Amerika kann das Öl haben

Gisela Salim-Peyer and Nancy A. Youssef: “For decades, all Venezuelans enjoyed the perks of living in a land where oil was a birthright. They could fill their cars for almost nothing. Education and other public services were heavily subsidized as well. Academics might argue over the wisdom of the state’s largesse. But people expected, at the very least, affordable gas as a material benefit from the nation’s abundance of oil.

President Trump’s military intervention in Venezuela this month was, in part, a bid to seize the source of this wealth. Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Trump made no secret of his desire to exploit them in what many have criticized as an act of naked imperialism and the theft of Venezuela’s economic patrimony …

“Yet many Venezuelans in the country and abroad celebrated the strike. María Corina Machado, the popular leader of the opposition, has welcomed Trump’s actions. Last February, Machado was a guest on Donald Trump Jr.’s podcast. When he asked why Americans should care about Venezuela, her first response was: ‘Oil and gas.’ Machado’s strategy could appear to have been a devil’s bargain—tempting President Trump with the prospect of petrodollars in exchange for ousting Maduro, her nemesis. But her feelings reflected something broader, too: Venezuelans who once viewed oil as a source of wealth and pride, a limitless resource that had shaped their identity and set their country apart from its poorer neighbors, have come to view it more as a curse.”

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