Oil industry in Venezuela is Chinese, or for China, this is not gonna change either.
What we are seeing here is a show, or may be also more related to Venezuela being a narco-state.
The oil production there is completely decimated. They have huge reserves but production is low and falling because the regime doesn't do any maintenance or support of anything in the oil production and supply chain. It is very much the meme of "living in the ruins of a once great society".
>Her brother, Jorge Rodriguez, the head of the national assembly, is in Caracas, three sources with knowledge of his whereabouts said.
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-vice-presid...
>While reports circulated that Ms. Rodríguez was in Russia at the time of the attacks, Ms. Rodríguez is in Caracas, according to three people close to her. Russian state media also denied reports that she was in Moscow.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/03/world/americas/maduro-ven...
"Trump says that the US is going to be "strongly involved" in Venezuela's oil industry moving forward." [0]
(Permalink, since it's on the second page of the live thread now.)
This live format is kind of irritating. Here's another one:
> He claims the oil business in Venezuela has been a "bust", and that large US companies are going to go into the country to fix the infrastructure and "start making money for the country"
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/c5yqygxe41pt?post=asset%3A27af...
I mention Taiwan because I think it is the only currency that could make the Chinese government give up those barrels of oil without retaliating.
The fact is, his tactics and plans end where his nose does.
Many of his advisors are capable of planning, but there are times he just doesnt listen to them and lets whatever heavy metals are in the spray tan do all the thinking. See January Sixth for one example that got people killed. See USAID for another.
Today. She's still part of the same regime and party. It's not obvious Trump will let her stay in charge. Also the control the government had over the criminal gangs/syndicates/cartels was seemingly very weak anyway. Even if the current decapitated regime is allowed to stay it won't be very strong.
Alternatively there's María Corina Machado who overwhelmingly won the presidential primary for that election but wasn't allowed to run.
I am not sure what you mean by "control the government had"...they are the same thing. It is like the situation with IRA and Sinn Fein, this bizarre roleplay where people (for various reasons) went to massive effort to imply they were separate when it was obvious they were led by the same people. There is no distinction between the government and cartels...the assumption that there is makes no sense at all given the latitude they have to operate.
What's he going to do, kidnap her? Oh, wait.
If if had to guess, Maduro could have been take out with a GBU or two, but the US holds a grudge against him so they took him out to humiliate him, and send a message to others.
That is an insane take
I'm skeptical, as it seems to have that ring of circa-2003 WMD justification about it, but I won't dismiss it out of hat.
And if the US intends to prosecute Maduro on drug crimes in SDNYC (good!), then they'll have to present evidence to the court, which presumably means they think they have a case.
Personally, I doubt Maduro intentionally ran a narco-state as a primary focus. But I can very much see a sizable narcotics enterprise, with state support, being used as a key way for him to enrich select supporters absent a viable economy. Money to pay the generals has to come from somewhere...
