Comments by Brian Shilhavy

Trump Wants to Decrease Venezuelan Oil Imports to U.S. While Cutting Off China in Effort to Maintain the Petro Dollar

Trump’s goals in kidnapping Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro became clearer today with statements he made on social media along with a Congressional briefing with lawmakers with Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Rubio lays out long-term plan for U.S. involvement in Venezuela.

The Trump administration has a three-phase plan for stabilizing and rebuilding Venezuela and installing a new government, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told members of Congress on Wednesday, laying out a prolonged mission for the United States there following the military raid that captured President Nicolás Maduro.

Mr. Rubio explained [that there] would be a tightened quarantine on Venezuelan oil, reflected in the seizure on Wednesday of two additional oil tankers.

“We are in the midst right now and in fact about to execute on a deal to take all the oil,” Mr. Rubio said, pointing to the most powerful economic lever the U.S. has over Venezuela.

“We are going to take between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil. We’re going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting,” Mr. Rubio added. (Source.)

Well, that’s very interesting, because before the invasion the U.S. was purchasing more than just “between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil“.

As you can see in this graph, in 2024 the U.S. was purchasing 220,000 barrels of oil per day, which was an increase of 64% over 2023, and a total of over 91 million barrels of oil.

The U.S. purchase of Venezuelan oil continued to increase in 2025, which according to one report was a 220% increase. (Source.)

So if the U.S. is now only going to import “between 30 and 50 million barrels of oil“, that is actually a potential decrease in what they have been purchasing which was above 100 million barrels in 2025.

Trump also told Venezuela to stop exporting oil to China and Russia, or anybody else for that matter.

Trump demands Venezuela kick out China and Russia, partner only with US on oil: Exclusive

The Trump administration has told Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez that the regime must meet the White House’s demands before being allowed to pump more oil, according to three people familiar with the administration’s plan.

First, the country must kick out China, Russia, Iran, and Cuba and sever economic ties, the sources said. Second, Venezuela must agree to partner exclusively with the U.S. on oil production and favor America when selling heavy crude oil, they added.

According to one person, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told lawmakers in a private briefing on Monday that he believes the U.S. can force Venezuela’s hand because its existing oil tankers are full. Rubio also told lawmakers that the U.S. estimates that Caracas has only a couple of weeks before it will become financially insolvent without the sale of its oil reserves. (Source.)

As you can see from the graph above, China has been buying as much oil from Venezuela than almost all of the other countries in the world combined.

That is a LOT of oil that the Trump Administration is attempting to take out of the market. Why would they do that?

To get oil prices to increase.

The oil industry in the U.S. has struggled to keep the price of oil above $60 a barrel for a couple of years now. They no longer have control over OPEC since June of 2024 when Saudi Arabia did not renew an 80-year-old agreement with the United States that established the U.S. Dollar as the world currency to purchase Saudi oil.

This story was suppressed in the U.S. Media, and when we published it, several commenters who were obviously trolls tried to comment on it and discredit the story back then. See: Saudi Arabia Ends 80-Year-Old PetroDollar U.S. Agreement: Joins China-Led Central Bank Digital Currency Coalition
So now the U.S. is trying to control the price of oil worldwide by trying to take over Venezuelan oil, as Maduro was making agreements with China to pay for oil in Chinese Yuan, instead of U.S. dollars.

Here is a chart published by Market Watch today about Venezuelan oil exports for 2025, which was dominated by China until the U.S. started attacking drug cartel boats ships carrying Venezuelan oil at the end of September.

 Source

As you can see, exports of Venezuelan oil peaked in September, before the U.S. military moved into the area, and then started decreasing.

And notice what Rubio said today: “We’re going to sell it in the marketplace at market rates, not at the discounts Venezuela was getting.” In other words, we are going to make the price of oil start going back up again so the Rockefellers and the Bushes and all the other oil barons in Texas can start making money again.

Here is a video by Taylor Kennedy of ITM Trading talking about the how the U.S. is trying to hang on to the Petro Dollar which was the real reason for the Venezuelan invasion. (Note: she wants to sell you gold and silver.)

How Will China Respond?

China obviously has the most to lose from this deal, IF Trump and Rubio’s plan works, and that is a big “IF”, because the Maduro regime is largely still in tact, and we will see what their loyalty to China actually is as they are fighting back against Trump’s rhetoric.

The U.S. legacy media is making a big deal out of the fact that they are “cooperating” with the U.S. to fill orders for sales of oil to the U.S., but they have been doing that for the past several years, so it is more business as usual, only less of it, and not necessarily “cooperation.”

