We are deploying the USS Gerald R Ford carrier strike group to the coast of South America

[The Mad Monk]

IIRC Venezuela's crude is exceptionally heavy, not too far from asphalt, and requires refineries built for it (actually, all refineries are built with certain grades of petroleum in mind, since the distillation products are in different ratios and the temperature, viscosity, and other requirements are all different).

[The Mad Monk]

As an aside, the "best" crude from a gasoline POV would be the "light sweet" petroleum from around the Arabian Peninsula.

[N35t0r]

IIRC Venezuela's crude is exceptionally heavy, not too far from asphalt, and requires refineries built for it (actually, all refineries are built with certain grades of petroleum in mind, since the distillation products are in different ratios and the temperature, viscosity, and other requirements are all different).

It's not only that it's relatively heavy, but also very sour (high sulfur), which also requires specific refinery equipment.

There's several refineries in the US set up for it, though, since at least up to Trump 1's oil sanctions, more than half of Venezuela's crude was exported to the US to be refined.

[N35t0r]

Oil prices peaked in 2008. They had mostly recovered in 2022. There's a lot more to it than just oil prices.

Mismanagement of the economy is part of it, sure. But that isn't something we (the US) are responsible for, outside of having treated them as an (oil) banana republic and pushed them to a socialist strongman.

We kept piling on embargoes and sanctions. If sanctions and embargoes have no economic effect like you claim, then why do we use them?

Oil prices suffered a shock in 2008 due to the crisis, but quickly recovered and by mid 2009 they were already at levels continuing the long-term trend since 2000 (this is incidentallu where the HDI chart you posted levels off after several years of a strong rise). It then went up to ~100 USD and stayed around there since 2011 until mid-2014, where it quickly crashed, and stayed low for several years.

This is what brought a massive crash in Venezuela's economy, you can look for news at the time, there were massive shortages in everyday needs, including fuel. It is then that there was an inflection point in emigration rates and emigration exploded, hand-in-hand with political repression by the government.

The embargoes and wide-ranging sanctions you mention (and initially blamed the decline in HDI to) didn't come in until mid-way through Trump's first mandate, so unless they can somehow have retroactive effect, that decline was mostly self-inflicted.

I agree that there's more of it than oil prices (although a big part was Venezuela having organized most of the economy on having huge surpluses from the oil industry), and I never claimed that embargoes have no effect, just that they weren't the principal reason why Venezuela's HDI is in sharp decline (and until 2018 or so, they couldn't have been a reason). I also agree that the US' behavior towards the region is deplorable, and has had a minor effect on the rise of populist left-wing governments (except for some cases such as Pinochet in Chile where the responsibility is a lot higher).

[Dauphin]

For future adventures, let's make a list of the next candidates and possible justifications:

Greenland - Trump has seen the movie, and decided he needs the country to build underground bunkers in case the apocalypse strikes. If it doesn't it's clear the apocalypse is nothing more than a democratic hoax. In this case he's ok just stealing the resources.

Cuba - "Pack your bags and go to Cuba" Trumps mission orders. Cuba has no oil (or has it???), but cigars, which makes any military action plausible and totally justified.

Mexico - May get away with just being renamed to something Trump likes.

Iran - Has oil. Venezuela has oil, and Trump likes to have it, so why not Iran's too??? Logic!

Switzerland - Cheese, or as they say "the yellow oil" (ok I made that up). In any case controlling the cheese market is a national security matter for the US. And hugely profitable, why else do they have so much intl finance stuff in Switzerland?!

(open end)

I think his plan is clear. He's taking Venezuela and Greenland, so next is Kamchatka.