What Really Happened in Venezuela, And Why It Matters

Right now, across every news network, you're watching the same story on repeat. Special forces descending from the sky, a Latin American president in handcuffs, commentators praising tactical precision and strategic brilliance. They want you focused on the spectacle, on the daring raid, on the military success. Because if you're watching the helicopters, you're not watching the balance sheet. This wasn't regime change for democracy.

This wasn't about human rights violations or drug cartels. This was a debt collection operation with gunships. There's an old rule in geopolitics that everyone pretends doesn't exist. You cannot sanction the countries that control your vital resources,

not forever, not without consequences. For 23 years, the United States tried to defy this rule. They sanctioned Venezuela, they froze assets, they recognized parallel governments, they funded opposition movements, they did everything except the one thing they just did. Until this week when all of that collapsed in the most revealing way possible. On December 28th, Nicolas Maduro signed energy agreements with

China worth 1818 billion. Two days later, Jake Sullivan, the national security advisor, quietly requested a meeting with Venezuelan officials in Panama not to threaten, not to impose conditions, to negotiate access to oil that Washington has spent two decades trying to destroy. What you're witnessing is not diplomacy, it's capitulation that got interrupted by helicopters, and it reveals something critical.

When an empire loses control over resources, it once considered guaranteed, the collapse doesn't arrive gradually, it arrives in cascade. Let me show you the numbers that explain why this happened now, why this week, why this operation couldn't wait.

Venezuela controls the largest certified oil reserves on the planet, 303.8 billion barrels. Iran, its strategic ally, controls another 208.6 billion. Together, they represent 32% of global proven reserves. And both have just formally exited the financial system controlled by Washington. This is not theory. This week marks the breaking point where the architecture that sustained American hegemony for 80 years began its irreversible disintegration. But to understand why American

helicopters just landed in Caracas, you need to understand a problem that almost nobody is talking about. The refinery mismatch. The media has been selling you a story for years. They told you the shale revolution made America energy independent. They told you the United States is now the world's largest oil producer and therefore doesn't need to care about the Middle East or Latin America anymore. This is a half-truth.

And in geopolitics, a half-truth is a full lie. The United States does produce massive amounts of oil, but it produces light, sweet, crude. It's like champagne. Bubbly, light, expensive to extract, and not what American refineries were built to process. The problem is this. The massive refineries in Texas and Louisiana, the industrial backbone of American energy, were built 50 years ago. They were designed to process heavy, sour,

crude, the thick, sludge-like oil that comes from Venezuela and the Middle East. America produces champagne, but its engines run on diesel. For decades, they solved this by importing heavy crude from Saudi Arabia. But that relationship is effectively dead. Saudi Arabia is no longer the gas station of the West. Riyadh is cutting production to keep prices high. They're joining BRICS. They're ignoring calls from Washington.

The Saudi prince has made it very clear he's no longer interested in being a vassal state. So the United States faced a mathematical problem. They were running out of the specific type of oil needed to keep their refineries running at capacity. And worse, they had already played their emergency card. Over the last two years, the administration drained the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. The SPR is meant for war. It's meant for national emergencies.

It is not meant to buy votes by artificially lowering gas prices before elections. Yet they opened the taps. They flooded the market with millions of barrels to keep prices down. Now the bill has come due. The SPR is at its lowest level since 1983, 351 million barrels.

That's it. Under the Biden administration, 180 million barrels were released in 2022 alone to control prices after the Ukraine conflict started. Those barrels have not been replaced. The International Energy Agency projects a deficit of 1.2 million barrels daily for 2025

if tensions with Iran escalate and Russian sanctions remain in place. So, Washington looked at the map. They looked for heavy crude suppliers. Canada is already pumping at maximum capacity. Russia is sanctioned and hostile. Saudi Arabia is uncooperative and pivoting toward Beijing. That left only one option, the massive heavy crude fields of the Orinoco belt, Venezuela. Venezuela currently produces 780,000 barrels daily. Under Chinese technical management

