Trump Relies on Distortions to Support His Pressure Campaign on Venezuela

The escalation of United States pressure against the government of Nicolás Maduro in late 2025 has evolved into a high-stakes geopolitical confrontation, marked by a clear divergence between publicly stated justifications and the underlying strategic imperatives driving Washington’s actions. As of December 19, 2025, the declaration of a “total and complete blockade” on sanctioned oil tankers operating in Venezuelan waters, coupled with aggressive naval posturing, signals a shift from previous sanctions regimes to a near-blockade posture aimed at crippling the nation’s primary source of revenue.

This comprehensive offensive, officially framed around combating narcotics trafficking and the designation of the Maduro regime as a “foreign terrorist organization,” conceals a deeper ambition rooted in countering great power competition in the Western Hemisphere. The inherent reliance on often-repeated, though fiercely denied, allegations serves as a critical mechanism to bridge the gap between the stated foreign policy concerns and the deeply material economic imperatives at play: securing control over the world’s largest oil reserves and denying strategic footholds to America’s primary global rivals.

Geopolitical Undercurrents: The Great Power Competition in the South

Denying Strategic Footholds to Beijing and Moscow in the Hemisphere

The strategic calculus underpinning the current U.S. policy is inextricably linked to the broader global competition for influence, particularly with the People’s Republic of China and the Russian Federation. For years, as Western capital and technology fled the embattled Venezuelan economy following earlier sanctions, Caracas predictably turned to Beijing and Moscow to maintain a semblance of economic activity. This relationship was solidified through significant energy and mining development deals, with China, in particular, becoming Venezuela’s largest crude buyer, with December 2025 shipments reportedly averaging over 600,000 barrels per day, accounting for approximately 4% of China’s total oil imports.

Chinese lending, primarily via state banks, has amounted to tens of billions of dollars between 2007 and 2024, often structured through complex oil-for-loans mechanisms that effectively lock in future production allocations at set floor prices. Russia’s cooperation, while less voluminous than China’s, includes joint ventures in Orinoco Belt operations and extensive strategic partnership agreements signed in May 2025, covering hydrocarbons, finance, military cooperation, and security, with a ten-year duration. From the perspective of the architects of the current pressure campaign, allowing a country possessing the world’s largest oil reserves to become a key strategic and economic ally of America’s primary rivals in its immediate neighborhood represents a profound strategic failure.

The explicit goal, therefore, is to engineer a political transition that effectively nullifies these existing agreements, thereby securing the hemisphere as a zone of assured American influence and, critically, denying rivals access to essential resources and potential strategic depth on the American continent. The December 2025 National Security Strategy explicitly framed the Western Hemisphere as a “core interest zone” for the U.S., underscoring this aim to deny Beijing access to resources such as critical minerals and potential military installations. A successful outcome would bolster American geopolitical standing across the entire region, providing a powerful example to other nations considering deeper alignment with U.S. competitors, effectively reinforcing the principles embedded in the revived hemispheric doctrine, sometimes referenced as a revival of the Monroe Doctrine.

Analyzing the Potential for Economic Contagion and Regional Instability

While the immediate goal may be resource consolidation and geopolitical advantage, the execution of such an aggressive policy carries significant, often downplayed, risks of widespread regional destabilization. The intense economic strangulation applied through sanctions, dramatically escalated by the December 2025 naval blockade on *sanctioned* oil tankers—an action that has already resulted in the seizure of at least one vessel carrying Venezuelan crude—creates an environment ripe for miscalculation and unpredictable secondary effects.

A sudden collapse or a protracted period of intense internal conflict could easily spill over established borders, creating massive new waves of migrant populations fleeing instability, thereby placing direct political and economic strain on neighboring countries, a concern amplified by the recent revocation of Temporary Protected Status (TPS) for hundreds of thousands of Venezuelan nationals in the U.S. in January 2025. Furthermore, the disruption of vital petroleum flows—even those under sanction—sends a chilling signal to global shipping and insurance industries. Following the initial announcement of the blockade, global oil prices experienced volatility, with Brent crude futures rising 0.4% to $61.37 per barrel and WTI increasing 0.4% to $57.67 per barrel as of mid-December 2025. The seizure of vessels, led by the U.S. Coast Guard in one publicized instance with armed forces visibly boarding the ship, constitutes what Caracas has termed “criminal naval piracy,” raising the general cost of commerce throughout the Caribbean and potentially creating volatility in global energy pricing. The administration appears to be operating under the assumption that a rapid, decisive victory is achievable before these secondary negative externalities metastasize into a larger regional crisis that undermines the very stability the hemispheric doctrine purports to protect.

The Counter-Narrative from Caracas and International Legal Challenges

Official Condemnation of Aggression as Illicit State Action

The response from the incumbent government in Caracas has been swift, absolute, and framed in the most aggressive possible terms. They refuse to acknowledge any justification provided by the external actors, characterizing the naval incursions and asset seizures not as legitimate enforcement actions but as clear violations of sovereignty and outright acts of aggression designed to steal national wealth. The deliberate choice of terminology, such as “piracy,” serves to rally domestic support against what is portrayed as a rapacious external power attempting to secure oil reserves by force, directly contradicting the narrative of liberating a people from an oppressive regime.

