The Guardian reports:

Donald Trump’s recent claims that the US should keep Venezuelan oil from seized tankers are part of a broader belief in rightwing “resource imperialism”, experts say.

In recent weeks, the Trump administration has escalated pressure on Venezuela, invoking drug-trafficking claims. This month, the US intercepted two tankers carrying Venezuelan oil and began pursuing a third, while intensifying its campaign against the country’s president, Nicolás Maduro.

Critics have compared the offensive to the Iraq war, citing a familiar mix of regime-change rhetoric, security pretexts and oil interests. This month, the Trump administration labeled fentanyl – which it says flows from Venezuela – a “weapon of mass destruction”.

On Monday, Trump suggested oil seized from Venezuela could be treated as a US asset. “Maybe we will sell it, maybe we will keep it,” he told reporters. “Maybe we’ll use it in the strategic reserves. We’re keeping the ships also.”

The remarks echo earlier statements from Trump where he has repeatedly called for the US to seize oil from other countries, indicating a broader belief that US power entitles it to control or extract resources from other states.

“The administration’s global energy policy is mostly about using the threat of violence or the withholding of aid to secure the inputs for the ‘most of the above’ energy strategy,” which excludes only solar and wind, said Patrick Bigger, co-director of Transition Security Project, a research initiative focused on the climate and geopolitical concerns of militarization. [Continue reading…]