Three months ago, it was about narcoterrorism. And with the thousands of criminals that the Venezuelan government allegedly – and without data provided by Washington to corroborate – sent to the United States. And now it is about recovering the assets nationalized by Carlos Andrés Pérez on January 1, 1976, in accordance with the current legality of the country, when Caracas took control of the main oil supplier to the United States, as well as the largest oil complex in Latin America.
“The blockade will not allow anyone to pass through who should not pass through,” US President Donald Trump said on Wednesday: “They took away all our energy rights. They stole all our oil not too long ago. And we want it back. They took it illegally. They took our land, our oil rights, everything we had, because there was a president who maybe wasn’t paying attention. But they’re not going to get away with it. We want it. We had a lot of oil there, as you know. They kicked out our companies and we want them back.
Indeed, the American president is now resorting to a 50-year-old nationalization to increase pressure on Nicolas Maduro. And he remembers the time when, starting in 1976, the oil industry began to be managed by Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), in a political decision in which the companies most affected by nationalization were the American Exxon Corporation, Gulf Oil Corporation and Mobil Oil Corporation. And now, half a century later, the country’s president, who hides behind so-called national security emergencies to make arbitrary economic decisions such as unilateral tariffs, says he wants to reverse this nationalization by force.
“The Venezuelan regime has been designated as a foreign terrorist organization for the theft of our property and for many other reasons, including terrorism, drug trafficking and human trafficking. This is why today I am ordering a total and complete blockade of all oil tankers sanctioned (by the United States) entering or leaving Venezuela,” the American president wrote Tuesday evening on his social networks.
What Trump also did not explain is the legal basis the United States has to prevent ships sanctioned by Washington from sailing in international or Venezuelan waters.
In the midst of all this tension deployed by Washington, with an aircraft carrier in the area, 15,000 troops deployed and 23 attacks on suspected drug boats with 95 deaths in extrajudicial executions, the UN Secretary General and the President of Venezuela had a telephone conversation at the initiative of Nicolas Maduro.
“During this call,” reports the United Nations, “the Secretary-General reaffirmed the UN position on the need for Member States to respect international law, in particular the Charter of the United Nations, to act with restraint and to reduce tensions to preserve regional stability.”
Trump’s victory in Congress
In this context, two war powers resolutions were passed in the House of Representatives on Wednesday to prevent Trump from launching a unilateral attack on Venezuela – Resolution 61 and Resolution 64 – and the Republicans won both votes by a handful of votes, making their majority in the House good despite losing three votes (220 members of Congress to 213).
The resolutions to end Trump’s campaign against Venezuela were promoted by the highest-ranking Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs and Rules Committees, Gregory Meeks (New York) and Jim McGovern (Massachusetts).
At the same time, Senate Democrats, along with Senator Rand Paul (Republican of Kentucky) and Senators Tim Kaine (Democrat of Virginia), Adam Schiff (Democrat of California) and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (Democrat of New York), introduced another resolution ordering Trump to stop using the military “unless specifically authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for the use of military force.”
In addition, this Monday another was announced in the Senate, promoted by Senator Rubén Gallego (Democrat of Arizona). Gallego’s resolution would set a 60-day deadline for Congress to formally authorize the deployment of military assets after the administration notifies Congress of the existence of a conflict.
About The Author