and Russian financial support, that production could reach 1.4 million barrels daily. Under Chinese technical management and Russian financial support, that production could reach 1.4 million barrels daily within 18 months. But here's the problem that triggered this entire operation that oil is already committed. China signed oil prepayment contracts with Venezuela worth $62 billion between 2007 and 2024. Russia provided another 17 billion in credit lines backed by crude shipments. India, completely indifferent to American sanctions, now imports 340,000 barrels daily

of Venezuelan oil, refines it, and re-exports it to Europe as Indian product. The United States tried four strategies to break this encirclement. Every single one failed. The first strategy was maximum pressure through sanctions. It failed because Venezuela developed export networks completely outside the swift banking system. Ships with flags of convenience, payments in Yuan, refineries in Malaysia. Washington discovered that sanctioning paper doesn't stop oil molecules from moving. The second strategy was regime change through proxies. They spent millions

backing Juan Guaido, recognizing him as the legitimate president even though he never controlled a single military barracks. By 2023, even the Venezuelan opposition had abandoned him. American recognition became an international joke. The third strategy was diplomatic isolation. It failed because 134 countries never recognized Guaido. Latin America, including Brazil, Colombia, and Mexico,

restored full diplomatic relations with Caracas between 2022 and 2024, completely ignoring Washington's objections. The fourth strategy was conditional licenses, allowing companies like Chevron Limited permission to operate in Venezuela, but with strings attached.

This is failing right now because Maduro learned the fundamental lesson, never trust American concessions designed as control levers. And then came the final trigger, the currency war. Intelligence reports that mainstream media is conveniently ignoring suggested that Caracas control levers, and then came the final trigger, the currency war. Intelligence reports that mainstream media is conveniently ignoring suggested that Caracas

was preparing what financial analysts were calling a nuclear option. Venezuela was on the verge of officially integrating its energy sector into China's cross-border interbank payment system, CIPS. They were preparing to price their entire reserve, the largest on earth, not in dollars, but in a basket of currencies led by the UN and backed by gold. If this had happened, it would have been a signal to the entire global South.

It would have proven that you can possess massive resource wealth outside the American banking system and survive. Washington saw this as an existential threat. Let me explain why this matters so much. The American dollar is not backed by gold. It hasn't been since 1971. It's not backed by industrial productivity. The manufacturing base has been hollowed out for decades. It's backed by one thing, an agreement made 50

years ago with Saudi Arabia. Oil must be sold in dollars. This is the magic trick because every nation on earth needs oil. Every nation needs be sold in dollars. This is the magic trick, because every nation on Earth needs oil, every nation needs dollars to buy it. This creates permanent artificial demand for U.S. currency. It allows the United States to print trillions of dollars,

export the inflation to the rest of the world, and never face the consequences. This system is called the exorbitant privilege. It's the source of American prosperity for half a century. But recently, the magic started to fade. In June 2024, the Saudi-American Petrodollar Agreement formally expired. Saudi Arabia did not renew it. They now accept Chinese yuan

for oil sales to China, their largest customer. In November 2024, the United Arab Emirates processed $128 billion in bilateral trade with China, completely in yuan. Russia sells oil to India in rupees and rubles. Iran sells to China in yuan. The dollar's share of global foreign exchange reserves fell from 71% in 1999 to 58% in 2024. Each percentage point of decline represents approximately $350 billion in reduced demand for U.S. Treasury bonds.

And this is where Venezuela became the red line. If Venezuela's oil disconnects from the dollar, the demand for U.S. Treasury bonds collapses further. Interest rates spike. The entire debt-based economy of the West, which depends on cheap borrowing, implodes. So Washington had a choice.

