Venezuela, democracy and oil

For more on how the concept of “narcoterrorism” is shaping the war on drugs — and being weaponised in contemporary geopolitics — explore insights from our recent event.

Trump’s gunboat diplomacy

It wasn’t a surprise, exactly.Trump had been telegraphing for months that he was planning to take action against Venezuela. The administration called President Nicolás Maduro a narco-terrorist and carried out dozens of lethal strikes on small boats near the Venezuelan coast. More recently, it began seizing tankers carrying Venezuelan oil.But the form that action took — special forces seizing Maduro and his wife from a military compound in a nighttime operation, and taking them to New York, where Maduro now sits in a Brooklyn jail — was still brazen enough to be shocking.The U.S. is keeping a military presence in the Caribbean to impose its policy agenda on Venezuela, while the Maduros face narco-terrorism and drug trafficking charges. Trump even acknowledged the potential for entanglement: “We’re not afraid of boots on the ground.” And he was remarkably open about his intention to have U.S. companies tap into Venezuela’s lucrative oil reserves.If you think all this has echoes of the Iraq War that overthrew Saddam Hussein, you’re not alone. One big difference is that this is the Western Hemisphere, which Trump officials have claimed as America’s rightful sphere of influence.