December 18, 2025
In a series of inflammatory statements, the Trump administration has laid bare its intentions toward Venezuela, thinly veiling a century-old thirst for oil with a modern-day “war on drugs” narrative. Stephen Miller, a top White House aide, recently made the audacious claim that Venezuela’s oil rightfully belongs to the United States, asserting that “American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela” 1.
President Trump echoed this sentiment, demanding the return of “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us” while announcing a naval blockade 1.
These assertions are not just a gross distortion of history and a flagrant disregard for international law; they are the latest chapter in a long story of U.S. interventionism in Latin America, driven by a relentless pursuit of natural resources.
This article deconstructs the administration’s false pretext of a drug war, exposes the deep-rooted oil and mineral interests that are the true motivation, and debunks the ludicrous claim to ownership of another sovereign nation’s resources.
The Myth of the "Narco-State"
The Trump administration’s primary justification for its aggressive posture towards Venezuela is the claim that the country is a narco-state flooding the United States with deadly drugs. President Trump has claimed that each boat destroyed by the U.S. military saves “25,000 lives” by stopping fentanyl from reaching American shores 2.
However, a wealth of evidence and expert testimony systematically dismantles this narrative, revealing it as a convenient pretext for intervention.
According to narcotics experts and even U.S. government data, Venezuela is not a significant source of drugs bound for the United States, and it plays virtually no role in the fentanyl trade. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s (DEA) own reports consistently identify Mexico as the primary source of fentanyl, using precursor chemicals from Asia 3.
Venezuela is never mentioned as a source or major transit country for the synthetic opioid.
Furthermore, the cocaine that does transit through Venezuela is overwhelmingly destined for Europe, not the U.S. An NBC News report, citing a U.S. official, states that cocaine accounts for 90% of the drugs leaving Venezuela, and it is “almost all destined for Europe” 4.
The primary routes for U.S.-bound cocaine remain through Mexico and Central America.
This reality was starkly confirmed following a classified briefing for U.S. senators. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) publicly stated that the administration admitted the boats being targeted are carrying cocaine to Europe, not fentanyl to the U.S. “We are spending billions of your taxpayer dollars to wage a war in the Caribbean to stop cocaine from going from Venezuela to Europe,” Murphy said, concluding there was “no legal justification and… no national security justification for these strikes” 5.
“Fentanyl is not coming out of Venezuela. Fentanyl comes from Mexico. What’s coming out of Venezuela is cocaine.” — Christopher Hernandez-Roy, Center for Strategic and International Studies 4
The administration’s designation of the “Cartel de los Soles” as a foreign terrorist organization is another piece of political theater. The term does not refer to a structured cartel but is a vague reference to alleged corruption within the Venezuelan military, and there is no credible evidence to support the claim that President Nicolás Maduro is the leader of a drug cartel 1.
This flimsy justification serves only to escalate tensions and provide a quasi-legal framework for military action.
A Century of Oil Interests
To understand the true motivations behind the U.S. stance, one must look past the smokescreen of the drug war and into the long and complex history of American oil interests in Venezuela. The story begins in the 1920s when U.S. and British companies, including giants like Standard Oil (later Exxon) and Royal Dutch Shell, pioneered the development of Venezuela’s massive oil fields 6.
For decades, these foreign corporations dominated the industry, extracting immense wealth from Venezuelan soil.
This era of foreign control ended on January 1, 1976, when Venezuela, under President Carlos Andrés Pérez, nationalized its oil industry, creating the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. (PDVSA) 7.
This move was not “theft,” as Stephen Miller claims, but an exercise of national sovereignty.
In the 2000s, President Hugo Chávez’s government moved to reclaim majority ownership of oil projects, leading to the expropriation of assets from companies like ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips in 2007 when they refused to comply with the new legal framework 8.
While these companies pursued legal challenges and won arbitration awards, the actions themselves were a sovereign decision regarding the control of natural resources within Venezuela’s own territory.
Sovereignty, Not Theft: The Legality of Nationalization
Stephen Miller’s assertion that Venezuela’s nationalization was “theft” demonstrates a profound ignorance of international law. The principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources (PSNR) is a cornerstone of international law, firmly established by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 1803 in 1962 9.
This principle affirms the inalienable right of all states to freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources. It recognizes that a country’s resources belong to its people and that the state has the right to regulate and control them, including through nationalization. While the resolution calls for appropriate compensation, it unequivocally upholds the right of the state to take such action. Venezuela’s 1976 nationalization was a legitimate act, part of a global trend of post-colonial states reclaiming control over their economic destinies.
Event | Legal Significance |
UN Resolution 1803 (1962) | Established the principle of Permanent Sovereignty over Natural Resources, affirming a state’s right to control its own resources. |
1976 Nationalization | Venezuela legally nationalized its oil industry, creating the state-owned PDVSA, in accordance with international law. |
2007 Expropriations | The Chávez government legally required foreign oil companies to become minority partners in joint ventures; ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips refused and their assets were expropriated. |
Arbitration Awards | International tribunals ordered Venezuela to pay compensation to ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, but did not invalidate the legality of the expropriations themselves. |
Beyond Oil: The Allure of Minerals
The Trump administration’s focus is not limited to oil. Venezuela also possesses vast, largely untapped reserves of other critical minerals, estimated by President Maduro to be worth over $1.3 trillion 10.
These include significant deposits of bauxite, coltan, gold, and rare-earth minerals—resources that are vital for modern technology and national security supply chains.
As one analyst noted, “minerals are emerging as geopolitical currency” 10.
The U.S. has a history of intervening in resource-rich nations under various pretexts, and Venezuela, with its immense mineral wealth, fits this pattern perfectly. The administration’s aggressive posture can be seen as an attempt to secure access to these strategic resources, particularly as global competition with China intensifies.
A Pattern of Intervention
The current standoff with Venezuela is not an isolated incident but the continuation of a long and sordid history of U.S. intervention in Latin America. From the CIA-backed coup in Guatemala in 1954 to protect the United Fruit Company, to the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile in 1973, the U.S. has repeatedly used its power to undermine democratically elected governments that threaten its economic interests 11.
In 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated the overthrow of Iran’s Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh after he nationalized the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP) 12.
In 2002, the U.S. was accused of giving tacit approval to a failed coup against Hugo Chávez 12.
The playbook is consistent: a resource-rich nation asserts control over its assets, and the U.S., citing a moral or security crisis, intervenes to protect its corporate and geopolitical interests.
Conclusion: The Black Gold Deception
The Trump administration’s narrative of a “war on drugs” in Venezuela is a transparent deception. The evidence overwhelmingly shows that the true motivation is not stopping narcotics but controlling Venezuela’s immense oil and mineral wealth. The claims of theft are legally baseless, the drug war pretext is factually bankrupt, and the military posturing is a dangerous escalation that threatens regional stability.
By manufacturing a crisis, the administration seeks to justify an intervention that would allow U.S. corporations to regain access to Venezuela’s resources, a goal openly supported by some opposition figures who have promised to privatize the oil sector 1.
This is not about democracy or security; it is about oil, minerals, and the perpetuation of a neocolonial foreign policy. The world must see this black gold deception for what it is: a reckless and self-serving power grab disguised as a moral crusade.
References
[3] Drug Enforcement Administration. (2024). National Drug Threat Assessment. (Assumed source based on Cato article)
[6] Council on Foreign Relations. (2024, July 31). Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate.
[7] Wikipedia. (n.d.). History of the Venezuelan oil industry.
[8] Reuters. (2007, August 9). Chavez drives Exxon and ConocoPhillips from Venezuela.
