You don’t have to support Maduro (I sure as fuck don’t) to know that the Trump administration is definitely in the wrong to play world police, invade Venezuela, and kidnap a foreign leader. Originally they claimed operations in Venezuela were in defense of democracy, and now some vague accusation about drugs are supposed to explain why all of this is necessary. Both excuses are complete bullshit, but it’s especially hypocritical (although not surprising in the least) for Trump to threaten to cancel U.S. midterms days after kidnapping Maduro and pretending to be protecting the U.S. or some kind of global defender of free speech and the democratic process.

Also, regarding Chevron and their specific role in all of this:

December 21st: Chevron continues operations in Venezuela despite war threat

Chevron is, I think, the largest single producer of oil and gas in Venezuela at this time. They apparently have what we call a specific license from the Department of Treasury to continue operations there, whereas a lot of other companies don’t have that privilege. There used to be a general license that enabled a lot of companies to operate there. Those were revoked by the Trump administration during summertime. And again, those specific licenses aren’t public, so we don’t know the details. But we can surmise that Chevron does have one of those undisclosed specific licenses because we see in the numbers production from Chevron, and we see barrels flowing each week to the United State

It’s a bit odd that Chevron was the only company allowed to continue operations in Venezuela after Trump revoked the license of other oil companies over the summer.

It’s also a bit odd that the current director of the CIA under Trump was previously a TX congressman who tried to pass a law which would put an end to the Chevron deference. Luckily for him, the supreme court overturned the Chevron deference in 2024.