Accept the new multipolar reality and negotiate as an equal partner or use the one asset they still have in abundance. Military force. They chose the gun. The operation itself was, from a purely tactical standpoint, extraordinary and we need to acknowledge that because it tells us something about what comes next. Dan Kaney, head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,

gave a presentation after the press conference. He said they'd been preparing for this for months. They rehearsed it. They had someone very close to Maduro feeding them intelligence. They knew where he ate, what he ate,

who he ate with, what pets he had. They'd been waiting for the right weather conditions. For several days, the operation was ready to execute, but weather kept delaying it. The minute conditions aligned, they moved. Helicopters came in. Electricity was reportedly cut in key areas. Air defenses were neutralized. Delta Force operatives, including, and Trump made a point of mentioning this, a 49-year-old operator extracted Maduro from his residence. No American casualties. Maduro is now on a U.S. warship heading to New York to face a sealed indictment

that's been waiting since 2020. Trump at the press conference couldn't contain himself. He said, and I'm paraphrasing here, you're probably never going to get to see what I saw last night. It was amazing. These guys were moving so fast. He was watching it in real time from Mar-a-Lago

like it was a reality TV show, which in his mind, it was. But here's where the spectacle ends and the consequences begin. Trump and Marco Rubio were asked repeatedly at the press conference, who's going to run Venezuela now? How long will American forces be there? What's the plan for governance?

And they had no answer. Rubio went up and gave a rambling speech about how when Trump says something, he means it. You've got to take him at his word. But there was no actual plan presented, just vague references to these guys behind me running things,

gesturing to Pete Hegseth, Stephen Miller, and others. These are not people who are going to sit in Caracas organizing public infrastructure. Trump did say that American oil companies will go in and help Venezuela rebuild its energy sector. He was very explicit about this.

He said it's pathetic how much they've been producing given their reserves, and American companies will fix that. But here's the problem that anyone who studied post-conflict reconstruction understands immediately.

Venezuela is not Panama. This is not 1989 when George H.W. Bush sent forces in to remove General Noriega. Panama had 3 million people. Venezuela has 30 million. Panama had a massive American military base

and the strategically vital Panama Canal. Venezuela has neither. More importantly, Maduro was not a personalist dictator. This wasn't like removing Saddam Hussein or Gaddafi, where the entire state structure revolved around one individual.

Maduro rose within a system, the Chavista system, a network of generals, intelligence chiefs, judiciary officials, and paramilitary groups called colectivos that control everything from ports to food distribution. The defense minister is still in place. The interior minister, Diosdado Cabello,

one of the most powerful figures in the regime, is still there. The Vice President, Delcy Rodriguez, is still there. All of these people control pieces of the economy. Venezuela has, and this is a critical detail, multiples more generals compared to the average soldier than anywhere else on earth. About 20 times as many as you would expect in a normal military structure.

Every general has a monopoly somewhere. They control mining concessions, they control ports, they control oil distribution. The military doesn't just defend Venezuela, the military is the economy. So what happens now? Does the Nobel Prize-winning opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, come in and say, I'm bringing transitional justice,

I'm prosecuting the top figures in the Maduro regime. If she does, every one of those generals is going to think, hold on, I own a mining concession, I don't trust Donald Trump, I don't trust this amnesty, why would I give up power and wealth and risk prosecution? Either they cling to power and try to cut some deal with Richard Grenell, Trump's envoy, to secure their assets or they resist. And if they resist, Trump has already signaled what comes next. At the press conference he said very clearly,

we had a second wave of attacks ready to go. He repeated this multiple times. The message was obvious, fall in line or we hit you again. But this is where the operation, tactically brilliant as it was, becomes strategically catastrophic, because the rest of the world is watching. Every country in the global south, from Nigeria to Brazil to Indonesia, is looking at Venezuela and thinking the same thing.

If we refuse to sell our resources in dollars, will they come for us next? This fear does not create loyalty. It creates an exodus. Let me show you what's already happening. At the BRICS Summit in Kazan, Russia in October 2024, Vladimir Putin announced the development of BRICS Pay, a blockchain-based cross-border payment system that completely bypasses the US dollar. Brazil is already piloting it for agricultural trade. South Africa processed its first diamond transaction in November.

