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Venezuela’s key customer China no longer needs it
This makes the rebuilding of Caracas’ oil industry much more complicated.
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China has been the most important consumers of Venezuelan crude for years, but electric vehicles now comprise more than half of the country’s auto sales.
PHOTO: ADRIANA LOUREIRO FERNANDEZ/NYTIMES
From one angle, the US action to arrest Venezuela’s former president Nicolas Maduro and seize control of the country’s oil industry is an attempt to muscle China’s influence out of the Americas.
In a world breaking up into spheres of influence, the Donroe doctrine tells Beijing to keep its meddling hands out of the empire of crude that US President Donald Trump is building in the Western hemisphere.
