The new era of energy imperialism in America is not limited to oil

President Donald Trump is not shy about admitting what he wants to achieve by attacking Venezuela and threatening other countries rich in energy resources. “We will make the oil flow the way it should,” he said. January 3Shortly after his administration surprised the world with many things policy Experts and Democratic lawmakers They call for an illegal incursion into Caracas that led to the arrest of President Nicolas Maduro.

Trump’s focus on so-called “energy dominance” is also an excuse – and on top of that Federal drug trafficking charges against Maduro – To seize the old power. Trump added: “Under our new National Security Strategy, American dominance in the Western Hemisphere will never be questioned again. It will not happen.” Colombia, Mexico, CubaTrump and other senior officials warned that others would do well to be careful. and White House Counsel Stephen Miller CNN’s Jake Tapper said On Monday, the “official position of the United States government” under Trump was “that Greenland should be part of the United States.”

In other words, the United States will try to take whatever it wants — borders be damned — whether it’s Venezuela’s oil, Greenland’s rare earths, or another country’s sovereignty. If you’re in Trump’s inner circle, like the fossil fuel industry and tech oligarchs who supported his rise, you may be able to share in the spoils. It’s a scary time for other countries that have something shiny that the United States might aspire to. Even if it is not directly in Trump’s crosshairs, people around the world will likely have to deal with the political and environmental impacts of whatever global game his administration plays next.

“We are entering this really scary and uncertain moment, where this aggressive, toxic way of doing business is being put on the table,” says Katherine Abreu, director of the International Center for Climate Policy.

Abreu, who is half Venezuelan and lives in Canada, first heard news of the US attack on Caracas from her family. “There is a lot of uncertainty, fear and mixed feelings, on the ground in Venezuela… where many Venezuelans have been protesting against the (Maduro) regime for years and want a change in the Venezuelan government, but they want that change to come from the Venezuelan people,” she says.

Shortly after her family reached out to her, Abreu heard about the attack from concerned colleagues in the climate movement who were “disturbed by the fact that this is being done largely in the name of the interests of expanding oil and gas production in the United States.”

Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world, but it produces only about 1% of the global crude oil supply. This is due to years Negligence and mismanagement Since the 1970s, when the country nationalized its oil industry. Now, Trump says, “We will let the big American oil companies come in, spend billions of dollars, and fix the badly broken (oil) infrastructure.”

Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Wednesday that the federal government Talks are underway with American companies to increase oil production In Venezuela, the United States plans to control future oil sales in the country. The United States has it too Two tankers were seized He is believed to have carried or attempted to transport Venezuelan oil. Trump and his Secretary of State Marco Rubio He said Venezuela will deliver between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil, which the United States plans to sell at market price.

There’s certainly a lot of uncertainty around it Whether American companies want to exploit their opportunities Investing in the return of Venezuelan oil production as instability continues in the country. The United States already is The largest oil producer in the worldMore than 20 million barrels per day. Venezuela currently produces less than 1 million barrels of oil per day, and it would take more than $50 billion in investments over 15 years just to get that number to 1.1 million barrels per day on a consistent basis. According to research company Rystad Energy.

However, after Maduro’s arrest, stock prices rose rose For fossil fuel companies including Chevron, and The only American oil company that has been able to continue operating in the country by brokering deals with the Venezuelan government after it seized assets from foreign oil companies. “A lot of what’s driving interest in places like Venezuela, places with big reserves, is the speculative market,” Abreu says. Regardless of whether U.S. oil companies eventually turn to Venezuela, financial speculators who would benefit from the potential for increased oil production “are now making money based on this conquest,” says Basav Sin, director of the Climate Policy Project at the left-leaning Institute for Policy Studies.