Iran and Russia are settling arms sales through it. Venezuela has just applied for formal BRICS membership, if accepted, and it will be. Its 303.8 billion barrels of oil reserves will be integrated into an economic architecture completely isolated from Washington. The transition has already happened. The world simply hasn't realized it yet. China's official gold reserves increased by 225 tons in 2023 alone. Actual purchases are probably double that, made through Hong Kong imports that aren't fully reported. Russia was completely excluded from

SWIFT in 2022. Their response? Build the financial message transfer system now processing 30% of Russian domestic payments and expanding to 159 financial institutions in 20 countries. China launched CEPS in 2015. As of early 2025, it connects 1,423 financial institutions in 109 countries. It processes $436 billion in daily transactions,

completely outside dollar-based clearing systems. The BRICS expansion in 2023 added Saudi Arabia, Iran, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Ethiopia. That's 45% of the world's population, 36% of global GDP in purchasing power parity terms, and control of 72% of the planet's proven oil reserves. By attacking Venezuela to secure its oil fields, the United States has proved

exactly why the world needs an alternative system. They've validated every speech Putin and Xi Jinping have ever made about American unilateralism and aggression. Before this operation, countries used the dollar because it was convenient, stable, and the infrastructure was already there. After this operation, countries will dump the dollar because holding U.S. assets now means you're vulnerable. It means your sovereignty is conditional.

The petrodollar is no longer a trade agreement. It's a hostage situation. Now, let's talk about the legal dimension, because this matters for what happens next. The operation was launched with no congressional authorization. Congress was not consulted.

In fact, congressional committees had called in administration officials weeks earlier and asked directly, are you planning regime change in Venezuela? They were told no. Senators are now coming out saying they were lied to.

Trump's defense, delivered by Marco Rubio at the press conference, was that Congress leaks and couldn't be trusted with operational security. There was no consultation with the United Nations, no Security Council resolution, no attempt to build international legitimacy.

The justification being used is that Venezuela represents a narco-terrorist threat to the United States, that Maduro's regime is flooding America with drugs, and therefore this falls under national security emergency powers. Most international law experts are calling this nonsense.

Under the UN Charter, you need either a Security Council resolution or an imminent threat to justify military intervention in another sovereign state. Venezuela, a country of 30 million people located 3,500 kilometers from Florida, does not represent an imminent threat.

The legal argument is performative. But here's what's interesting. Trump doesn't care about the legal argument, and he's not hiding that. At the press conference, he mentioned the Monroe Doctrine specifically, the idea that the Western Hemisphere is America's sphere of influence. He even joked that some people are now calling it the Donro doctrine, inserting his own name into it. This is 19th century thinking, gunboat

diplomacy, spheres of influence, the idea that might makes right, and the message to the rest of Latin America was explicit. Trump was asked about Colombia. He said the Colombian president, and I'm quoting here, needs to watch his ass because Colombia is flooding the United States with drugs. He talked about Mexico saying Claudia Scheinbaum claims she runs Mexico,

but actually the cartels run Mexico. The implication was clear, comply or you're next. He's not even pretending anymore. The mask of the liberal international order, the rhetoric about democracy and human rights and rule of law, it's gone.

This is raw power politics, and the world is reacting accordingly. China issued a statement calling this a breach of international law, reckless and dangerous. Russia's foreign minister Lavrov said the same. But here's what's interesting. The statements feel muted, almost pro forma. It's as if they're going through the motions of condemnation without actually committing

to any real pushback. And that tells you something. Russia and China are not willing to stand up for their proxies when the United States uses military force. Venezuela was receiving support from both. China made massive loans.

Russia provided military cooperation and financial support. And yet when American helicopters came, there was no real response. This raises a critical question for the multipolar world order. If the United States can still execute operations like this with impunity, how multipolar is the world really? But I think that's the wrong lesson to draw. Because while China and Russia didn't intervene militarily, they don't need to. The response isn't military, it's financial. Every country watching this is accelerating

their exit from dollar dependence. They're buying gold, they're joining C-ups, they're negotiating bilateral trade in local currencies. The response is structural, not tactical. And that brings me to the biggest problem facing the United States right now, the day after. There are think tank papers going back a decade about regime change scenarios in Venezuela.

