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Venezuela’s oil bonanza is an illusion

Tapping Venezuela’s oil reserves is fraught with financial, technical and political hazards.

Venezuela’s state oil industry would make a lot of money with the US behind it, President Trump said on Jan. 3.

PHOTO: ADRIANA LOUREIRO FERNANDEZ/NYTIMES

Vikram Khanna

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US President Donald Trump has

been stunningly transparent

about why Washington had chosen to militarily intervene in Venezuela and

abduct its president, Nicolas Maduro

. This is not about promoting democracy, human rights or regional stability, or even stemming the flow of narcotics – the pretext on which Maduro is facing trial.

It is, in Mr Trump’s own words, about oil. He said US companies will pour billions of dollars to fix Venezuela’s

“badly broken” oil infrastructure

and “start making money for the country” – and, of course, for the US. Rarely has the strategic logic of an intervention been stated so plainly by a sitting US president.

Venezuela’s oil bonanza is an illusion

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