President Donald Trump’s statement that United States should go into Venezuela and “take back" the oil reflects historical ignorance, and a deeply entrenched extractive mindset—a mindset that has treated Latin America as a resource colony for over a century.

His claim that Venezuela “stole” US oil refers to Hugo Chávez’s decision in the early 2000s to nationalize foreign-owned oil assets, including those held by American companies. To understand that decision, we must look at the conditions that provoked it. For decades, foreign firms and domestic elites extracted enormous profits while ordinary Venezuelans languished in poverty. By the late 1990s, nearly half the population lived below the poverty line despite massive oil revenues, and income inequality was extreme.

Chávez rejected the 1990s Apertura Petrolera model, which opened the oil sector to foreign investment on highly favorable terms, allowing multinational corporations to capture disproportionate gains while the state received relatively little. The 2001 hydrocarbons law reversed this: Royalties were increased to 30%, joint ventures required majority state ownership, and PDVSA reclaimed control over production. Oil revenue was redirected to misiones—social programs that reduced poverty from 50-30%. Venezuela’s resource nationalism disrupted entrenched profit expectations, and that disruption angered the powers accustomed to extractive entitlement.

And this is not new. History shows that the United States has long responded aggressively when resource-rich countries assert control over their own wealth. A striking example is Iran in the early 1950s. Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddegh, who became premier in 1951, moved to nationalize the Iranian oil industry, previously controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. This bold assertion of sovereignty enraged foreign powers, leading Britain and, eventually, the US, to orchestrate a coup in 1953. Known as Operation Ajax (CIA) and Operation Boot (MI6), the intervention involved bribing politicians and military officials, disinformation campaigns in the media, and street riots to destabilize the government. Mosaddegh was overthrown, and the Shah reinstated, ensuring continued foreign access to Iranian oil.

Trump’s promise to “take the oil” is an insult to the sovereignty of Venezuela and the dignity of its people,........

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