After an extended socialist tyranny, Venezuela’s economy has two elements: oil and drugs. These produce the money that is then used to pay and more importantly dispense basic commodities like food that keep regime loyalists… loyal.
Venezuela used to have access to medicine, food and even some of the more middle class things in life more available until it got its own Mamdani, a guy by the name of Hugo Chavez, who wrecked the economy, and his successor, the current dictator, Maduro, who nationalized the rest so that the country had no food and could hardly process its own energy resources.
But as long as Maduro has oil and drugs to move, he can stay in power.
President Trump’s seizure of Venezuela’s oil tankers is smart and effective in exactly the way that a lot of the old school regime change and nation building operations weren’t.
It’s easy and low risk for us. It’s profitable for us. And it’s devastating not only for Venezuela but the countries it ships oil to… which are our enemies.
Like Cuba and China.
Cuba’s intel operations helped take over Venezuela and suppress any uprisings. In return, Cuba got a source of wealth to keep the Communist regime going after the fall of the USSR.
And China, it’s our leading geopolitical world power foe.
Seizing the oil is a smart move that’s good for us and bad for all the bad guys.
Daniel Greenfield
Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical Left and Islamic terrorism. Daniel became CEO of the David Horowitz Freedom Center in 2025.
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