If
Guaidó comes to power and privatizes PDVSA, U.S. oil companies —
with Chevron and Halliburton leading the pack — stand to make
record profits in the world’s most oil-rich nation, as they did in
Iraq following the privatization of its national oil industry after
U.S. intervention.
by
Whitney Webb
Part
6 - Trump ready to test out his “Take the Oil” intervention
policy
Though
Trump has yet to make bold, Boltonesque public statements regarding
the clear link between Venezuelan oil and his administration’s
regime-change policy, his past statements regarding U.S.
interventions in oil-rich nations elsewhere show that Trump has long
backed U.S. intervention in foreign nations if it meant that the U.S.
could secure that country’s natural resources, namely oil.
For
instance, in 2011, Trump told the Wall Street Journal that he
would support U.S.-backed intervention in Libya if the U.S. could
“take the oil.” In the eight years since the U.S.-backed
intervention, Libya remains without a central government and is now
the site of rampant terrorist activity, a massive illegal arms trade,
and a booming slave trade.
Then, in
2016, candidate Trump again asserted that the U.S. should “take
the oil” when intervening or invading foreign nations. Trump
told NBC News in September 2016 that the terror group Daesh (ISIS)
emerged only because the U.S. had not taken Iraq’s oil after the
2003 invasion.
Trump
also stated, with regard to Iraq, that: “We go in, we spent $3
trillion. We lose thousands and thousands of lives, and then look,
what happens is we get nothing. You know, it used to be the victor
belong the spoils. Now, there was no victor there, believe me. There
was no victory. But I always said, take the oil.”
While
Trump has not publicly touted his “take the oil” policy in
relation to the current situation in Venezuela, he has done so
privately during several White House meetings early on in his
presidency. According to the Wall Street Journal: “Mr.
Trump requested a briefing on Venezuela in his second day in office,
often speaking to his team about the suffering of Venezuelan people
and the country’s immense potential to become a rich nation through
its oil reserves.”
Thus,
Bolton’s as well as Senator Rubio’s frank admissions that the
Trump administration’s Venezuela regime-change policy is about the
oil and giving that oil to American companies, are clearly aligned
with a policy that the president himself has long supported.
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