One indication of how China might respond was published by The Information today, where they reported that China is not allowing their Tech companies to import Nvidia’s powerful AI chips this week.

The Chinese government this week asked some tech companies to temporarily halt plans to buy Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, according to two people involved in the communication, throwing up a possible roadblock in Nvidia’s hopes of restarting chip sales to one of its biggest markets.

The instruction came roughly a month after President Donald Trump said he would allow Nvidia to sell H200s to China, marking the biggest rollback of Biden-era export restrictions. At the time, the reaction of the Chinese government was uncertain, as the government had been pushing local companies to buy locally made chips as a way of supporting the Chinese chip industry.

This week Chinese officials told companies to suspend purchase orders while the government decides on whether—and under what conditions—it will allow access to the high-performance Nvidia chips, the people said.

It remains unclear what prompted Beijing’s directive. A few days ago, the U.S. arrested Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and transported him to the U.S. for trial on drug trafficking charges. There are signs that Maduro’s departure could hurt China’s ability to import crude oil from the Latin American country. (Full article – Subscription needed.)

And where does the American company Nvidia get their AI chips from in the first place?

Taiwan. Specifically, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company.

How difficult do you think it would be for China to seize Taiwan’s airports and put a naval blockade around Taiwan to stop them from exporting these AI chips to the U.S.??

And remember, a significant portion of the U.S. Navy is in the Caribbean right now around Venezuela.

Representative Jason Crow, Democrat of Colorado, said of the administration’s plan for Venezuela, “It’s like they’ll wave a magic wand and things will turn out the way they want.”

Mr. Crow, a former Army Ranger, said that in a congressional briefing, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth gave no indication how long the deployment of 15,000 troops and a dozen warships to the Caribbean — the largest naval flotilla in the region since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 — would last or how much it would cost. (Source.)

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/trump-wants-to-decrease-venezuelan-oil-imports-to-u-s-while-cutting-off-china-in-effort-to-maintain-petro-dollar/

By Brian Shilhavy

The Information (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-tells-tech-companies-halt-nvidia-h200-chip-orders) just reported that China is not allowing their Tech companies to import Nvidia’s powerful AI chips this week:

The Chinese government this week asked some tech companies to temporarily halt plans to buy Nvidia’s H200 AI chips, according to two people involved in the communication, throwing up a possible roadblock in Nvidia’s hopes of restarting chip sales to one of its biggest markets.

The instruction came roughly a month after President Donald Trump said he would allow Nvidia to sell H200s to China, marking the biggest rollback of Biden-era export restrictions. At the time, the reaction of the Chinese government was uncertain, as the government had been pushing local companies to buy locally made chips as a way of supporting the Chinese chip industry.

This week Chinese officials told companies to suspend purchase orders while the government decides on whether—and under what conditions—it will allow access to the high-performance Nvidia chips, the people said.

It remains unclear what prompted Beijing’s directive. A few days ago, the U.S. arrested Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and transported him to the U.S. for trial on drug trafficking charges. There are signs that Maduro’s departure could hurt China’s ability to import crude oil from the Latin American country.

Full article (https://www.theinformation.com/articles/china-tells-tech-companies-halt-nvidia-h200-chip-orders) (Subscription needed)

This morning Trump told Venezuela to stop exporting oil to China. It is unclear if he has the means to enforce this yet, as Maduro’s regime is still in tact. China is also probably waiting to see if this can be enforced, hence the halt of importing Nvidia’s chips.

If the U.S. is successful in blocking oil from Venezuela to China, expect a reciprocal response from China, and that could possibly be cutting off the supply of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company’s chips from shipping to the U.S. by using military force in Taiwan, such as controlling their airports and putting up a naval blockade, because that is where Nvidia gets their chips from in the first place!

Meanwhile, the U.S. just seized that oil tanker flying the Russian flag. Russia had sent a nuclear submarine to the area, but it is not clear if it is there yet.

[…]

Via https://t.me/healthimpact/2931

Venezuelans take to the streets to protest against Trump shortly after their president, Nicolas Maduro, was kidnapped.

Comments by Brian Shilhavy

By now everyone has seen the news that President Trump sent a special forces unit into Caracas, Venezuela to capture President Nicolás Maduro and his wife and son.

It has taken me a couple of days to research all sides of this story before I could comment on it.

For those who mainly get their news from U.S. sources, let’s clear up one false claim that some in the U.S. media have been stating, which is that Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodríguez participated with the U.S. in Maduro’s capture, and was installed as President to replace Maduro by the U.S.

This did not happen.

