Venezuela air attack

I’ll watch that in a minute, just wanted to say that this is zero about democracy.

Trump is ruling by coercion. If Rodriguez doesn’t come up to scratch she will be removed and replaced.

Where is Vance in all this?

I have just watched part of a CNN interview of Stephen Miller. This is the man who, it is claimed, was the major contributor to the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and, it is claimed, is the person pulling Trump’s strings.

I think it’s terrifying

Would anyone here on Gnet nod along with what he is saying?

This isn’t an AI fake. The link is to BlueSky social

bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3mbplx5sygx2h

David49

foxie48

China gets it's oil from a lot of different countries. David is correct in that it's biggest supplier is Russia, it takes about 47% of it's oil but it also takes 68% of Venezuela's oil that it sells at a heavily discounted price to China. Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world and China will be most unhappy to see that potential supply under the control of the US. IMO These issues are not about "now" they are about who controls long term access to important world resources.

My point was China can easily make up the shortfall if Venezuela stops supplying, when sanctions are removed it will no longer be cheap oil China will pay the going rate.

There are no oil sanctions on China they buy the cheapest available, Russia, Iran and Venezuela, despite the Sanctions we put on all those countries.

We put sanctions on those countries because they are despotic regimes, China laughs at us and benefits from cheap oil

foxie48

China gets it's oil from a lot of different countries. David is correct in that it's biggest supplier is Russia, it takes about 47% of it's oil but it also takes 68% of Venezuela's oil that it sells at a heavily discounted price to China. Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world and China will be most unhappy to see that potential supply under the control of the US. IMO These issues are not about "now" they are about who controls long term access to important world resources.

My point was China can easily make up the shortfall if Venezuela stops supplying, when sanctions are removed it will no longer be cheap oil China will pay the going rate.

Anyone asked the Venezuelans?

Never ever think an authoritarian populist leader like Trump has the ordinary bloke in the street best interest at heart.

The don’t. Never have, never will.

Syracute

Did you listen to Trumps speech at all ? Thats all he talked about was oil and how much money it would bring to the USA.
Very little was spoken about the plight of the Venezualan people . He doesn’t care about that at all.

Profit for the US plays well for his supporters at home.
Venezuelans now have the opportunity to rejoin the international community and become more prosperous, the US will support them doing this.

They could stay in the poverty and chaos Maduro gave them or improve it’s their choice, they have a new president we can only hope they make the right choices. Free elections need to follow soon.

Well so much for democracy in Venezuela! Trump has announced he's in charge and there won't be early elections. Who elected Trump?

Lemonjam - has to be better than China or Russia, I guess.

madeleine45

Whilst I have no sympathy with Madura, the fact that the USA actually went onto another sovereign country and took the president and his wife prisoner should surely make the rest of the western world if not the USA itself deal with Donald Trump. He seems to think that being the president gives him the right to just dream up more schemes to improve the wealth of D Trump, to be entitled to just decide he wants someone elses country and he can have it, mostly because they have oil that he wants and of course he hopes to get all the minerals and so forth too. I recently visited Greenland and can definitely say that no one I spoke to wants him or any of the usa taking over their land.

Do you remember your Animal Farm ? Well Trumps little piggy eyes are certainly looking round to see what else he can take. He obviously thinks that "some animals are more equal than others" with himself as the one with the most entitlement to things.

He has become more irrational and self serving, and it is time that he was told that just wanting something does not give him the right to take things, and his bully boy statements will not be allowed to go ahead.

I absolutely agree!

Trump and his family have been making money out of lots of things since his first presidency. Supposedly every time his SIL is supposed to be dealing with diplomatic issues he quickly turns the conversation round to trade deals.

Elegran. Trump is 79 years old. No way will oil extraction from Venezuela have a quick turnaround. How exactly can Trump and his family personally gain from it? Surely Shell and other major oil companies will want to see a huge profit from drilling?

Frankly, unless the president of Venezuela was ordering his own troops to attack the USA it’s really not Trump nor USA’s business what’s happening in countries other than theirs.

Trump simply cannot help himself!

I don’t think however corrupt the Venezuelan president is kidnapping him and locking him up in New York simply cannot be justified.

Trump is a menace, out of control and a threat to all countries

ronib

Surely an even bigger huge potential benefit for the good people of Venezuela? I understand it’s a poor country. Makes no sense.

I'm willing to bet that somehow Trump will see more of the oil profits than the people of Venezuela.

He used the term ‘kick ass’ in his speech I think. I think Rubio did too (?). I couldn’t believe that the so called leader of the free world could speak like that. What sort of level has America descended to?

Did you listen to Trumps speech at all ? Thats all he talked about was oil and how much money it would bring to the USA.
Very little was spoken about the plight of the Venezualan people . He doesn’t care about that at all.

ronib

Surely an even bigger huge potential benefit for the good people of Venezuela? I understand it’s a poor country. Makes no sense.

