"Panicky Trump is heading towards a war with Russia. Here’s why" by Martin Jay

 

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Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Panicky Trump is heading towards a war with Russia. Here’s why

Martin Jay

August 5, 2025

We are edging closer to the unthinkable each day as the economy in America punishes both businesses and working class people. 

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You might be forgiven for thinking that Donald Trump was a little prickly these days. Indeed, dispatching two U.S. nuclear submarines closer to Russia might have been a tad overreaction following hurty posts on social media from former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

But there’s more to it than that.

Trump is starting to feel the pressure of his own reckless, capricious policies abroad and home and is starting to worry that the walls are closing in on him. It might have felt like it all started with his ultimatum to Russia to find a solution to the Ukraine war, but it actually goes back to April of this year when he unveiled his tariff super plan.

In the last few days, it has been revealed that the economy isn’t doing very well and there’s a very real risk that it will soon stall and hit recession. Even with the triumph of the EU sanctions which he got the European Commission to agree to – a shocking 15% with no resistance whatsoever by Ursula von der Leyen – there is little if any evidence that this strategy is working at home. Figures just out which paint a worryingly bleak picture will be troubling him as they contrast hugely with his own narrative. And whenever people point out that the Emperor has no clothes on, they often get fired on the spot – hardly a ringing endorsement of a president who knows what he’s doing with the economy.

When the most recent jobs report turned out to be poor, Trump ignored the warnings in the data and fired the head of the agency that produces the monthly jobs figures. Classic Donald. When reports come out which show poor performance of his own policies, we can expect the instant, juvenile rejection to those agencies, in much the same way he says ‘fake news’ to media reports which do the same.

“Important numbers like this must be fair and accurate, they can’t be manipulated for political purposes,” Trump said on Truth Social, without offering evidence for his claim. “The Economy is BOOMING”, he claims.

According to AP, job gains are “dwindling”. Inflation is “ticking upward”. Growth has “slowed” compared with last year. “More than six months into his term, Trump’s blitz of tariff hikes and his new tax and spending bill have remodelled America’s trading, manufacturing, energy and tax systems to his own liking” but have yet to show anything positive in the economy.

It’s not only preposterous statements like the “booming” one which we can expect more of, or people simply being fired for telling the plain truth about numbers. What is inevitable with the same demise of the economy is Trump’s own brand of faking the news, using his own sycophants. A recent “interview” with Marco Rubio and U.S. media is worth watching if you’re in need for a really good laugh. Rubio doubles down on claims, from America’s own intelligence agencies, that the Iran attack that Trump signed off on, did any real damage at all to the three nuclear sites.

“That’s the most important thing to understand — significant, very significant, substantial damage was done to a variety of different components, and we’re just learning more about it,” he claimed.

His comments came following the Defense Intelligence Agency’s report which found that Iran’s centrifuges were largely “intact” and strikes from U.S. B-2 bombers only set nuclear developments back by a few months, as first reported by CNN.

Even U.S. agencies themselves are agreeing with most of the region’s top analysts that Trump’s strike had any impact at all, whatever it was intended to do, isolating the U.S. president to such a point of desperation that he has to call on his own loyal acolytes to roll out the BS.

In the coming months we are certain to see more of these fake news stunts as there are plenty of media outlets in the U.S. happy to oblige with such scripted interviews from people like Rubio.

But it doesn’t really do much to control the economy which, while approaching its fourth quarter, is going to present Trump with a tsunami of negative reports from the people who can’t be switched off, like the two U.S. stocks market or the business press like the Wall Street Journal or CNBC. Bad numbers are going to dominate the news more and more as the more Trump will deny them, the more they will persist. The Donald does not understand the old saying “when in hole, don’t dig” and typically, in nearly all matters, his own vanity and insecurity usually always makes the media take worse.

Case in point, Epstein. The story just festers and festers while growing at the same time due to his own clumsy handling of it and how he handles reporters’ questions. Most Americans accept that Trump was close friends of Epstein and assume, at the very least, that Trump also partook in the wild sex parties with very young women and, perhaps more importantly, is as much a victim of the blackmail as most. In Trump’s case he was undoubtedly using his power to keep the lid from blowing off, while exploiting those whose name was on the list. The cruel irony is of course that when the names are finally revealed, even if the FBI blacks his name out with crude whiteboard marker (bet on this), his edge over those people will be nothing. In other words, they will have nothing to lose and everything to gain by telling their stories and including Trump in the most salacious tales. Can a U.S. president survive such a tawdry scandal?