In fact, Delcy Rodríguez has condemned the actions of the U.S., declaring that Nicolás Maduro is still the president of Venezuela, and it was her own country’s Supreme Court that appointed her as interim president. Her first speech after this event is mostly available on social media, but I did find one copy on YouTube that I will post here.

She blamed Zionist forces as being behind the kidnapping of their president.

The CIA has been trying to overthrow the Maduro presidency for at least a decade, unsuccessfully, because he enjoys widespread support in his own country.

But this is relatively unknown in the U.S., because the richest Venezuelans live mostly in Miami, Florida, where they try to control the narrative.

Even the Trump administration apparently has not coordinated their narrative, as Secretary of State Rubio called this a “police action” and not a declaration of war. But Trump very quickly dropped the “this is all about illegal drugs” narrative and clearly stated that this was about Venezuelan oil, promising that U.S. oil companies would take over the country’s oil reserves.

Pepe Escobar is a Latino journalist from Brazil who covers international geopolitical news, and he states that those loyal to Maduro in Venezuela are probably close to 98% of the population now, as they oppose U.S. intervention.

He states that at Maduro’s arraignment in New York, when Maduro stated:

“I am the President of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war. I was captured in my house in Caracas“

that this became a rallying cry all across Latin America.

He published an opinion piece in Strategic Culture yesterday, giving the Latino perspective, and of course Pepe has a lot of friends on the ground in these places.

[…]

Pepe did an interview earlier this morning that I listened to just before writing this article, where he discusses many of the points of his article. He also discusses the possibility that Russia and China allowed this to happen as a trap, and that Trump walked right into it.

Here is some more news coverage on this event.

Maduro says he’s a ‘prisoner of war’: Why that matters

Prisoners of war have rights that Maduro isn’t being afforded at present. by AlJazeera

Excerpts:

Two days after Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, 63, was abducted by special forces of the United States during an operation in the Latin American country, he appeared in a courthouse in New York.

On Monday, Maduro pleaded not guilty to federal charges, including narcoterrorism and conspiring to import cocaine. In a blue and orange prison uniform, he listened to the indictment filed by prosecutors against him and his codefendants, including his wife and son.

The Trump administration has framed Maduro’s abduction as a law enforcement operation, arguing that congressional approval was not needed.

But in court, Maduro insisted that he was a “prisoner of war” (POW).

“I am innocent. I am not guilty. I am a decent man. I am still president of my country,”

he said through an interpreter, before he was cut off by US District Judge Alvin Hellerstein in Manhattan federal court.

If Maduro is indeed a POW, then protections under international law apply to him.

The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 mandates humane treatment, respect and protection for POWs.

According to the convention, a POW can be tried and sentenced in another country, particularly the detaining power, but only for certain crimes such as war crimes.

Maduro, however, has been charged with narcotics-related offences, not with war crimes.

And in general, the Third Geneva Convention requires that POWs must be returned “without delay” to their nation as soon as the conflict ends.

“According to President Trump, Maduro is a prisoner of war because Trump declared Maduro had initiated war against the United States via drug trafficking leading to overdose deaths. That would mean the Geneva Conventions would apply but which Trump will certainly disregard,” Fein said.

Full Article.

Zionist GOP Megadonor Paul Singer Stands to Make Billions Off Venezuela Regime Change Op

by Chris Menahan InformationLiberation

Excerpts:

The US sanctioned Venezuelan state-owned oil company Citgo into bankruptcy, forced its sale to Zionist billionaire Paul Singer for about $6 billion two months ago, and then captured Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro to “take over” the country.

From The Wall Street Journal, “Citgo Is a Crown Jewel of Venezuela’s Oil Industry. Elliott Is Set to Reap the Benefits.”:

For [Paul Singer’s] activist hedge fund Elliott Investment Management, Nicolás Maduro’s swift exit comes at an auspicious time.

A U.S. judge in November backed a roughly $6 billion bid by Elliott for Citgo Petroleum, the refining firm owned by Venezuela’s state-run company Petróleos de Venezuela, known as PdVSA, in a forced sale to satisfy creditors. Citgo, based in Houston, owns a U.S. network of refineries, pipelines and terminals that some analysts have said could be worth between $11 billion and $13 billion.

The deal was controversial in Venezuela. Maduro’s government denounced the proposed sale as fraudulent. The board recognized by the U.S. government as the legitimate overseer of PdVSA’s overseas oil assets vowed to fight to keep Citgo under Venezuelan control.

Less than two months after receiving the judge’s endorsement, Elliott is looking at a more favorable—albeit chaotic—landscape. Maduro is being held in a New York jail. President Trump has sidelined the opposition, accused Venezuela of stealing American crude and said U.S. firms would be strongly involved in its oil industry.