Brookings, the American Enterprise Institute, dozens of war games and policy simulations. They all identify the same challenges. First, what do you do with the former regime elements? In Iraq, they disbanded the Ba'ath Party and sacked everyone. That created a massive insurgency. If you prosecute too many Venezuelan generals and officials, you create a resistance movement. But if you forgive them all and let them keep their

mining concessions, 80% of Venezuelans will say, what the hell was the point? Second, what do you do with the colectivos? These are the paramilitary groups, maybe 200,000 to 300,000 people who control food distribution, neighborhood security, and have been armed for years. They're not in the jungle.

They're in urban centers. The playbook says you need to demobilize and disarm them. In Colombia they did this with 14,000 FARC fighters over years. In Venezuela you're talking about 300,000 people. The scale is completely different. Third, infrastructure. Venezuela's oil industry has been destroyed by decades of underinvestment and sanctions. Electricity is unreliable. Water systems are failing. Getting oil production back to meaningful levels could take five to

ten years, even with American companies involved. Fourth, governance. Who actually runs the country? Trump was asked this directly at the press conference. He had no clear answer. He gestured to the people standing behind him and said, these guys will handle it. But Pete Hegseth, Marco Rubio, and Stephen Miller are not going to be administering

Venezuelan public services. The assumption seems to be that Maria Carina Machado and the opposition will take over. But she hasn't been mentioned prominently. Trump's tone when referencing her was notably cool and here's the detail that should terrify everyone. Trump mentioned that Marco Rubio had been in contact with Delce

Rodriguez Maduro's vice president who is part of the inner circle of the regime. That suggests the United States might actually try to cut a deal with the existing power structure minus Maduro. install a new face, but keep the same system in place as long as they agree to sell oil in dollars and allow American companies back in. If that happens, this entire operation wasn't about liberating Venezuela, it was about changing management. And here's why that might backfire spectacularly.

Because if the generals and the judiciary and the collectivos stay in power, just under new branding, the Venezuelan people who celebrated Maduro's removal are going to feel betrayed, and rightfully so. You'll have massive protests, you'll have resistance, you'll have instability that could last for years,

and the United States has zero appetite for boots on the ground long term. Trump has made that clear his entire political career. He doesn't want to occupy countries, so you end up with the worst possible outcome, a power vacuum, competing factions, no legitimate governance, and oil production that stays disrupted.

Meanwhile, Trump will declare victory, hold a press conference showing footage of the raid, and move on to the next headline. But the consequences will compound. Think about the signal this sends to every other country with natural resources. If you're sitting in Riyadh right now watching this,

what do you conclude? You conclude that having oil reserves makes you a target if you don't comply with Washington's demands. So what do you do? You diversify. You move your wealth into assets the U.S. military can't seize. Gold, U.N., real estate in neutral jurisdictions. You accelerate your entry into BRICS. You build alternative payment systems. You reduce your exposure to the American financial system as

quickly as possible. The same calculation is happening in the UAE, in Kazakhstan, in Nigeria, in Indonesia. Every oil-producing nation is watching and adjusting. Trump thinks he's securing American energy independence. What he's actually doing is fragmenting the global energy market into blocks that trade outside the dollar system. And once that fragmentation is complete,

the United States loses its ability to print money without consequences. Let me show you what that looks like in practical terms for Americans. Right now, you're paying $4.80 per gallon for gasoline in California. That price is not determined by supply and demand. It's determined by geopolitical risk premiums. Futures markets are pricing in the growing probability that the United States cannot secure reliable access to low-cost energy in the next 24 months.