Can you honestly see the people in Venezuela benefitting in any way from future increased oil sales?

The old regime is still in place. The only people I can see benefitting is them.

China gets it's oil from a lot of different countries. David is correct in that it's biggest supplier is Russia, it takes about 47% of it's oil but it also takes 68% of Venezuela's oil that it sells at a heavily discounted price to China. Venezuela has the largest reserves in the world and China will be most unhappy to see that potential supply under the control of the US. IMO These issues are not about "now" they are about who controls long term access to important world resources.

Surely an even bigger huge potential benefit for the good people of Venezuela? I understand it’s a poor country. Makes no sense.

America is understood to be the largest oil producer in the world but thats light crude oil. It’s still dependent on oil imports therefore.

According to Sky News Venezuela however has the largest oil RESERVES in the world so access for the US is of huge potential benefit.

Flick1

The US invaded Venezuela and captured Maduro because he was selling cheap oil to China and to put an end to Russia ‘laundering’ their oil through Caracas. It’s not about Trump ‘stealing’ oil.

Venezuela under Maduro was producing just 1% of global oil well below its potential, that isn’t going to make much difference to anyone. We might have expected China to protest but it’s getting all the oil it wants from Russia ignoring world opinion of Putin, they are probably keeping a low profile because the Panama Canal is Chinese controlled, another potential target for Trump.

Flickl 18.16 "The US invaded Venezuela and captured Maduro because he was selling cheap oil to China and to put an end to Russia ‘laundering’ their oil through Caracas. It’s not about Trump ‘stealing’ oil".

So Trump himself wants to control Venezuela's oil. Oleg Deripaska, a powerful Russian billionaire industrialist, seems to agree when he posted on Telegram:

“If our American ‘partners’ gain access to Venezuela’s oilfields, more than half of the world’s oil reserves will end up under their control”.

The US invaded Venezuela and captured Maduro because he was selling cheap oil to China and to put an end to Russia ‘laundering’ their oil through Caracas. It’s not about Trump ‘stealing’ oil.

Russia, along with the rest of the world is weighing up Trump's actions in Venezuela. Fascinating to hear their views as Putin and Madura have been close allies:

"Still, Russia’s loss of Venezuela carries several tangible costs for Moscow. If a US-friendly government were to emerge in Caracas, American military and defence specialists could gain access to large parts of the Venezuelan armed forces’ arsenal, including advanced Russian-made systems supplied over the past decade. Those include S-300VM air-defence systems delivered in 2013, as well as an undisclosed number of Pantsir and Buk-M2 systems transferred in late 2025.

Moscow has also extended billions of dollars in loans to Venezuela, much of which it is now unlikely ever to be recovered.

A more pressing concern for Moscow, however, is oil: US access to Venezuela’s vast reserves could push global prices lower, threatening one of Russia’s most important sources of income.
“If our American ‘partners’ gain access to Venezuela’s oilfields, more than half of the world’s oil reserves will end up under their control,” wrote Oleg Deripaska, a powerful Russian billionaire industrialist, on Telegram. “And it appears their plan will be to ensure that the price of our oil does not rise above $50 a barrel.”

Still, some in Moscow see room for a bleak kind of optimism. Trump’s kidnapping of Maduro, they argue, could deal a final blow to the rules-based international order and usher in a more nakedly 19th-century-style world – one in which power, rather than law, shapes outcomes and the globe is divided into rival spheres of influence, a model long championed by Russia.
“Team Trump is tough and cynical in advancing its country’s interests,” Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s former president and one of its most hawkish voices, wrote approvingly. “Removing Maduro had nothing to do with drugs – only oil, and they openly admit this. The law of the strongest is clearly more powerful than ordinary justice.”

Might weighing up might.....

For those justifying Trump's act of war on Venezuela should look at this posted by the wife of one of Trump's advisers. We should all be concerned.
x.com/KatieMiller/status/2007541679293944266

Whilst I have no sympathy with Madura, the fact that the USA actually went onto another sovereign country and took the president and his wife prisoner should surely make the rest of the western world if not the USA itself deal with Donald Trump. He seems to think that being the president gives him the right to just dream up more schemes to improve the wealth of D Trump, to be entitled to just decide he wants someone elses country and he can have it, mostly because they have oil that he wants and of course he hopes to get all the minerals and so forth too. I recently visited Greenland and can definitely say that no one I spoke to wants him or any of the usa taking over their land.

Do you remember your Animal Farm ? Well Trumps little piggy eyes are certainly looking round to see what else he can take. He obviously thinks that "some animals are more equal than others" with himself as the one with the most entitlement to things.

He has become more irrational and self serving, and it is time that he was told that just wanting something does not give him the right to take things, and his bully boy statements will not be allowed to go ahead.