What Trump desperately needs is a seismic distraction to all this and so the likelihood of a war now happening between the U.S. and Russia, in Ukraine, is more likely for all the wrong reasons. The recent comment by Medvedev warning that Trump’s most recent threat to up the ante on Russian sanctions is a step closer to a war between the U.S. and Russia is ominous. Trump would not be the first American president to send U.S. troops to their deaths to throw the media spotlight away from all their failed policies. We are edging closer to the unthinkable each day as the economy in America punishes both businesses and working class people. As mentioned in an earlier piece, the retraction of the 50 days to 10 days, was simply because on so many levels time is running out fast for Trump both in the Ukraine – where Russian troops advance on the key town of Pokrovsk at remarkable speed – and also with his own economy which is sinking. NATO collapsing under his leadership while Ukraine is lost to Russia, a U.S. economy in a tailspin by Christmas with job losses making headlines every day and Trump’s links to the whole Epstein teen sex honey trap revealed all lead to the global lack of confidence in him migrating to his own turf as MAGA splits right down the middle. He must be literally praying each night that the Japanese don’t dump their trillion dollar U.S. treasury bonds on the market at a bargain price as that might be all it takes for the U.S. to veer towards the abyss. Trump needs a war like never before.

"Hold the Applause for Trump, the 'Peacemaker'” by Edward Curtin

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Source: Edward Curtin

Hold the Applause for Trump, the “Peacemaker”

February 21, 2025 Edward J. Curtin, Jr.  17 Comments

There is history worth remembering as Trump is lauded in certain circles on the so-called “right” and “left” as a peacemaker with Russia over the US/NATO proxy war against Russia via Ukraine: President Richard Nixon, who ran as the peace candidate in 1968 with a “secret plan” for peace in Vietnam that was actually a plan for more war, visited China in February 1972 in a move to exploit the Soviet-China split, and yet the US war against Vietnam went on until April 30, 1975 when the U.S. was driven out of Vietnam.

I think extreme caution is advised when it comes to Trump’s plans to end the U.S. proxy war against Russia, which, following the Nixon-Kissinger script, seems to be aimed at splitting the Russian-Chinese partnership now threatening U.S. world domination.

Trump, like his predecessor Joseph Biden who presided over the proxy war against Russia and the genocide of Palestinians by Israel, is no man of peace. He is fully in support of the extinction of the Palestinians and behind Israel’s war aims in the Middle-East. So when it comes to his recent overtures to Russia and a resolution to the U.S./NATO proxy war against Russia, one needs to reflect on history and Trump’s inclination to make “a deal.”  The man, after all, was a reality-television star and has long reveled in radical reversals of previous statements and intentions. For example, in his first term, he often talked of withdrawing from NATO but never did; NATO, in fact, expanded under his watch. He talked about ending the U.S./NATO support for Ukraine’s bombing of Russian-speaking areas of eastern Ukraine, only to withdraw from the Minsk Accords and send military equipment to Ukraine to bomb those areas.

Those who are praising him now say he is a changed man after time “in the wilderness” these last four years (one is reminded of Nixon’s wandering wilderness days from 1960-1968). Would a changed man have Elon Musk as his right-hand man or have as Vice President JD Vance whose career has been backed by Palantir Technology’s Peter Thiel?

Investigator journalist Whitney Webb has reported extensively on Thiel and Vance’s ties and the interconnections between them and other supporters of the surveillance state tied to the Democrats, such as former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, among others. If you assume the surface war between Trump and the Democrats is the real deal, Webb’s work will have you wondering. They have their differences, of course, but a reading of history would suggest both fully back the surveillance panopticon that has stolen American’s freedom and privacy in the name of what else – freedom and privacy.

Now Trump-Musk-Vance are touting their dedication to free speech and their opposition to censorship, which are clearly admirable goals. But one needs to remember Marshall McLuhan’s adage that the medium is the message, and that the medium touted by Trump – front and center – is represented by the omnipresence of Elon Musk, whose face symbolizes the smirking machine and the use of digital technology to accumulate and exert power. In a digital age, technological technique is King Propaganda, and technique transforms everything it touches into a machine.

