Naturally, a Venezuelan government forged in the face of a possible U.S. occupation would comply with the whims of the Trump administration — assuming that such a government, capable of stabilizing the country and earning the loyalty of the majority of its people, can even be pulled together. Later in the century, there were U.S.-aided coups in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973); invasions of Cuba (1961), the Dominican Republic (1983), and Grenada (1983); armed regime change in Panama (1989); the arming of the Contras in Nicaragua (1981) and death squads in El Salvador (1980 to 1992); and support for dictatorships in Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay in the 1970s and 1980s. Trump’s comments, he suggested, were “imbued with nostalgia and fantasy” and “all this flies in the face of economic and geological reality, which stands in the way of any rapid increase in Venezuelan output and oil profits.” That country’s oil supplies are, in fact, mostly in the form of heavy crude, which is particularly difficult to extract, and its infrastructure for accessing such oil is decrepit, thanks to years of sanctions and neglect.
Author: William D. Hartung
Published at: 2026-01-27 23:00:52
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