela and the region more broadly, what are the long-term consequences, both economically and politically, for Americans and for Latin American nations themselves?
Doug Casey: Trying to hold Latin America in a vice grip under the so-called Donroe Doctrine is a bad idea. It will wind up costing the US billions to "defend Latin America," the way NATO-which should have been disbanded with the fall of the USSR in 1991-has cost the US hundreds of billions of dollars to "defend" Europe.
The Latin Americans will resent the US trying to keep other countries out, in the same way that Americans resented the British keeping other countries from trading with the US colonies before the Revolution. That was one of the major causes of the American Revolution.
Coercing or bribing Latin governments to do Washington's bidding will cost the US scores of billions it doesn't have. It's especially unwise at a time when the Red people and the Blue people in the US are on the cusp of something like a civil war.
Trying to "run" Venezuela is a bad idea from every point of view. Especially while the US government is engaged in similar misadventures in a half-dozen other places in the world.
Reprinted with permission from International Man.