Tag: venezuela

Trump’s Venezuela Oil Plan Runs Into Hard Reality

Last week US President Donald Trump announced that Venezuela’s interim authorities will turn over up to 50 million barrels of oil to the United States, before later declaring his administration will control Venezuela’s oil sales “indefinitely”.

Decrying the state of Venezuela’s oil sector, including that the South American country now pumps a fraction of what it used to, Trump said, “We’re going to have our very large United States oil companies — the biggest anywhere in the world — go in, spend billions of dollars, fix the badly broken infrastructure, the oil infrastructure, and start making money for the country.”

While that sounds like a great opportunity for the US oil majors, it’s one they may want to refuse. Why? Because the oil underneath Venezuela, which has the largest crude reserves in the world, greater even than Saudi Arabia and Iran, is technically challenging to extract and costly.

Moreover, it’s uncertain whether there would a change in the way Venezuela and its oil industry are being run, which presents a huge political risk for companies to return and operate there.

Former President Hugo Chavez nationalized the oil industry in the 1990s, and in 2007, he forced Exxon and ConocoPhillips out, after the companies refused to accept new terms that would give the Venezuelan state oil company, PDVSA, a majority share in their projects.

ConocoPhillips is still owed about $10 billion.

Only Chevron is currently authorized to operate in Venezuela and export crude to the United States.

“Until Caracas has a new government capable of gaining the confidence of international investors and banks, oil companies will be reluctant to make any major commitments,” states a recent Reuters piece.

When Trump met with oil executives last Friday, Exxon’s CEO Darren Woods said, “We’ve had our assets seized there twice, and so you can imagine to re-enter a third time would require some pretty significant changes.”

Trump has said the US government is prepared to provide security guarantees but not money for oil projects.

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Trump’s Contrasting Regime-Change Strategies in Iran and Venezuela

President Donald Trump has made it clear that the new U.S.-Israeli air war against Iran is aimed at nothing less than the overthrow of the country’s clerical regime. Such an ambitious objective should not come as a surprise. Both the powerful Israel lobby and most of the conservative movement in the United States have endorsed the goal of forcible regime change in Tehran since the Islamic revolution overthrew the Shah in 1979. Even a sizable percentage of anti-war liberals have tended to make an exception with respect to policy toward Iran.

The ostensible goal embraced by nearly all of Tehran’s critics has always been to oust the mullahs and bring a secular democratic government to power. In December 2025, prominent conservative organizations, media outlets, and individuals in the United States and Europe voiced emphatic support for anti-regime protests that had erupted in Iranian cities. On January 15, 2026, Trump himself openly threatened to intervene militarily if Iranian security personnel continued to crack down on demonstrators.

Tehran’s adversaries in the United States and other Western countries insist that they want to see a secular, fully democratic government emerge in Iran. Trump’s rhetoric during the initial phases of his new war is consistent with that objective. The administration’s supposed embrace of an ambitious regime-change agenda for democracy in Iran, though, stands in dramatic contrast to Washington’s much more pragmatic conduct in Venezuela. Such a substantive difference raises justifiable uncertainty about the nature and extent of U.S. regime-change goals in Iran, even if the current war proves to be successful militarily.

Although the Trump administration ousted Venezuela’s left-wing dictator Nicolas Maduro in early January 2026, Trump allowed Maduro’s vice president, Delcy Rodriguez, and most other members of the regime to remain in power. That restraint infuriated libertarians and many conservatives in the United States. Most of them wanted to see Washington install in office opposition leader Maria Corina Machado, the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and an outspoken advocate of free markets. Indeed, Machado is the darling of prominent libertarian organizations, especially the Cato Institute.

However, Trump and his policy team seemed perfectly content with continuing an authoritarian socialist regime in Caracas, as long as the leaders were willing to do Washington’s bidding. Policy concessions from Rodriguez’s government with respect to the treatment of the U.S. oil industry and a willingness to display less receptivity to China’s economic penetration of South America came quickly, and the White House appeared to be placated.

The cynical pragmatism of U.S. policy in Venezuela should make U.S. crusaders for Iranian democracy wonder about the sincerity of the Trump administration’s commitment to that value in Iran. There also are major elements in the internal movement opposing the clerical regime who appear to be more than a little unsavory and might be willing to play a role similar to Delcy Rodriguez’s adopted role in her country.

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Feds Indict Six More in Venezuelan Gang’s High-Tech ATM Heist – Total Hits 93

A federal grand jury in the District of Nebraska returned an indictment Wednesday charging six individuals for their roles in a large conspiracy to deploy malware and steal millions of dollars from ATMs in the United States, a crime commonly referred to as “ATM jackpotting.” 

About 87 others have already been charged, bringing the total to 93 charged defendants. 