As in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, the brothers Tweedledee Democrat and Tweedledum Republican fight over their rattle as the audience focuses on their battle while their joint racket goes unattended.

‘I know what you’re thinking about,’ Tweedledum; ‘but it isn’t so, no how.’

‘Contrariwise,’ continued Tweedledee, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’

‘I was thinking, Alice said very politely, ‘which is the best way out of this wood: it’s getting so dark. Would you tell me please?’

It is dark. Of course, the way out is to stop reacting and do what the press is obligated to do: be skeptical, question authority, and don’t be cheerleaders for anyone in power, whether they be Biden or Trump or someone else.

The opposite of such skepticism has been happening, and many in the alternative press, who [including me] have correctly accused Biden and the Democrats of war crimes, lies, censorship, Russiagate propaganda, etc., are now awash with grandiose praise for Trump, many calling him a revolutionary in a good sense. This is absurd.

Such hyperbole is quite naïve, as has been the calling of Vice-President JD Vance’s Munich Security Conference speech historic and Ciceronian. It was a good speech [text here] in many ways, but . . . .

He rightly ripped the Europeans for their censorship of dissidents and their repression of alternative voices, although his examples were weak and narrowly focused.

His statement, while surely partisan, was true that “I will admit that sometimes the loudest voices for censorship have come not from within Europe, but from within my own country, where the prior administration threatened and bullied social media companies to censor so-called misinformation.”

His defense of democratic mandates was strong when he said:

You cannot win a democratic mandate by censoring your opponents or putting them in jail, whether that’s the leader of the opposition, a humble Christian praying in her own home, or a journalist trying to report the news. Nor can you win one by disregarding your basic electorate on questions like who gets to be a part of our shared society.

When he criticized European leaders for allowing mass migration into their countries, his hypocrisy stood out. As any fair person should recognize, immigration policies have long been an issue in need of reform. But the mass creation of people fleeing their countries for safe havens in Europe are the direct result of US/NATO war policies in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Serbia, Syria, etc., policies supported by Republicans and Democrats alike and seconded by their lapdogs in Europe.

The same is true for immigration here in the U.S.A. where immigration policy has long been in need of reform that neither party would undertake, but the main contingent of immigrants entering this country comes here to escape horrendous conditions in their home countries due in great part to U.S. foreign policies in support of repressive regimes and economic policies favoring the rich amid U.S. efforts to control Latin America. Without those immigrants, the U.S. economy would collapse.

But Vance’s speech is a minor part of my argument here.

The real issue is Trump and the question of whether or not he is for real in his efforts for peace in Ukraine. I am very skeptical and think it is justified.

I am convinced that the US/NATO war against Russia will not be ending unless NATO is dissolved, which Trump is not proposing. He only wishes to strengthen NATO with European money, not that of the U.S. NATO’s only raison d’être is to destroy Russia as an independent country and create regime change there through multiple means. This has always been so. This is why NATO has existed for so long and has expanded. Open warfare in Ukraine is just one means among many they have used over the years. You can end the overt war and continue the covert.

If NATO is not dissolved, the undermining of Russia will continue under Trump, who seems to recognize that the proxy war is lost on the battlefield, a fact obvious for years despite U.S. government and mainstream media propaganda to the contrary – propaganda so blatantly false that it raises questions about people’s gullibility. How many foreign leaders does such media need to call the new Hitlers before people wise up?

Trump’s theatrical antics will persist, however, and Trump and Putin will probably eventually meet and some deal may be struck on Russia’s terms, but if Russia doesn’t want to be tricked again, it should beware the possibility of a Trump Trojan horse.

Apropos today, in 1964 and then in 1965, the great French sociologist Jacques Ellul published his classic studies. First came The Technological Society to be quickly followed by Propaganda, linked books in which he brilliantly shed an early light on what we now find everywhere – a digital world where propaganda is vital for the state’s functioning and where words like democracy, truth, and fact yield to the technologue’s magic wand.

Another French social thinker, Paul Virilio, spoke of the information bomb, the glut of information produced by digital media and the Internet. One key aspect of this marriage is speed, Virilio’s specialty being dromology, the study of speed. It is worth noting how fast Trump has acted in his first month in office. This is no doubt aided and abetted by his right-hand man Elon Musk, Mr. X., Mr. Space Shot, Mr. Digital World himself, who is prominently displayed by Trump’s side at every photo op. Unlike the Biden warmongers who presented themselves in a more circumspect manner while propagandizing the American public, Trump makes it very clear that digital technology is his key to rule. And flooding the information superhighway with a rapid-fire series of orders and pronouncements is presented as government efficiency at its finest. But things happen so fast one can’t keep pace with them.