Your heating bills this winter reflect the same calculation. American natural gas trades at a 40% premium over European prices, even though the US produces more, because Europe built LNG infrastructure that diversifies suppliers. The U.S. is trapped with domestic pipeline dependency

while simultaneously sanctioning foreign producers who could stabilize markets. Your purchasing power at the grocery store, each dollar buying 23% less than in 2020, is partially monetary inflation, yes, but it's also the structural fracture of dollar-based supply chains. When Brazil trades

soybeans with China and Yuan, when Russia sells fertilizer to India in rupees, when Saudi Arabia sells oil to Japan without touching dollar-denominated accounts, each of those transactions reduces demand for your currency. Demand reduction means devaluation. Devaluation means your salary buys less. Your retirement savings, if they're

in traditional Treasury-heavy index funds, are structurally exposed to the risk that foreign governments diversify away from those same bonds. When China reduced Treasury holdings by $30 billion in a single quarter last year, bond yields

increased to attract replacement buyers. Higher bond yields mean lower bond valuations. Your retirement funds hold those bonds. This is the hidden cost of what just happened in Venezuela. The immediate spectacle is dramatic. The long-term financial consequences

will be devastating. Now, there's an argument some people will make. They'll say, look, Maduro was a terrible person. He rigged elections. He tortured opponents. He destroyed the Venezuelan economy.

The country went from the wealthiest in Latin America to one of the poorest. Eight million refugees fled. Getting rid of him is a good thing. And on a human level, yeah, Maduro was a disaster. No question.

But the problem with that argument is it confuses morality with strategy. Removing a bad leader through military force without a plan for what comes next, without regional support, without legitimacy, creates worse problems than it solves. We've seen this pattern before. Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan. Every time the narrative was the same.

This leader is terrible. The people will welcome us. We'll install democracy. Everything will be fine. And every time it turned into a disaster because toppling a government is the easy part.

Building a functional state is the hard part. And there's zero indication that the Trump administration has thought beyond the raid itself. At the press conference, a reporter asked, how long will American forces be in Venezuela? Trump's answer, we're not worried about boots on the ground. That's not an answer. That's an evasion. Because either you commit to long-term stabilization, which Trump has no interest in,

or you leave quickly and hope someone else figures it out. If you leave quickly, you get chaos. If you stay long-term, you get an occupation that drains resources and becomes politically toxic domestically. There's no good option once you've launched the operation without a plan. And that's the fundamental problem here. This wasn't a strategic decision. It was a reactive one driven by panic over oil supplies and dollar hegemony.

Let me tell you what happens next. This is not speculation. This is pattern recognition based on how these situations have unfolded historically. In the short term, oil markets will rally. Investors will bet that Venezuelan production

comes back online quickly, under American management. Gas prices might drop slightly. Wall Street will celebrate. Trump will declare victory. He'll hold rallies. He'll talk about American strength

and how he did what no other president could do. But within six months, the cracks will show. Venezuelan production won't recover as quickly as promised because the infrastructure is in worse shape than anticipated, because the generals who controlled the oil sector are either in hiding or actively sabotaging operations.

Because the workers don't trust the new government, the colectivos will start low-level resistance, not a full insurgency at first, just enough disruption to make governance impossible. Because the workers don't trust the new government, the collectivos will start low-level resistance. Not a full insurgency at first, just enough disruption to make governance impossible. Targeted strikes, protests, sabotage. American oil companies will start complaining that the security situation makes it impossible

to operate. They'll demand more protection. That means more American personnel on the ground, even if they're called contractors instead of soldiers. Within a year, you'll have congressional hearings asking why billions in reconstruction aid are disappearing with nothing to show for it, why oil production is still below expectations, why Venezuela is still unstable. And Trump will do what he always does, blame someone else, blame the previous administration, blame the Venezuelan opposition for not being competent, blame

Europe for not contributing enough aid, but the damage will be done, not just in Venezuela, globally, because every country that was on the fence about joining BRICS will now have made their decision. Every country that was considering pricing commodities in Guam will now have moved forward. Every country that was debating whether to keep reserves and will now have moved forward. Every country that was debating whether to keep reserves and dollars will have diversified.

The Venezuela operation will be studied in the future, not as a triumph, but as the moment American unilateralism finally broke the international order it claimed to uphold. And here's the deepest irony. Trump thinks he's demonstrating strength. He thinks he's showing the world that America is back,

that it can project power anywhere, that it doesn't need to ask permission. But what he's actually demonstrating is desperation. A truly powerful country doesn't need to invade to secure resources. It offers the best trade deals, the best technology, the most stable currency. People want to trade with you because it benefits them.