Now, Elliott appears poised to reap the rewards of owning Venezuela’s most valuable foreign oil asset. The regime change could lead to an increase in Venezuelan oil production, which would likely provide cheap feedstock to Citgo’s Gulf Coast refineries and increase the company’s value, analysts and refining experts said.

“Maduro is out, so a lot of the threat is out,” said Jay Auslander, a litigator who represents sovereign interests and private-equity funds. “It looks like a potentially quite good deal that remains high risk.”

Elliott isn’t in the clear yet. The hedge fund still needs approval from the Treasury Department to conclude the deal. Plus, PdVSA and Venezuela have appealed the judicial sale.

“In 2024, Singer, an 81-year-old with a net worth of $6.7 billion, donated $5 million to Make America Great Again Inc., Trump’s Super PAC. Singer donated tens of millions more in the 2024 cycle to support Trump’s allies, including $37 million to support the election of Republicans to Congress. He also donated an undisclosed amount to fund Trump’s second transition,” Judd Legum reports.

Full article.

Ironically, Trump did NOT back the Zionist María Corina Machado, the main political opposition leader against Maduro, who just won the Nobel Peace Prize that Trump thought he should have won. Trump acknowledged that she did not have wide support among her own people.

So today, in an apparent desperate attempt, she offered to “share” the Nobel Peace Prize with Trump.

Venezuela’s Machado says she wants to share Nobel Peace Prize with Trump

Excerpts from euronews:

María Corina Machado said toppling of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro was a “huge step for humanity, for freedom and human dignity”.

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado said on Monday she wants to share her Nobel Peace Prize with US President Donald Trump and personally thank him following his administration’s military intervention in Venezuela.

Machado said she had not spoken to the US president since 10 October, the day when she was announced as winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The 58-year-old was awarded the prize after mounting the most serious peaceful challenge in years to Maduro’s government.

Although Trump called Machado in October to congratulate her on winning the Nobel prize, US media reported that he was displeased about the fact that she had accepted the much-coveted award rather than declining it and giving it to him.

Machado’s interview with Fox News came days after Trump rejected the idea of working with her.

“I think it would be very tough for her to be the leader,” Trump said of Machado.

“She doesn’t have the support or the respect within the country. She’s a very nice woman, but she doesn’t have the respect.”

Full article.

China was perhaps the first country to comment and claim that Donald Trump was renewing the Monroe Doctrine, with his threats now to take over Greenland and perhaps all of the Americas.

“Overthrowing the Maduro government has long been an objective pursued by the US, but capturing a sitting head of state in this manner is highly unusual and can be described as reckless,” Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Saturday.

“It not only violates international law, but also lacks any legal basis under US domestic law.”

“This is a declaration of the revival of a new Monroe Doctrine and an assertion of US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere,” Lü added. (Source.)

So now the term “Donroe Doctrine” seems to be appearing everywhere.

And this from the man who claims he should have won the Nobel Peace Award.

[…]

Via https://healthimpactnews.com/2026/venezuelans-unite-against-trump-and-zionism-as-maduro-claims-to-be-a-prisoner-of-war/

Here are some interesting facts about Venezuela that are easily searchable.

Venezuela is a predominantly Catholic country with very strong laws against abortion with the exception being the life of the mother. Maduro has been critical of Israel calling it a genocide in Gaza and against Zionism.

Maduro’s opposition, Maria Corina Machado is a strong supporter of Israel and wants to restore strong relations with Israel. She is more left leaning on abortion and LGBTQ issues.

Most Americans I talk to are not buying that this is really about drugs and sanctioned oil tankers. And it’s not about social issues, I just added that to highlight some differences in the two leaders.

People voted in 2024 against foreign intervention and foreign regime change as we have seen far too many times how that’s turned out, it’s not good, and people are so sick of it.

Via https://x.com/RepMTG/status/2003112719952621839

The Flood From Heaven: Deciphering the Legend of Atlantis

By Eberhard Zangger

Pan Books Limited (1993)

Book Review

In this fascinating book Zanggar develops the claim that Plato’s enigmatic claims about the lost continent of Atlantis are actually a retelling of the destruction of Troy during their war with Mycenaean Greeks.

The evidence he compiles derives from Plato’s accounts of Atlantis in his books Timaeus and Critias (which Zanggar recounts in their entirety),* Homer’s depiction of the Trojan War and its aftermath in The Iliad and The Odyssey and extensive archeological research from mainland Greece and Turkey.

According to Plato, his history of Atlantis derives from a partial manuscript he inherited from his ancestor Solon (an Athenian statesman credited with laying the foundations for Athenian democracy) about his meeting with a temple priest in the ancient Egyptian capitol Sais.