Wester Eduardo Dugarte Goicochea, 43; Mauro Angel Briceno Caldera, 37; Henry Rafael Gonzalez-Gutierrez, 37; and Giovanny Miguel Ocanto Yance, 26, Venezuelan nationals residing in the Houston area, were charged. In addition to Jelfenson David Bolivar Diaz, 38, and Arlinzon Jose Reyes Villegas, 21, both Venezuelan nationals, were charged. 

This indictment alleges five counts, including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, conspiracy to commit bank burglary and computer fraud, bank fraud, bank burglary, and damage to computers.

The most recent indictment follows a previous one returned on Dec. 9, 2025, that alleged that Tren de Aragua, a designated foreign terrorist organization, conducted jackpotting attacks across America. The Dec. 9 indictment charged 22 individuals with offenses for their roles in the conspiracy: 13 individuals are charged with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists, 10 with conspiracy to commit bank fraud, 10 with conspiracy to commit bank burglary and fraud and related activity in connection with computers, and 22 with conspiracy to commit money laundering. The indictment also alleges that TdA used jackpotting to steal millions of dollars in the United States and then transferred the proceeds among its members and associates to conceal the illegally obtained cash. The indictment alleged a national conspiracy to commit these offenses, with crimes committed all over the United States in furtherance of these conspiracies that generated millions in illegal proceeds for the combined defendants and the TdA organization.

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Tren de Aragua Brutally Tortures and Kills Innocent People While Benefiting From Federal Funds

When reports of the brutal Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua first appeared, Democrats denied its existence, claiming it was an anti-immigrant myth perpetrated by Republicans. That denial began to unravel after the Aurora, Colorado incident in August and September 2024, when video surfaced showing armed men inside an apartment complex.

Governor Jared Polis’s office initially dismissed claims of an “invasion,” with a spokesperson saying the narrative was a “feature of local officials’ imagination” and suggesting the allegations were being used for political theater.

Several mainstream media echoed that dismissal, describing Tren de Aragua as a new “bogeyman” or even a hallucination. While acknowledging the gang’s existence, they argued that reports of organized violence amounted to a fabricated “invading army” narrative designed to fuel anti-immigrant sentiment and justify mass deportations.

In reality, the gang is very real and has been brutally torturing and killing people while also taking advantage of federal and state benefits programs. ICE has been arresting its members and leaders, but those cases receive little attention from the mainstream media because they do not fit the narrative.

Last January, a 58-year-old woman in Burien, Washington, just south of Seattle, was kidnapped from her apartment complex by two illegal aliens, Alexander Arnaez-Gutierrez and Kevin Sanabria-Ojeda, who have confirmed ties to the Tren de Aragua gang. The attackers tortured the victim by using a power drill on her hand to force her to reveal her ATM PIN and the location of her jewelry. They also beat her and eventually shot her before leaving her for dead. The woman survived by playing dead until help arrived.

On January 8, 2026, ICE arrested an illegal alien, Venezuelan national, and confirmed Tren de Aragua gang member, Yorvis Michel Carrascal Campo, in Colorado Springs on charges including murder, racketeering, and drug trafficking tied to crimes in New Mexico. According to a federal indictment, Carrascal Campo participated in the June 2024 kidnapping and killing of a man and helped conceal evidence of the crime. The victim’s body was later hidden in a remote area of New Mexico.

Under President Trump, federal investigations into Tren de Aragua have focused on how the gang exploits migrant infrastructure by embedding itself within legitimate support systems run by nonprofits and funded by the federal government. While these programs are intended to provide humanitarian aid, investigators say Tren de Aragua has used them as hubs for recruitment, logistics, and criminal activity.

Federal agencies and congressional committees have focused on multiple locations where Tren de Aragua established footholds, most prominently New York City’s Roosevelt Hotel. FEMA and DHS opened investigations into claims that Tren de Aragua–linked groups, including Diablos de la 42, were operating out of city-run shelters.

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Reuters Claims Office of DNI Investigated Puerto Rico Election Machines For “Claims That Venezuela Had Hacked Voting Machines” in the U.S. Territory

In June of 2024, Puerto Rico encountered numerous problems while conducting their primary elections.  The Gateway Pundit reported that vote counts were reported as lower than the paper counts.  Some voting systems reversed totals, while some reported zero votes for certain candidates.  The discrepancies were attributed to a “software issue,” according to the Puerto Rico Election Commission’s interim president at the time, Jessika Padilla-Rivera.

There wasn’t much reporting on the American territory and the problems they had surrounding that election.  However, it did cause the election commission in the territory to call into question its contract with Dominion Voting Systems prior to the November 2024 election.

In an “exclusive” story published on Wednesday, Reuters claimed that a team working for Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “led an investigation into Puerto Rico’s voting machines,” according to Gabbard’s office and three sources familiar with the previously unreported events.

