Comment by tootie
3 days ago
He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
3 days ago
He also indicated they will work directly with Maduro's second in command, not the putative winning candidate from the last election. This is purely about theft.
In the eyes of the US, the expropriation of American assets in Venezuela [0] and then selling them to Russian [1], Chinese [2], and Indian [3] interests was theft.
Russian-US relations are tense for the same reasons due to the saga of Sakhalin-I's nationalization from Exxon [4] following the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine and Russia's sale of Exxon's stake to Japanese [5] and Indian [6] interests.
The previous administration also stopped Saudi and UAE from invading Qatar in 2017 [7] due to Rex Tillerson's personal interests with Exxon's stake in Qatar's energy infra [8]
That said, assuming the US doesn't attempt a Venezuelan version of de-Baathification [9], this should be a fairly standard transfer of power - US-Venezuela relations only really tanked when Maduro came to power and hard pivoted Eastward, as even under Chavez American business operations continued and the relationship wasn't severely tense. And from the sounds of it, the faction backing Delcy Rodriguez chose to give Maduro up and (reading between the lines) roll back nationalization in return for staying in power.
Almost everything in political science can be modeled using Tsebelis's Veto Player model, Mesquita's Selectorate Theory, Kuran's Revolutionary Threshold, and the Agency Problem.
[0] - https://www.theguardian.com/business/2007/may/02/oilandpetro...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/venezuela-approves-1...
[2] - https://www.spglobal.com/energy/en/news-research/latest-news...
[3] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-says-oil...
[4] - https://www.upstreamonline.com/production/russia-takes-contr...
[5] - https://www.japex.co.jp/en/business/oilgas/sakhalin1/
[6] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-ongc-moves-cl...
[7] - https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/8/1/rex-tillerson-stoppe...
[8] - https://www.qatarenergylng.qa/english/AboutUs/Corporate-Stru...
[9] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De-Ba%27athification
Any theory on the choice of state jurisdiction for DoJ case?
In a nutshell - "might makes right". Also, Maduro was charged all the way back in 2020 in SDNY [0]. I am not a lawyer, but SDNY is almost always used because most high profile cases have some sort of economic crimes component, which inevitabely leads to Manhattan (Rayiner can jump in and corroborate or correct this statement).
If someone pushes back on DoJ authority, the Trump admin will point to Juan Orlando Hernandez's (Honduras) indictment in 2021 [1] and get an opportunity to bash the Biden admin and call out "double standards" for his base. If not, then this will stand. That's why I find the drug indictment angle interesting - it seems that it is being used in lieu of the now revoked FCPA because it also gives the ability to leverage physical force whereas the former only really gave an economic lever.
Essentially, the rules-based consensus was a 1989-2014 era anomaly, and we already made a return to multi-polar power competition. Most foreign policy leaders under Obama 2 onwards have all been "realists" like Allison, Doshi, Mastro, and Colby and the worry of great power competition has been the primary topic of conversation for almost 2 decades now.
[0] - https://www.justice.gov/archives/opa/pr/nicol-s-maduro-moros...
[1] - https://2021-2025.state.gov/u-s-actions-against-former-hondu...
^ edit: "The previous administration..." should be "The administration previously..."