What does Trump really want with Venezuela? Here are the Best Takes

We’ve all read the news, but what are Trumps real motivations. What do you guys think he wants? 1. Venezuela holds 300 billion barrels (the most in the world) of oil which is worth around $18 trillion at today’s price (50% of US debt). Any amount of this returned to the US would be hugely valuable and ‘reinforce’ Trump’s image. Look at Chevron / Halliburton stock prices since August - contracts will be flying soon. 2. Flooding the global oil supply will lower prices, or more importantly, give Trump additional control over the global economy through the oil supply. This may potentially be used as a bargaining chip (e.g. to weaken Iranian, Russian, Chinese economies, or to strengthen the dollar through Tariff style manipulation and leverage). 3. Not only does Venezuela hold oil, but it also holds lots of gold. While Gold is currently trading at all time highs (and many economies like BRICS have been stocking up on reserves), Trump may wish to crash the gold price to ‘reinforce’ the safety of the dollar. Or, again, he may wish to leverage control. 3.5 Some have also speculated a digital currency backed by tangible (potentially Venezuelan) assets - I don’t really buy this but its interesting nonetheless. 4. US grid capacity shortages have been noticeable and heavy generators are already being rolled out to fuel Data Centres and AI Infrastructure. As mentioned by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, ‘massive fleets of diesel and gas’ generators (35GW massive) may help to bridge the gap until renewable energy / grid upgrades materialise. It would cost a huge amount to buy that much fuel, if only I could get it for free… 5. All of this can be very damaging to China, as well as the fact that China has been ‘renting’ Venezuelan resources through loans granting them rights to gold, oil and rare earth materials. While I don’t think that the Rare Earths are particularly significant, snubbing China is still useful for Trump in terms of resources and ego. Did i miss anything?