Elon Musk and Peter Thiel are two technological billionaires who should be considered crucial to Trump’s plans. As Ellul’s work makes clear, such men are key to effective propaganda. How can anyone consider such men benign supporters of democracy and justice?

I think the talk of a Trump revolution in favor of peace and democracy is hyperbolically irresponsible. It is unworthy of good journalism that requires prudence and patience when the powerful pitch their deals. The propaganda from the Biden administration and their mainstream media accomplices should have taught everyone that. But the appeal of a savior is very powerful.

You know, ‘if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn’t, it ain’t. That’s logic.’

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"Blame Trump for October 7" by Mike Whitney

 

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Source: The Unz Review

Blame Trump for October 7

Mike Whitney • September 2, 2024

 • 1,700 Words 

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The person who is most responsible for the attacks on October 7 is Donald Trump. It was Trump who launched the so-called Middle East Peace Plan that allowed for the “unilateral annexation of the Jordan River valley and existing settlements” in the West Bank. Just as it was Trump who decided to move the US embassy to Jerusalem which effectively recognized the city as Israel’s capital. “Then on March 25, 2019”—according to veteran journalist Joe Lauria—“Trump recognized Israel’s illegal 1981 annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights” in violation of UN Resolution 242. Even Israel’s most ardent supporters, like the New York Times, were aghast at the sheer magnitude of Trump’s giveaway. Here’s what they said in an article in February, 2020:

President Trump on Tuesday unveiled his long-awaited Middle East peace plan with a flourish, releasing a proposal that would give Israel most of what it has sought over decades of conflict while offering the Palestinians the possibility of a state with limited sovereignty. Mr. Trump’s plan would guarantee that Israel would control a unified Jerusalem as its capital and not require it to uproot any of the settlements in the West Bank that have provoked Palestinian outrage and alienated much of the world.…

under the plan, those Palestinians would find themselves virtually encircled by an expanded Israel and living within convoluted borders reminiscent of a gerrymandered congressional district….

the Palestinians…. would not have a standing military and would be required to meet other benchmarks overseen by the Israelis, including a renunciation of violence and the disbandment of militant groups like Hamas…

President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority immediately denounced the plan as a “conspiracy deal” unworthy of serious consideration, making the decades-long pursuit of a so-called two-state solution appear more distant than ever. “We say a thousand times over: no, no, no,” Mr. Abbas said on Tuesday in Ramallah, in the West Bank.. Trump Releases Mideast Peace Plan That Strongly Favors Israel, New York Times

Keep in mind, Palestinian leaders were never consulted on the plan that was largely crafted by Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner and his fanatical colleagues. As a result, the final copy is little more than an Israeli wish-list that garners the Trump administration’s blessing while sabotaging any prospect of a two-state solution. As one critic from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy said, “Front-loading the annexation (of land in the West Bank) reaffirms the worst fears that this is more an annexation plan than a peace plan.”

Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian Authority spokeswoman, tweeted: “Netanyahu is clear: Trump is the first world leader to say it is alright for Israel to steal land.” NYTimes

But the Peace Plan was just the first of Trump’s attempts to torpedo Palestinian aspirations. The second, was Trump’s Abraham Accords that were designed to normalize relations between Israel and its Arab neighbors while marginalizing the Palestinian cause. Prior to the Abraham Accords, (which were the handiwork of Jared Kushner) Arab countries were expected to eschew diplomatic normalization with Israel until Israel had taken steps to comply with the central tenets of the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 which required the following:

1– Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.

2– Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194.

