this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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She's making concessions to Trump to stay in power and not get invaded or bombed or abducted/assassinated.
Whether this is worth it for the Venezuelan people depends on how the Hormuz War ends (how much the US armed forces are set back), what Trump's political position is after the midterms, who the next president is, and how many viable leadership candidates the PSUV has that won't devolve into civil war or invasion.
Instead of American capital seizing Venezuelan oil all at once, it is doing it piecemeal. It's a waiting game.
Editing more details in:
A Democratic president, though they might attempt to pivot back to a soft power approach, is unlikely to overturn any of Trump's foreign policy actions, or any of his actions at all beyond the merely symbolic. A Republican successor is completely unlikely to overturn anything and may try to squeeze more.
If the Hormuz War ends with a "Trump always chickens out, so attack logistics are disengaged" (TACO SALAD) to save military strength, US empire retreats from the Middle East but doubles down on the Americas and maybe the Pacific; this makes Venezuela's position more difficult. If the war ends with a humiliating and destructive defeat of the US, Venezuela might be less threatened.
The geography simply does not line up in Venezuela's favor. It's not the worst position imaginable, but it's pretty unfavorable. Iran is a comparison that will inevitably be made: they have low (traversible) mountains, ability to threaten a global top-5 chokepoint, a population of 90M that's broadly spread over the country with some devolution, a lot of distance from America, proximity to friendlier medium and great powers, a long history of social cohesion in the face of foreign military incursion, and a 47-year-running state apparatus with 37 years since major wars. Venezuela was established as a colony, its population of 32M is clustered close to the coast facing the US, around mountains that are much bigger obstacles; it has never suffered an international war but there is also no regional substance of military conflict to learn from and its state apparatus has been ongoing for only 27 years; its only neighbor with geographical continuity just flipped to the reactionaries; there are no nearby great powers to lend support or prop up their economy, which is less diversified/advanced.
The waiting game hinges on who ends up having more power over Venezuela in the long run, themselves or the US. The optimal outcome for Venezuela is that the Hormuz War drags on at great cost to the US, ends up weakening the Republicans and the military overall, that Cuba survives, that the hands of Morena and PT in Brazil are strengthened regionally, that China and Russia continue to increase in global influence, that something pops off in Bolivia or Peru or Chile, and that the AI bubble pops and sends the American economy into a depression. Venezuela can then deploy their long game of re-nationalizing their oil without retaliation, but lacking just 2 of those conditions might mean they aren't able to do this.