When you have to use military force to secure access to oil, when you have to threaten your neighbors, when you have to tear up the rule book and operate through pure coercion, that's not strength. That's the behavior of a declining power that can no longer compete on merit, and the world sees that.

China sees it. China sees it. Russia sees it. India sees it. Brazil sees it. Even allies like France and Germany see it, even if they won't say it publicly yet.

The Venezuela operation has accomplished the opposite of its intended goal. It was supposed to secure American access to oil and reinforce dollar dominance. Instead, it has accelerated the global move away from dollar dependence and proven that American power, while still formidable militarily,

is strategically brittle. You can win every tactical battle and still lose the war. So where does this leave us? The helicopters have left Caracas. Maduro is on a warship heading to New York. The news cycle will move to the next crisis within days. Maybe it'll be Greenland, maybe Canada, maybe something else Trump tweets at three in the morning,

but the structural damage is permanent. The trust that held the international system together for 80 years, the idea that there were rules, that sovereignty mattered, that military force was a last resort, not a first option, that's gone.

And you can't rebuild trust with press releases. Countries will remember what happened here. They'll remember that when an oil-rich nation tried to trade outside the dollar system, American special forces came in the night and they'll act accordingly. The petrodollar era is ending. Not because of inflation or cryptocurrency or any of the things financial commentators talk about.

It's ending because the United States just demonstrated that the system is no longer based on mutual benefit. It's based on coercion. And in the long run, coercion is more expensive than cooperation. You can force compliance for a while. But eventually, people find ways around you. They build alternative systems.

They form alliances. They root around the obstacle. That process has already started. Venezuela was just the catalyst that made it undeniable. The empire is not collapsing in a dramatic explosion. It's eroding one decision at a time, one ally at a time, one percentage point of reserve currency at a time. And the people making these decisions, the ones standing at podiums celebrating tactical victories, they either don't understand what they're doing or they don't care because the consequences won't hit until they're out

of office. But the consequences will hit. They always do. And when they do, when oil is priced in multiple currencies, when Treasury auctions start failing, when the dollar loses another 10 or 15 percentage points of reserve status, when Treasury auctions start failing, when the dollar loses another 10 or 15 percentage points of reserve status, when inflation comes back with a vengeance because there's no longer artificial demand for American currency, the people who will pay the price won't be the generals or the politicians. It'll

be the people watching this video, the people trying to pay rent, buy groceries, save for retirement, and plan for a future that's becoming more uncertain by the day. That's the real story behind the helicopters. That's what they don't want you focused on while you're watching the spectacle. The operation in Venezuela wasn't about democracy.

It wasn't about human rights. It wasn't even really about Maduro. It was about a financial system that's dying and an empire that's willing to use violence to keep it on life support for a few more years. But you can't stop structural change with helicopters. You can delay it. You can make it messier. You can ensure that when it finally happens, it's more chaotic and more painful than it needed to be. But you can't stop it. The world is reorganizing.

New systems are being built, new alliances are forming, new currencies are emerging, and the country that could have led that transition, that could have shaped it in a way that preserved its influence and prosperity, has instead chosen to fight it with everything it has.

That's the tragedy here, not that change is coming. Change was always coming. The tragedy is that it's going to be so much harder than it needed to be for everyone. Pay attention to what happens next in Venezuela, not the headlines, the details. Watch whether oil production actually recovers. Watch whether American companies can operate safely. Watch whether the new government, whatever it looks like, has any legitimacy with the Venezuelan people.

Watch whether other Latin American countries fall in line or start hedging their bets. Watch whether Saudi Arabia accelerates its BRICS integration. Watch whether China announces new commodity trading agreements in Yuan.

Those are the signals that matter because the helicopters were just the opening scene. The real story is what comes after and based on every historical precedent we have what comes after is going to be considerably more complicated than the have what comes after is going to be considerably more complicated than the people in charge are prepared to handle.