Trump’s Venezuela aims — oil, drugs, migration and democracy — conflict, report says

Time reports President Donald Trump has set out four explicit objectives for his recent grab-and-go operation in Venezuela: securing greater U.S. access to Venezuelan oil, curbing drug trafficking, halting Venezuelan migration, and democratizing the country. On oil, Trump has argued the mission is “not going to cost us anything, because the money coming out of the ground is very substantial.” The report notes the United States has been a net energy exporter since 2019 and that expanded oil access would most immediately benefit major U.S.

oil companies. Oil access could, the piece says, be obtained without regime change, because some Chavista successors or concessions from Maduro could deliver it. On drugs and migration, the report says Trump portrays Maduro as waging a drug war against the United States and blamed him, in a Jan.

3 Fox News interview, for “sending prisoners and people from mental institutions and drug lords … by the hundreds of thousands.” Experts cited in the piece argue narcotrafficking is now decentralized and that removing Maduro would likely have only marginal effects; eliminating Venezuela as a trafficking node would require deep state-building and justice-sector reform, which would contradict an aim to avoid nation-building.

Key Topics

World, Donald Trump, Nicolas Maduro, Maria Corina Machado, Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuelan Oil