Ever hear the expression, "You can take the boy out of the country, but, you can't take the country out of the boy." Well, Trump managed to take Maduro to the USA, but, he is still in charge in Venezuela.
I suppose Trump figures he can control every sanctioned tanker for profit, including Russia's rouge/shadow fleet. The only way that is possible is war. I don't see it any other way. I suppose Chevron is still pumping a lonely functioning well in Venezuela for profit, but, there is still some of the profit going to an autocratic regime.
Trump is going to control a fleet of seized oil tankers to come and go from Venezuela and I suppose ultimately Russia and any other sanctioned petroleum country. Guess what the USA military is going to do for the next three years? It will be baby sitting seized oil tankers full of American military personnel rather than the normal crew. It sort of is what Somali pirates do.
It is also breaking every international law that exists, sanctioned or not. Trump is stealing the petroleum assets of Venezuela, probably plans for Nicaragua, and onto Russia as well. If sanctions are to work a president of the USA doesn't put the country's military in charge of the petroleum business. That is a nationalized business.
That is not only nationalizing the petroleum industry, it is also putting the USA national security into limbo. Why? Because there is no way the USA military can petrol the entire world and maintain security at home. Working for the nationalized petroleum industry (as witnessed with the fleet of ships in the Caribbean Sea) will disperse the USA military too much. This is military science and it is firmly anchored in reality.
There is a reason why the USA has the greatest military in the world. It is because it is a defense military concentrated on protecting the sovereign country. When the USA military is tasked to protect profits for the petroleum industry as well as the USA treasury it no longer has the protection of the country at the heart of it's mission, it is pretending that the petroleum industry will pay the bills and that is more important than actual military oversight.
TRUE SANCTIONS do not include nationalizing a foreign country's assets.
TRUE SANCTIONS end the use of a foreign country's assets when that country is hostile to the USA and has incredible human rights violations. That is Venezuela. It lost it's way. Under Hugo Chavez (click here), Venezuela had somewhat of a decent quality of life for it's people. Chavez basically managed with a degree of success the country's petroleum assets which included selling oil to the USA during harsh winter months. It is hard to argue with a dictator when he actually has a vision that includes the well being of human beings.
Chavez would send it's best and brightest to the USA for an education. The USA's universities were successful in graduating students from Venezuela. This is the strange part, they never really returned to serve the people of Venezuela within a structure of government to improve the status of the country (it is on this blog). Chavez encouraged the students accepted into USA universities to stay in the USA and make a better life for themselves then they could have in Venezuela. That is the absolute truth.
Maduro was a different leader than Chavez, who complained plenty about the USA and capitalism. It was under Maduro when Venezuela took a profound turn for the worst and the population began to flee the country. During Chavez I can't honestly say the drug trafficking was any worse. An interesting fact is that fentanyl started showing up in drugs in the USA in 2013. Hugo Chavez died in 2013 at the age of 58. By all measure he was a young man.
Fentanyl was incorporated by the drug cartels because they hated Americans and wanted to kill them. It is just that simple. There was and is no military at that time or until Trump took over the second time that could match the idea of war with the USA. So, the one way to attempt to achieve an end is to kill from the inside of the USA. That drug cartel strategy would result in astounding deaths only to be combatted by local police themselves in allowing Narcan for common use. When Narcan became the salvation of addicts, the cartels began to lace their drugs with a veterinary drug (horses and cattle), Xylazine (click here).
The best way to handle such aggression is not by tasking the USA military to take on every drug source in the world, but, to hand the problem to the American Medical Administration to work with the DEA to end the problem.
The Trump administration has done nothing but weaken the USA military, first by dismissing all the top level brass, and now the mission is to protect the petroleum industry and nationalize it's profits.
Sanctions of enemies is never about profits. Sanctions of enemies is to effect their ability to assault the sovereignty of the USA and it's allies. Trump's misdirection is dangerous and the politics of it domestically is so toxic the people are confused about what is best for their own national security.
President Donald Trump’s administration (click here) on Wednesday sought to assert its control over Venezuelan oil, seizing a pair of sanctioned tankers transporting petroleum and announcing plans to relax some sanctions so the U.S. can oversee the sale of Venezuela’s petroleum worldwide.
Trump’s administration intends to control the distribution of Venezuela’s oil products globally following its ouster of President Nicolás Maduro in a surprise nighttime raid. Besides the United States enforcing an existing oil embargo, the Energy Department says the “only oil transported in and out of Venezuela” will be through approved channels consistent with U.S. law and national security interests....
