Venezuela: The Battle for Oil – Under the Pretext of Fighting Drugs

By Peter Koenig* and Press TV
Global Research
September 09, 2025

The United States has issued a stern warning after Venezuelan fighter jets flew over an American warship in the Caribbean Sea.

The US Department of Defense denounced as ‘highly provocative’ the move after two Venezuelan F-16 jets flew over American guided missile destroyer Jason Dunham in the southern Caribbean Sea. The US Defense Department accused Caracas of an attempt to interfere with what it claimed as counter-narco-terror operation. This, only two days after a US strike killed nearly a dozen people aboard a vessel from Venezuela claiming it was carrying illegal narcotics. Earlier, Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro had raised alarms against the US naval deployment to the region accusing Washington of seeking a regime change through military threat. It vowed to mobilize the country in case of a military attack by the United States.

PressTV: What is your reaction to this, Mr. Koenig?

Peter Koenig: US aggression on Venezuela is nothing new. Already during the first Trump Administration Venezuela was constantly in the US cross-hairs and became one of the world’s most “sanctioned” countries.

But Venezuela’s Revolution survived.

Today, under the new Trump Administration the aggression goes on, now under the pretext of fighting drug trafficking.

What Trump and all US Administrations really want is “regime change.”

Frankly, they don’t care about drug trafficking. Believe it or not, the United States of America is the biggest drug trafficker in the world.

They don’t really care whether Venezuela is communist, socialist or capitalist. That’s of no importance. Venezuela is no threat to the US.

What President Trump and his ilk want – then and today – is access to Venezuela’s world’s largest reserves of hydrocarbons, oil and gas. Trillions-worth of dollars. That’s why they need “regime change.”

These huge deposits of hydrocarbon right on the US’ door step so to speak, across the Caribbean Sea, what better and closer could you get?

With these additional energy resources Trump believes he can save the European non-Union, before it falls totally apart. They just committed their “final” stroke of economic suicide, by blowing up on 5 July the Russian gas pipeline, near Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East. Ukraine claims responsibility for the crime, but not without European / NATO backing, for sure.

Despite widely propagated sanctions, since the US-instigated Maidan Coup in 2014, Europe has purchased in 2024 a record amount of Russian gas, indirectly, via India, Turkey, Ukraine, and whatever other detours. That’s the hypocrisy Europe has been living in for the last at least 3 decades. Lie after lie after ever more convincing lies that eventually become the truth.

For now, Washington needs its puppet-partner Europe for a while longer, so Europe must be fed with reasonably priced energy, for which Venezuelan oil is good.

PressTV: How do you think other Latin American countries will react?

PK: Well, they are prepared. Last November (2024) the Chinese inaugurated their Belt and Road built port in Chancay, Peru, to become one of South America’s Pacific Cost largest ports. As soon as the Trump Administration entered office, Trump announced that any merchandise shipped to the United States through this [Chinese] Chancay port will be charged with 50% to 100% import duties. Latin America’s reaction was cool, Well, we have other markets in China and Asia.

For Latin America its clear, that Trump wants to replay the Monroe Doctrine, meaning that Latin America is and remains Washington’s backyard. Nobody, especially not Europeans, may put their hands in America’s backyard, unless specifically allowed – or ordered.

But that won’t work anymore. These times are gone.

* Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst, regular author for Global Research, and a former Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).