With US warplanes striking Caracas and President Nicolás Maduro captured and taken for prosecution, Washington has crossed a new geopolitical Rubicon in hemispheric politics.

Why the regime change

The real drivers behind the US intervention go far beyond the rhetoric of counter-narco operations and democracy promotion; they are rooted in an emerging Cold War 2.0 struggle for energy and influence. Venezuela sits atop the world’s largest proven oil reserves — estimated at roughly 303 billion barrels, dwarfing even Saudi Arabia’s holdings — making it a prize of immense strategic value in a world still powered by hydrocarbons. Under President Maduro, Caracas pivoted away from Washington and toward Beijing, entering deep oil-for-loans arrangements that saw Chinese credit — estimated in the tens of billions — repaid in crude rather than dollars, bolstering a non-US energy payment system that undercuts American financial primacy. In geopolitical terms, this linkage gave China a foothold in the energy market of the Western Hemisphere and straight upended decades of US dominance in its own strategic backyard — a shift that hardliners in Washington clearly now view as intolerable.

But it’s not just about oil and finance. Cuba, one of the region’s most enduring US antagonists, has been kept afloat in large part by subsidized Venezuelan crude for decades. Even as shipments have dwindled under sustained US pressure, Havana’s economy, already beset by crippling shortages and frequent blackouts, remains........

© New Eastern Outlook