[achenet]

On top of that, I don't think the common Venezuelan laborer was getting much benefit out of the Maduro regime capturing the oil wealth. From the point of view of the less fortunate, there isn't much difference between a Venezuelan elite enriching themselves off the local oil vs an American elite enriching themselves off the local oil.

[svnt]

Right, that’s not the issue. The issue is national sovereignty. The US just started taking over South America.

[solenoid0937]

Claims of sovereignty are meaningless, what happens is whether those claims hold up in real life, and in this case they clearly don't.

A country is either powerful enough to enforce sovereignty, or it is not actually sovereign; so this hand-wringing about "Venezuela's sovereignty" is meaningless. It's already been proven false, to some extent.

The US is free to do what it wants with Venezuela, or virtually any non-nuclear country in the world. Always has been, really. It simply doesn't exercise said power very often.

[terminalshort]

There's a massive difference, and that difference is that American oil companies, unlike the Venezuelan state run industry, are actually very competent at extracting oil. This means more good paying jobs, more state revenue, and massive economic growth. Contrary to the claims of most of the economically illiterate morons commenting here, having a functional local oil industry run by foreign companies will actually be great for Venezuela.

[gcbirzan]

I think you got it wrong. It might be better for Venezuela, but it will for sure be great for those companies.

[Huntsecker]

your comment sounds alot like nationalist chest thumping, the reason they were unable to do much with their oil is much more related to the usa deciding they would sanction the country meaning basically worldwide they can't sell the oil

[vladms]

Definitely not, but the furthest away the ones profiting from something are, the worse it can get.

It is definitely not a guarantee that a local enriching elite will at some point lead to something better, but most examples that come to mind about "colonies" (places very far from a center of power), resulted in said places to develop much harder.

[analog31]

But neither the Venezuelan elite nor the American elite will tolerate any hint of democracy. And neither elite will be satisfied with merely exploiting the oil.