Reuters reported:

The sources said the goal was to work with the FBI to investigate claims that Venezuela had hacked voting machines in Puerto Rico, but added the probe did not produce any clear evidence of Venezuelan interference in the U.S. territory’s elections. Reuters first reported the investigation.

Gabbard’s office, in a statement to Reuters, confirmed the May investigation but denied a link to Venezuela, saying its focus was on vulnerabilities in the island’s electronic voting systems. Her team took an unspecified number of Puerto Rico’s voting machines and additional copies of data from the machines as part of its investigation, a spokesperson for Gabbard’s Office of the Director of National Intelligence said.

A source with direct knowledge of the investigation confirmed that the event in May did happen, but it was not tied to any specific claim of Venezuelan interference, nor was the scope of the investigation specific to foreign interference.  However, there was evidence of foreign involvement discovered, but no country was pointed out specifically by our source.

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Trump: The U.S. Military Used a “Secret Weapon” To Kidnap Maduro

United States President Donald Trump claimed that the American military used a new secret weapon during the abduction of Venezuelan ruler, Nicolas Maduro, and his wife. The weapons supposedly used to disable Venezuela’s air defense systems during the raid on Caracas.

Back in April, Trump did say that the U.S. has several secret weapons.

Trump Says The U.S. Has Secret Weapons

In an interview with the New York Post, which was published on Saturday, Trump said the mysterious weapon, called the “discombobulator,” had “made [enemy] equipment not work.”

“The Discombobulator. I’m not allowed to talk about it,” Trump said during an exclusive interview in the Oval Office. Trump claimed he would love to talk about the weapon, but that it worked. “They never got their rockets off. They had Russian and Chinese rockets, and they never got one off. We came in, they pressed buttons, and nothing worked. They were all set for us,” he said of Venezuela’s readiness leading up to the military campaign.

That revelation followed on-the-ground accounts from Venezuela describing how Maduro’s foot soldiers were brought to their knees, “bleeding through the nose” and vomiting blood. Additionally, a self-identified member of the deposed despot’s team of guards recounted afterward that “suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation.”

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President Trump Discusses Powerful Sonic Weapon Used to Take Out Venezuelan Soldiers During Maduro Capture

President Trump’s Oval Office interview with “NBC Nightly News” anchor Tom Llamas aired on Wednesday evening, and it covered various topics such as the ICE surge in Minneapolis, the crackdown on fraud, the economy, 2028, and more.

At one point during the one-hour interview, Tom Llamas asked President Trump about the sonic weapon used to take out Venezuelan soldiers during the Maduro capture.

Last month, the Army’s Delta Force captured Maduro after President Trump ordered military strikes on the South American country.

Venezuela said over 100 security officials and soldiers were killed in the US’s operation to capture Maduro.

No US forces were killed. President Trump said a few US service members were injured during the operation, but they are recovering.

According to an eyewitness account, the US military used weaponry and technology unlike anything he had ever seen.

“On the day of the operation, we didn’t hear anything coming. We were on guard, but suddenly all our radar systems shut down without any explanation. The next thing we saw were drones, a lot of drones, flying over our positions. We didn’t know how to react,” the security guard recounted.

After those drones appeared, some helicopters arrived, but there were very few. I think barely eight helicopters. From those helicopters, soldiers came down, but a very small number. Maybe twenty men. But those men were technologically very advanced. They didn’t look like anything we’ve fought against before.

“And then the battle began?” the interviewer asked.

“Yes, but it was a massacre. We were hundreds, but we had no chance. They were shooting with such precision and speed. It seemed like each soldier was firing 300 rounds per minute. We couldn’t do anything,” the witness said.

“And your own weapons? Didn’t they help?” the interviewer asked.

“No help at all. Because it wasn’t just the weapons. At one point, they launched something—I don’t know how to describe it. It was like a very intense sound wave. Suddenly I felt like my head was exploding from the inside. We all started bleeding from the nose. Some were vomiting blood. We fell to the ground, unable to move,” he said.

“Those twenty men, without a single casualty, killed hundreds of us. We had no way to compete with their technology, with their weapons. I swear, I’ve never seen anything like it. We couldn’t even stand up after that sonic weapon or whatever it was,” the eyewitness said.

Tom Llamas asked President Trump about the “discombobulator” used to take out the Venezuelan soldiers.

“You talked about the weapon – the discombobulator – what is that?” Llamas asked Trump.

“Discombobulator, well, I’m not allowed to talk about it. Let me just tell you, you know what it does? None of their equipment works, that’s what it does!” Trump said.

“It was my name – I’m very proud of the name. It was discombobulated. It was, you know, practically a shot wasn’t fired. You know, they were ready!” Trump said.

“Tom, it discombobulated everything!” Trump said.

