Review by Andy Ford
BBC Radio 4’s Briefing Room programme can sometimes give a fascinating insight into the views of some of the more sober and serious spokespersons of international capitalism. On Jan 8, the programme was about Trump’s attack on Venezuela and the kidnapping of the country’s President, Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cila Flores.
David Aaronovitch invited comments from the Americas: the Editor of The Economist, a ‘Senior Fellow’ from the Brookings Institute, and a ‘Senior Research Fellow’ from Chatham House. And according to these bought-and-paid-for representatives of the elite, it is not going to end well for the US.
They all agreed that Trump intends to rule Venezuela through Maduro’s vice-President, Delcy Rodriguez, with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio issuing the instructions, rather than installing the right-wing opposition to power. US officials have not even mentioned the ineffectual figurehead of the opposition, Eduardo Gonzales, and Maria Machado has had a poor reward for her shameless abasement before Trump, calling for ‘military intervention’ (ie for war against her own country) and gifting him her Nobel Peace Prize.
Machado has been pointedly ignored and sidelined by Trump and his coterie. The conclusion was that the CIA rate the opposition’s ability to govern Venezuela as “very poor” given their lack of support in the military, or indeed anywhere else really. The CIA also appears to have learnt from Iraq and Afghanistan, where an attempt to build client states around weak middle class leaders with no followers ended up costing billions of dollars, to no result. And Delcy “knows the oil industry” while Machado never mentions it. So much for ‘democracy’ for Venezuela!
Things were not thought through
The consensus among the programme commentators was that Trump and his backers wanted the oil, but without thinking things through. The US seemed also to want a “quick win” abroad to boost Trump’s flagging poll ratings. The commentators generally agreed that in the short term the US will be able to seize/steal the refined oil sitting in Venezuela, but beyond that, “the plan is full of holes”.
Venezuelan ‘oil’ is extremely ‘thick’, like tar. It also lies very deep, and much of it is beneath remote jungle, so is expensive to extract and refine. Venezuela simply does not have the infrastructure to support these extraction processes across much of the oilfield.
Trump’s plan was described by one programme guest as “bizarre” – to imagine that US oil companies would invest billions of dollars to get oil from Venezuela when there is already global oversupply, a growth in renewables, and, in the long-term, a likely downward trend in oil prices.
Why would these ruthless oil profiteers make a huge investment with so little hope of return? In 2021, Chatham House, a UK Establishment think-tank, had worked up an analysis of the Venezuelan oil industry, and found that due to under investment, a shortage of qualified engineers, and the uncertain political environment, between $100bn and $280bn would be required to revive it.
The cost of the military blockade alone is already $700mn and rising at $9mn per day. In effect, Trump and Rubio have spent $700mn to steal $60mn worth of oil! The White House are not even competent robbers.
So what will be achieved? These learned servants of international capitalism pointed out that the drug trade, such as it is, will continue unaffected, that there will be no oil bonanza (or cheap gas on American forecourts), and there will be no ‘democratic transition’. All they will get, beyond the stolen oil, will be a show trial for Maduro, and being embroiled long-term in Venezuela.
Even if the subordination of Venezuela to US interests was to result in the denial of oil supplies to Cuba, and a collapse of its government, what would be the benefit? Thousands of refugees and the descent of Cuba into a narco-state like Honduras, or a failed state like Haiti.
The conclusion of these capitalist experts, invited onto the BBC? “The power play cannot be sustained. The cost of it alone is too much…the US will gain almost nothing out of this.”
The Briefing Room episode on Venezuela can be found on BBC Sounds, here.
“The conclusion of these capitalist experts, invited onto the BBC? ‘The power play cannot be sustained. The cost of it alone is too much…the US will gain almost nothing out of this’.”
Not only the “capitalist experts” but Marxists too have drawn the same conclusion and what a thought provoking article by Andy Ford. Which I have learned a lot from.