The government consistently maintains that its leaders play no role in the international drug trade, and that the allegations are fabricated pretexts to justify an illegal intervention aimed at resource expropriation. Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez has publicly called the actions a “violation of international law” and pledged to denounce them at the United Nations. Furthermore, in response to the escalating military pressure, which includes the deployment of a major U.S. fleet carrying thousands of personnel toward Venezuelan waters, the Maduro government has sought to project international backing, praising ties with China and Russia and requesting that the U.N. Security Council convene over the U.S. “aggression”. This rhetorical defense is essential for maintaining domestic control and mobilizing support among those who view any foreign interference, regardless of the stated motivation, as an unforgivable historical wound being reopened.

Internal Security Concerns and the Risk of Widespread Societal Disarray

Even independent analysts and experts cited in critiques of the current policy have pointed to the dangerous potential for unintended consequences should the pressure campaign succeed in its primary objective of regime removal. The concern is that the current government, while deeply flawed and facing widespread discontent following the disputed 2024 election results, currently maintains a degree of centralized control over the state apparatus. The sudden, forceful removal of this structure, without a viable, ready-to-govern alternative possessing sufficient legitimacy and control over security forces, is projected to lead to a period of profound chaos.

Historical precedents from other interventions, such as those in Iraq and Libya, serve as stark warnings, illustrating how the initial euphoria of regime change can quickly devolve into protracted sectarian or civil conflict. Such prolonged internal turmoil would not only negate the humanitarian goals but would also actively deter the very American corporations being promised future access. The risk profile for long-term investment in an unsecured, post-conflict environment becomes unacceptably high, potentially favoring instead those actors, perhaps from rival nations, who are less sensitive to immediate political stability and more focused on securing long-term contractual rights in a more volatile setting. The pressure campaign is thus a gamble where the pathway to economic access is itself the architect of potential long-term instability, a risk that analysts suggest may be understated by those prioritizing the immediate goal of regime isolation.

Long-Term Implications for Foreign Investment and Risk Assessment

Historical Parallels: Deterrence of Western Corporate Re-entry Post-Conflict

The debate over the long-term viability of the entire strategy hinges on the expectations of the Western private sector. While opposition figures, such as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Maria Corina Machado, have expressed “absolute” support for the strategy, viewing it as a necessary elevation of Venezuela to a U.S. national security priority, the method of achieving that opportunity—a military-backed campaign culminating in seizures and potential regime collapse—is inherently destabilizing.

Historically, periods of intense U.S. military or covert involvement, even when leading to regime change, have often resulted in a temporary chilling effect on significant, long-term direct foreign investment by Western firms, particularly those based in the United States. The primary concern for multinational corporations is the bottom line and the risk-reward calculation. Evidence from previous regional interventions suggests that while initial exploratory interest may spike, the tangible commitment of capital for massive infrastructure and resource projects is often delayed by years, as firms wait for comprehensive political and legal stabilization.

The current situation features complex legal battles over expropriated assets, with ConocoPhillips holding a claim of $12 billion, which is poised for partial satisfaction through the ordered auction of the PDVSA-owned U.S. refining company Citgo. This judicial recovery method stands in sharp contrast to the military-backed seizure of physical assets at sea. The ensuing vacuum of certainty created by this coercive environment can paradoxically allow less risk-averse, state-backed competitors from rival powers to move in rapidly, securing preferential agreements in the initial, more chaotic post-transition phase, precisely the outcome the current administration seeks to avoid by prioritizing its own regional influence.

The Balance Sheet: Weighing Potential Profit Against Enduring Conflict Risk

Ultimately, the pressure campaign represents a high-stakes gamble where the potential for securing access to the world’s largest oil reserves must be weighed against the tangible risk of creating a failed or fractured state in the immediate American sphere of influence. The narrative distortion—placing drug interdiction at the forefront while focusing policy on oil control and confronting geopolitical rivals—is a strategic necessity to bridge the gap between the stated foreign policy concerns and the deeply material economic imperatives driving the action.

The administration has openly linked the pressure on Venezuela to broader economic decoupling efforts from China, suggesting the conflict is a necessary proxy battle to reduce China’s footprint in the hemisphere. If the result is not a swift, clean transition to a favorable government, but rather a prolonged, violent internal struggle, the massive value of the oil assets may become a liability rather than an asset for years to come, mirroring the protracted challenges faced in securing investment following post-conflict reconstruction elsewhere. The current escalation, featuring the deployment of the USS Gerald R. Ford carrier group and a total blockade threat, confirms that the administration has decided the potential reward—securing a key strategic resource and eliminating a rival’s foothold in the hemisphere—justifies the profound risks associated with overtly challenging a sovereign government through near-blockade tactics and the threat of direct military confrontation. The ensuing developments in the Venezuelan crisis will therefore serve as a critical test case for this aggressive, resource-centric foreign policy paradigm in the mid-twenty-first century.