PETROSTATE DILEMMA

GLOBAL OVERSUPPLY, LOW OIL PRICES, AND A SHORTAGE OF INVESTABLE CAPITAL MEAN THAT TRUMP'S APPROACH POSES AN EXISTENTIAL RISK TO ANY VENEZUELAN GOVERNMENT

- Terry Lynn Karl

US President Donald Trump’s ongoing efforts to control Venezuela’s oil rest on the assumption that the US can successfully “run” a country twice the size of Iraq. Rather than projecting strength abroad, however, this military overreach reveals the growing vulnerability of a president whose once-firm grip on American politics is steadily weakening.

Against this backdrop, the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signals the beginning of a shift toward a more militarized global energy market. It also lays bare the consequences of deliberately destabilizing an oil-dependent economy. Far from resolving Venezuela’s ongoing crisis, Trump's actions threaten to make it far worse. Regime change in Venezuela is unlikely to end with a clear “Mission Accomplished” moment. Iraq alone required at least nine years of sustained US involvement that plunged the country into a civil war, claiming the lives of more than 100,000 Iraqi civilians and costing American taxpayers roughly $2 trillion —an expense the US can hardly afford today. This conflict would also unfold much closer to home, less than 965 km from Puerto Rico.

Trump’s intervention raises two critical questions: Who will govern Venezuela? And who will benefit, at least in the short to medium term, from its oil wealth? In petrostates, these questions are inseparable, as the survival of their regimes ~ whether democratic or authoritarian -depends on their ability to capture profits generated by oil exports and distribute them to key constituencies. The current Venezuelan crisis sets several troubling foreign-policy precedents. Most notably, it is the first US military intervention to dispense entirely with humanitarian and security justifications in favor of an explicit resource grab.