3– The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

(After which, the Arab countries would) Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace…. enabling the Arab countries and Israel to live in peace and good neighbourliness and provide future generations with security, stability and prosperity. Arab Peace Initiative 2002

Trump’s Abraham Accords were a way of sidestepping the requirements of the Arab Peace Initiative by consummating bilateral agreements that made no such demands. And the scheme worked, too. From 2000-on, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Morocco and Sudan all signed the Accords strengthening their economic and diplomatic ties with Israel while gradually integrating Israel into the broader Middle East region. At the same time, Israel continued to settle more Palestinian land on the West Bank while tightening its blockade of Gaza. Bottom line: The Abraham Accords were an effective way to “disappear” the Palestinian issue altogether while exempting Israel of any duty to implement UN resolutions or loosen the grip of its long-term military occupation. Naturally, the Palestinians saw this as an existential threat to their future as a people, a culture and a civilization. This is from an article at Aljazeera:

(The signing of the Abraham Accords) was “a stab in the back of the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian people”, Ahmad Majdalani, social affairs minister in the Palestinian Authority (PA), told AFP news agency.

In the besieged Gaza Strip, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said Bahrain’s decision to normalise relations with Israel “represents a grave harm to the Palestinian cause, and it supports the occupation”.

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), based in Ramallah, occupied West Bank, called the normalisation “another treacherous stab to the Palestinian cause”.

Palestinians fear the moves by the UAE and Bahrain will weaken a long-standing pan-Arab position that calls for Israeli withdrawal from occupied territory and acceptance of Palestinian statehood in return for normal relations with Arab countries. ‘Stab in the back’: Palestinians condemn Israel-Bahrain deal, Aljazeera

So—as far back as 2020—we can see that Hamas understood they faced a serious threat to their collective survival that had to be countered. That initial reaction evolved into the expansive military operation that was launched on October 7. Here’s how Hamas reacted at the time (2021). This is from News i24:

Hamas’ Ismail Haniyeh says ‘We must have an integrated plan to bring down normalization’…. A senior leader in Hamas’ political wing urged on Thursday that the group must fight against the normalization agreements which neighboring states established with Israel.

Last year’s Abraham Accords brought a series of agreements between Israel and other nations in the region, where states agreed to establish full diplomatic relations with the country.

Hamas Political Bureau Charmain Ismail Haniyeh spoke out against the deals during a conference in Istanbul, Turkey, and called to take action to undermine them….“We must have an integrated plan to bring down normalization, which, unfortunately, has taken the character of military and security alliances with some countries,” he announced, according to a press release on Hamas’ website. Hamas calls for ‘plan’ to undermine Israel’s Abraham Accords, i24 News

Not surprisingly, President Joe Biden blabbed the truth about October 7 in a press conference just days after the attacks. His comments have been largely scrubbed by the media, but they can still be found in an article by Politico posted on October 21, 2023. Here’s what he said:

President Joe Biden said that Hamas’ attacks on Israel were intended in part to scuttle the potential normalization of the U.S. ally’s relations with Saudi Arabia.

“One of the reasons Hamas moved on Israel … they knew that I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign event Friday night, according to pool reports. “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel,” the president added…. The normalization push began under former President Donald Trump’s administration and was branded as the Abraham Accords. Biden says Hamas attacks aimed to halt Israel-Saudi Arabia agreement, Politico

Is that an admission that Trump’s normalization policy provoked October 7?

It is.

Hamas saw the normalization of relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia as the final nail in the coffin of a two-state solution. They understood that once the Saudis normalized relations with Israel—due to security and economic inducements provided by the US—Israel would be free to expand the settlements, strengthen the occupation or even expel the Palestinians from the country altogether. There would be nothing to stop them from asserting control over all the territory from the river to the sea. In short, Trump’s Abraham Accords forced Hamas to concoct a strategy that would be explosive enough to derail Washington’s normalization project. The plan they settled on was October 7. The rest is history. Here’s a brief recap from an article at The Intercept:

The de facto premise behind the accords, initiated under former President Donald Trump and led by his son-in-law Jared Kushner, was to “solve” the Israel–Palestine conflict by simply ignoring the Palestinians and treating their conditions as irrelevant. This weekend’s events show that this approach, premised on Palestinian invisibility, has now collapsed. Indeed, t he expectation that Palestinians would simply resign themselves to a slow death, an assumption evidently carried forth by Biden, was never realistic….

Under Biden, the U.S. has devoted little effort to seeking even tactical détente, let alone peace, between Israel and the Palestinians, preferring instead to continue the Trump administration’s approach of ignoring the Palestinians to seek quid pro quo diplomatic deals between Israel and foreign Arab and Muslim countries with whom Israel has no direct conflict.