Briefly Plato’s recounting describes a civilization from 11,000 BC of great wealth, military power and technical achievement being destroyed by a single natural catastrophic event after a military defeat by Athenian Greeks.

According to the priest, Greek civilization also collapsed a short time later, with Greeks losing their ability to read and write and their recollection of history.

According to Plato’s account, this civilization was on a continent larger than Libya and Asia combined located “beyond the pillars of Hercules.”

Zangger begins by laying out archeological evidence that is totally incompatible with an 11,000 BC advanced Athenian civilization. According to Zangger:

• Neanderthals settled in Greece in 60,000 BC and abandoned it in 12,000 BC, There is no evidence of human resettlement on the Greek mainland until 8,500 BC.
• In the seventh millennium BC, the Greek mainland was resettled by Homo sapiens who grew wheat and barley; left behind grinding stones and axes, raised cows, pigs, sheep and goats; and lived in small villages of 50-300 people.
• There is clear evidence that by 6,500 BC overgrazing led to massive deforestation of the Greek peninsula, leading to a surge in swampland and a surge in epidemics of malaria, dysentery and hookworm.
• By 3,000 BC, there is evidence of bronze use without refining capacity, as well as trade with Troy, a major trading center for the copper and tin required to make bronze.
• By 1,450-1,400 BC there is evidence of Mycenaean/Achaean Greek culture, the first high civilization on the European mainland, with considerable production and trade of finished metal objects and pottery. There’s also evidence with of social divisions into king, nobles, draftsmen and construction workers, along with major trading relations between Greece and Troy.
• By 1,100-1,000 BC archeological evidence indicate this civilization had collapsed, with people fleeing the cities to marginal areas and losing the ability to read and write. Only the Acropolis in Athens survived this collapse.
• By the 8th century BC (when Homer composed the the Iliad and the Odyssey), there is evidence of a new Hellenic culture and civilization.

In advancing the theory that Plato is actually describing war Homer describes between Mycenaean/Achaean Greeks and Troy, Zangger blames the date discrepancies (11,000 vs 1,100 BC) on the fact that prior to the 8th century BC Athenian renaissance, historical time was measured in lunar rather than solar years.**

He blames the location discrepancy (the Bosporus/Dardenelles straits vs a continent to the west of Gibraltar) on confusion over the location of the Pillars of Hercules. Prior to 500 BC it referred to a land mass adjacent to the Dardanelles/Bosporus straits.***

The Dardenelles is the strait connecting the Aegean Sea to the Sea of Marmara and the Bosporus the strait connecting the latter to the Black Sea. Both straits are extremely difficult to navigate. Troy controlled shipping on both, a major source of its economic and military power.

He blames the discrepancy in the size of Atlantis on classical Greek use of the words “continent” and “island” interchangeably (the city of Troy was on an island surrounded mainly by man made channels and harbors) and the absence of standard measuring units prior to the Greek classical era.

*Our only original source for the legend of Atlantis.

**This also explains why so many Old Testament heroes lived to be several hundred years old.

***Prior to 500 BC, Mycenaean Greeks referred to the Bosporus/Dardanelles as the Ur-Atlantic after the nearby Atlas mountains (which Plato seems to have confused with the Atlas mountains in North Africa/.

Pepe Escobar

Let’s cut to the chase. The hit on Venezuela had three core goals beyond seizing oil collateral for a bankrupt empire:

1️⃣ Bellum Judaica: Caracas’s support for Palestine and condemnation of the “Zionist plague” made it a target. This operation is the “Zionroe Doctrine”—a Forever War warning to the Global South. Oppose us, be branded ‘amalek.’ Delcy Rodríguez identified the raid’s “Zionist tinge” immediately.

2️⃣ Heavy Metal Thunder: Within 24 hours, an $8 billion deal was struck to process $1 trillion of Venezuelan gold & silver from the Arco Minero. J.P.Morgan financed it, desperate to cover a massive physical silver short. This is pure resource looting.

3️⃣ The Petrodollar: The real target is monetary sovereignty. The Empire cannot allow Venezuelan oil to be sold in yuan, ruble, or a BRICS gold-backed mechanism. (https://t.me/geopolitics_prime/62434) Venezuela joining China’s CIPS system was the ultimate red line.

🏴‍☠️ The failed coup reveals the new rule: “My Might is Right.” International law is dead. The plunder is explicit. The Global South must see this and unite, or be picked off one by one.

👍 @geopolitics_prime | Follow us on X (https://x.com/geo_prime1)