There is an argument that the shift to renewable energy reduces the vulnerability that many countries in the Global South face from wealthier and more powerful governments that look to oil and gas. “These are inherently non-renewable resources, which means those who want to continue producing oil, gas and coal will always need to look for the next source of this non-renewable resource,” Abreu says. Edge. Solar and wind power, which have become more affordable over the decades, are now the way to go Fastest growing sources Of electricity All over the world. “I really see the rise of these kinds of conflicts fueled by oil and gas interests as a reaction to the momentum we’re seeing in renewable energy and an attempt to stop it,” Abreu says.

Of course, things can get messy with renewable energy development. Greenland is a good case study. Trump has focused his attention on seizing Greenland since his first term. Opening the country to foreign mining interests could lead to vast new supplies of important minerals and rare earth elements used in electric cars, wind turbines, solar panels and rechargeable batteries. These minerals are likely to be more important to the Trump administration It is also used in oil refining and Military radar and missile systems. Research also indicates Greenland has large reserves of fossil fuelsAlthough it can be very difficult to access, making its extraction commercially unviable. Not to mention that burning fossil fuels makes Greenland Ice sheets are more vulnerable to global warmingwhich risks Raising sea levels around the world.

The Trump administration has framed the annexation of Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of Denmark, as… A matter of US national security Regardless of the protests of its people and government. “Greenland is not for sale, and this has been clearly stated by the Greenlandic and Danish authorities,” says Anne Myrilde, who grew up in Greenland and is now head of the department of sustainability and planning at Aalborg University, in an email to . Edge. “In Greenland, the statements we hear in the media these days are often met with growing frustration and resentment, because they tend to overlook Greenland’s autonomy and its ongoing efforts to define its own economic and social development,” Merild writes.

She adds that Greenland’s resource extraction is already entrenched in the local political debate, and is something that needs to be addressed through the “meaningful engagement” of neighboring communities to ensure they benefit from any new projects and minimize any damage to the environment or fishing and livelihoods.

However, Trump’s stance on Greenland now “sends a signal that the United States is willing to seize some places just to get access to resources, and that is outright 19th-century imperialism,” Sen says. “It is a very threatening signal to the rest of the world… Either you make the resources in your country available to us on our terms or you are vulnerable to invasion.”

Landon DeRentz, former energy director in the White House under Trump during his first administration, says in a newspaper interview: Atlantic Council Blog January 4 “Venezuela oil was the enabler,” while the real prize was the ability to exert US influence throughout the Western Hemisphere.

It is a revival of the philosophy on which it was based centuries ago Calculated interventions In Latin America, which sowed political unrest throughout the region in the name of installing governments friendly to US interests. “The United States now practices an improved version of the two-hundred-year-old book Monroe Doctrine“, Derentz says on his blog. New National security strategy A document released by the Trump administration late last year clearly states that the plan aims to “affirm and implement the ‘Trump corollary’ to the Monroe Doctrine.”

With this basic power structure in place, history repeats itself – whether it is the conflict over oil in Venezuela or minerals in Greenland. The rules of the game determine the outcome. Addressing climate change and the transition to cleaner energy through joint efforts such as the Paris Agreement has been a major test of global cooperation in the face of the brute force of strongman politics. It is clear that the United States’ fluctuation from one philosophy to another with Trump’s return to office is tipping the scales.

“I’m concerned about the ways in which the United States with these actions leads to a kind of normalization of the idea that a country will completely set aside the norms of multilateralism and legal interactions between countries in the international arena,” Abreu says. “It will set those standards aside in the name of pursuing its interests in oil and gas, even if that is not what is ultimately delivered,” he added. The Trump administration announced on Wednesday that it would do so withdraw us From the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and 65 other international organizations and treaties.

Even if America is throwing its weight around to get what it wants is nothing new, it is suddenly taking a bolder turn than the United States has dared to take in decades. The president is “very serious about getting back the oil that was stolen from us,” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said He said On January 3. “And very serious about re-establishing American deterrence and dominance in the Western Hemisphere.”

The theft charge is A Misleading Oversimplification to Nationalization of the oil industry in Venezuela. It’s a talking point that justifies the idea that what you think is yours — even if it’s under your feet — is actually mine because I said so.