Even as the massive bloodshed began around Gaza this week, with Hamas militants massacring Israeli civilians and Israel apparently indiscriminately bombing the Gaza Strip, the administration has rushed to try and salvage its approach to the region. The New York Times reported on Sunday that top Biden aides were scrambling to “reaffirm their commitment to the idea of potential normalization of diplomatic ties between Saudi Arabia and Israel.” This shoddy simulacrum of real diplomacy — which inevitably requires resolving tough differences between enemies — has now collided with horrifying reality in Gaza and southern Israel. Biden Doubled Down on the Abraham Accords — to “Devastating Consequences”, Murtaza Hussain, The Intercept

It doesn’t take a genius to connect the dots linking the Trump Peace Plan, the Abraham Accords and the October 7 attacks. The three are inseparable. Trump’s Zionist-friendly policies have backfired catastrophically triggering a genocide in Gaza and likely plunging the entire Middle East into a regional war.

Trump is every bit as responsible for the ongoing bloodbath as his accomplice, Benjamin Netanyahu.

"Trump boasts he wanted to take Venezuela’s oil after overthrowing its government" by Ben Norton

 

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Source: Geopolitical Economy

Trump boasts he wanted to take 

Venezuela’s oil after overthrowing

its government

Former US President Donald Trump boasted at a Republican Party rally that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela, and “we would have gotten all that oil”. This confirms the sinister motives behind Washington’s 2019 coup attempt to overthrow President Nicolás Maduro and install Juan Guaidó.

By Ben Norton    June 13, 2023

Former US President Donald Trump gave a speech in which he boasted that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and exploit its large oil reserves.

“When I left, Venezuela was ready to collapse. We would have taken it over; we would have gotten to all that oil; it would have been right next door”, Trump said.

“But now we’re buying oil from Venezuela. So we’re making a dictator very rich. Can you believe this? Nobody can believe it”, he added.

Trump made these remarks on June 10, at a speech for a convention organized by the North Carolina Republican Party.

The US government initiated a coup attempt against Venezuela in 2019. The Trump administration appointed a little-known right-wing opposition politician, Juan Guaidó, as the supposed “interim president” of the South American nation, despite the fact that he had never participated in a presidential election.

Venezuela has the world’s largest known oil reserves – although its crude is very heavy, and in order to be used it must be mixed with lighter crude or diluents, which the country is often incapable of importing due to illegal, unilateral US sanctions.

As president, Trump made it clear that Washington seeks to control the natural resources of foreign countries.

In a January 2020 interview on Fox News, Trump boasted that he was militarily occupying Syria’s crude-rich regions in order to “take the oil”:

DONALD TRUMP: And then they say he left troops in Syria. You know what I did? I left troops to take the oil. I took the oil.

The only troops I have are taking the oil. They’re protecting the oil. I took over the oil.

…

Maybe we should take it. But we have the oil. Right now, the United States has the oil.

So they say he left troops in Syria. No, I got rid of all of them, other than we’re protecting the oil. We have the oil.

Other members of the Donald Trump administration made similar comments.

Trump’s neoconservative National Security Advisor John Bolton stated clearly at the beginning of the coup attempt in January 2019, in an interview on Fox News, that Washington and US corporations wanted to profit off of Venezuela’s oil:

JOHN BOLTON: We’re looking at the oil assets. That’s the single most important income stream to the government of Venezuela. We’re looking at what to do to that.

We want everybody to know. We’re looking at all this very seriously. We don’t want any American businesses or investors caught by surprise. They can see what President Trump did yesterday. We’re following through on it.

…

We’re in conversation with major American companies now, that are either in Venezuela or in the case of Citgo here in the United States. I think we’re trying to get to the same end result here.

You know, Venezuela is one of the three countries I called the “Troika of Tyranny”.

It’ll make a big difference to the United States economically if we could have American oil companies really invest in and  produce the oil capabilities in Venezuela.

It would be good for the people of Venezuela. It would be good for the people of the United States.

We both have a lot at stake here making this come out the right way.

Venezuela’s massive oil reserves were nationalized by former President Hugo Chávez, who launched the country’s leftist Bolivarian Revolution.

Venezuela’s state-owned oil company PDVSA used the revenue from the oil sales in order to fund social programs, public housing, transportation, health care, and education.

Academic studies have found that countries with large oil reserves are more likely to suffer wars and foreign military interventions.

