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Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

reuters.com

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Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#111
post #90

I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.

Trump is blaming Venezuela for the fentanyl crisis in America. But it’s actually about stealing Venezuela’s oil and minerals:

https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-12-22/oil-gold...

Once a puppet regime has been established, you can bet Trump-related companies will get contracts to extract this stuff.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#112
Pre 2014 no Russian person would directly wish/hope/wait for the annexation of Crimea. Surely some fanatics and crazies existed, but society at large didn't "need" it.

One person made a decision.

And that started a 11+ years of propaganda, political acrobatics, war, manipulation of the masses, etc etc etc. Lots of things that are good for that one person to be able to stay in power.

Back to Venezuela and Trump - it's possible that Trump is testing grounds for a similar play. If he finds an enemy he can keep fighting for a long time - he will stay president for all that time. Elections won't matter. People will vote for those who fight "the enemy". You just need to create an enemy.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#114
post #90

I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.

Maduro isn't a good leader. He's been very repressive, very likely stole the 2024 election from his opponent. Venezuela has terrible economic problems and food and medicine shortages.

They have been assisting Russia, operating a shadow fleet of oil tankers that routinely disable transponders to evade international sanctions against each other. They've also been helping Iran to manufacture UAVs.

They are also a narco-state. The cartel there has at least partially captured the government.

Installing a more palatable leader and administration would perhaps allow the sanctions to be lifted, oil to be sold on the global market, and aid to flow in. The brain drain from the country might partly reverse.

Or, it could devolve into a civil war, insurgency, mass refugee exodus, etc.

All the above describes many countries, more or less. Why the US is targeting Venezuela in particular likely has to do with oil, geopolitical principle (Monroe doctrine) and advantage (weaken Iran and Russia), Venezuelan immigration to the U.S., distraction from Trump's failing health, personal & political scandals, "red meat" for the base and war-hawks, and the political security afforded to a "war time" president.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#115
A lot of talk about how the administration didn't even try to justify this, but I think that the administration actually believes they did justify it. They exist in some bubble completely un-tethered from reality. I don't know what that means for the future but it's terrifying.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#116
Hard to draw conclusions from early reports like this. Situations involving explosions tend to generate a lot of noise before verified facts emerge, especially in politically tense environments. Best to wait for confirmation on cause, scale, and impact before speculating, and hopefully accurate information follows quickly.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#117
post #97

Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela? Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?

I don't think you can meaningfully answer this without knowing the military goals or the ultimate outcome.

The worst-case outcome for the US is that it gets pulled into another unpopular, long-term conflict that undermines its international standing and allows assorted rogues to advance their goals (Ukraine, Taiwan, who knows what else).

The best-case outcome is that this is a successful regime change operation which nets the US a resource-rich trading partner, undermines Russia, and scares Iran. How you assess the likelihood of these outcomes sort of depends on your priors.

I would say, however, that the recent history of US military interventions doesn't inspire a lot of confidence. Venezuela is nowhere near being the cluster---- that we've dealt in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, etc, but who knows.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#118
post #97

Putting aside, for a moment, a lot of important questions around (gestures broadly at the political situation in the US), what are the economic implications of a conflict between the US and Venezuela? Is this likely to increase inflation? And what does this mean for FX -- are we likely to see a further weakening of the dollar, particularly against ex EUR?

It won't help with oil. The Permian's breakeven prices have crept upwards and, because VZ crude grades are high-sulfur, the US refinery complex can't absorb it without retooling away from the plants specialised for the low-sulfur Permian output.

Possibly dragging supply down, with no net effect at best.

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#119
post #90

I haven't been keeping track of this realm of politics closely. Is there a concise well-informed summary anywhere? Unfortunately everything I find contains a degree of polemic that I find is usually accompanied by low-information content.

John Stewart had a good piece about it on The Daily Show a few weeks ago. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C5QGzYFjVaU

Re: Trump says Venezuela’s Maduro captured after strikes

#120

That's not going to play well with DJT's bid for Nobel Peace Prize. Although I guess invading Sweden would be a solution, and there are probably plenty of reasons to invade Sweden - they must be looking badly at Russia, or he can mix it up with Groenland, or something. That being said, how many continents are we left from being able to call that a bona fide world war ? Can we count Africa as "in a state of war per de…

To be fair, the existence of Surströmming [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surstr%C3%B6mming] is a valid casus belli. We aren't talking about food here - it's "haloanaerobic bacteria producing hydrogen sulfide in a pressurized vessel". An unregulated bio-weapons program hiding in plain sight.
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