“Nothing worked, even including humans!” Llamas said.

“Well, let’s put it this way. We lost no equipment in a very strong, and they’re good fighters, great fighters, in a very bad environment. It was a military base, the biggest in South America, in a very, because the house was in a base in South, in a very, very tough environment. We lost no men and we lost no equipment,” Trump said.

“It discombobulated.. just knocked everything,” Llamas said.

“Well, it did something!” Trump said.

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Senate Armed Service Committee Member Profited From Venezuela Invasion

Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) has cultivated an image as a Rambo-type hero, which was burnished in August 2021 when he took an unauthorized trip to Afghanistan to try to help rescue people fleeing the Taliban after they returned to power in Afghanistan.

A former mixed martial arts fighter and wrestler who champions the Trump administration’s trillion-dollar-plus military budget, Mullin is a super-hawk sitting on the Senate Armed Services Committee who criticized President Joe Biden for supposedly “appeasing” countries like Iran.

In 2022, Mullin introduced a bill in Congress that would allow U.S. citizens to volunteer to fight Russia on behalf of Ukraine, claiming that thousands of Americans were ready to fight communism. (Lacking even a bachelor’s degree, Mullin does not seem to realize that Russia under Vladimir Putin is not a communist country.)[1]

While Mullin may genuinely subscribe to reactionary political views,[2] his opportunism was disclosed in an article in The Oklahoman in late January, which revealed that he had bought Chevron and RTX (formerly Raytheon) stock just days before U.S. forces captured Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in an illegal Special Forces raid, Operation Absolute Resolve.

A spokesperson for Mullin told The Oklahoman that the purchases were made without Mullin’s input by a firm that manages his stock trading. This excuse seems to be disingenuous since Mullin had to have green-lighted the stock trades and did not demand their cancelation or say that he sold back the RTX and Chevron stock shares after they were disclosed.

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US planning CIA foothold in post-Maduro Venezuela

The CIA is quietly working to establish a permanent US presence on the ground in Venezuela, spearheading the Trump administration’s plans to exert its newfound influence over the country’s future, according to multiple sources familiar with the planning.

Planning discussions between the CIA and State Department have centered around what the US footprint inside Venezuela will look like, both in the short and long term, after the dramatic capture of former President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.

While the State Department will serve as the primary, long-term US diplomatic presence in the country, the Trump administration will likely lean heavily on the CIA to initiate that re-entry process due to the ongoing political transition and unstable security situation in Venezuela post-Maduro, the sources added.

“State plants the flag but CIA is really the influence,” one source familiar with the planning process told CNN, noting the agency’s near-term objectives include setting the stage for diplomatic efforts – including relationship building with locals – and providing security.

In the short term, US officials may operate out of a CIA annex, prior to the opening of an official embassy, allowing them to start making informal contact with members of different factions of Venezuela’s government as well as opposition figures and target third parties who may be threats, the source said, drawing a parallel to the agency’s work in Ukraine.

“Setting up an annex is priority number one. Before diplomatic channels the annex can help set up liaison channels, that will be with the Venezuelan intelligence and that will allow conversations that diplomats cannot have,” said a former US government official who engaged with the Venezuelans.

The CIA declined to comment.

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The New York Times Is Trying To Rebrand Venezuela’s New Dictator as a Serious Thinker

The New York Times has depicted Nicolás Maduro’s successor—Venezuelan dictator Delcy Rodríguez—as a pragmatic technocrat, a market-friendly reformer, and a “cosmopolitan” who helped to stabilize the Venezuelan economy. The Times claims that Hugo Chávez’s socialist revolution has evolved into a “brutal capitalism” under Rodríguez’s purview. “A relative moderate,” Times reporter Anatoly Kurmanaev wrote, “Ms. Rodríguez is the architect of a market-friendly overhaul that has stabilized the Venezuelan economy after a prolonged collapse.”

In a series of articles bylined or co-authored by Kurmanaev and Simón Romero, Rodríguez is credited with heading “a market-friendly overhaul which had provided a semblance of economic stability.” One article states that “hyperinflation was halted and economic growth returned” under her watch. The Times’ reporter Pranav Baskar has underscored Rodríguez’s credentials and style, writing that she presents “herself as a cosmopolitan technocrat in a militaristic and male-dominated government.” Romero and Kurmanaev have contrasted her “technocratic, numbers-heavy communication” approach with Maduro’s “folksy style.”

The article that provoked the most outrage in Venezuela’s expat community was published last September and bylined by Times reporter Julie Turkewitz, who was granted “a rare visa for foreign journalists” and traveled to Caracas for an interview with Rodríguez. The resulting article featured a portrait of the now-dictator, stylishly dressed, looking introspective and calm, as she peered through a window, casting a gentle glow on her face.

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