In April 2002, there was a briefly successful military coup which overthrew democratically elected President Chávez. But the leader was so popular that the people of Venezuela stormed the streets, overthrew the coup regime, and demanded that Chávez be reinstated as president.

The George Bush administration was deeply involved in supporting this 2002 coup in Venezuela.

Since then, Washington has sponsored several more coup attempts, including violent riots in 2014 and 2017, culminating in the 2019 designation of Juan Guaidó as supposed “interim president”.

The fact that this was a coup attempt was admitted by Trump’s national security advisor himself.

In a 2022 interview on CNN, Bolton boasted of how difficult it was to organize the coup attempt:

JAKE TAPPER: One doesn’t have to be brilliant to attempt a coup.

JOHN BOLTON: I disagree with that, as somebody who has helped plan coups d’etat – not here, but, you know, other places. It takes a lot of work.

JAKE TAPPER: I do want to ask a follow up. When we were talking about what is capable, or what you need to do to be able to plan a coup, and you cited your expertise having planned coups.

JOHN BOLTON: I’m not going to get into the specifics, but uh…

JAKE TAPPER: Successful coups?

JOHN BOLTON: Well, I wrote about Venezuela in the book. And it turned out not to be successful – not that we had all that much to do with it. But I saw what it took for an opposition to try and overturn an illegally elected president, and they failed. The notion that Donald Trump was half as competent as the Venezuelan opposition is laughable. But I think there’s another –

JAKE TAPPER: I feel like there’s other stuff you’re not telling me, though.

JOHN BOLTON: I think – I’m sure there is.

Bolton’s 2020 memoir, “The Room Where It Happened”, mentions Venezuela and Venezuelans more than 300 times, and has a 35-page chapter recounting the coup attempt in the country, titled “Venezuela Libre” (Free Venezuela).

Bolton wrote that President Trump had repeatedly asked for a military attack on Venezuela.

[See "Trump advisor John Bolton admits planning US coups in Venezuela and beyond" by Ben Norton, 2022-07-12]

This was further confirmed by Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, who wrote in his 2022 memoir “A Sacred Oath” that “Trump had been fixated on Venezuela since the early days of his administration”.

“Again and again, Trump would ask for military options” to overthrow Venezuela’s democratically elected President Nicolás Maduro, Esper recalled.

Trump’s National Security Council meetings on Venezuela “always began with the consideration of military options, rather than on the other end of the spectrum—diplomacy”, Esper wrote.

[See "CIA backed failed 2020 invasion of Venezuela, top coup-plotter says" by Ben Norton, 2020-02-02}

There in fact was an attempted invasion of Venezuela in May 2020, known as Operation Gideon.

The figures involved in planning this botched invasion admitted they had the support of the Trump White House and were in contact with the CIA, other US government agencies, and Colombian intelligence services.

[See "CIA backed failed 2020 invasion of Venezuela, top coup-plotter says" by Ben Norton, 2022-02-02]

Venezuelan government blasts Trump’s confession

In response to Trump’s admission in June 2023 that he wanted to “take over” Venezuela and its oil, the country’s foreign minister, Yvan Gil, responded: “Trump confesses that his intention was to take over Venezuela’s oil. All the damage that the United States has done to our people, with the support of its lackeys, here has had one objective: to steal our resources! They were not able to, and they will not be able to. We will always overcome!”

Venezuela’s vice minister for North America, Carlos Ron, declared, “What further evidence do we need? Here’s Trump confessing that his aim, all along, was to take over Venezuela’s oil. The Biden [administration] keeps his illegal sanctions policy still in place. Venezuela has and will continue to prevail!”

Venezuela’s ambassador to the United Nations, Samuel Moncada, stated, “Trump took the mask off of 60 satellite countries, the international propaganda, and all of those politicians and intellectuals who supported a puppet [Juan Guaidó] to govern Venezuela. The only aim has been to pillage the oil of the Venezuelan people. How shameful! This is the confession of a criminal”.

The “60 satellite countries” that Moncada referenced were those that joined the United States in formally recognizing unelected coup leader Guaidó as supposed “interim president” of Venezuela.

Venezuela’s former foreign minister, Jorge Arreaza, who served during the 2019 coup attempt, said Trump’s confession was legal evidence that the US was motivated to try to steal his country’s natural resources.

“The international justice system must act”, Arreaza implored.