Venezuela’s Acting President Delcy Rodriguez invites the United States to work with her country.
Her statement released late on Sunday, 4 January 2026 (and widely reported on 5 January) says:
“We extend an invitation to the U.S. government to work together on a cooperative agenda, oriented toward shared development, within the framework of international law, and to strengthen lasting community coexistence.”
Venezuela is at a precarious crossroads in early 2026. There is some fear of internal conflict between roughly half the population still loyal to Chavismo (the socialist legacy of Hugo Chávez) and a fragmented opposition (though many of whose leaders and supporters now live in exile). The sudden capture of President Nicolás Maduro by U.S. forces has created uncertainty. Long queues at supermarkets and petrol stations, and panic buying of food, fuel and essentials, reflect widespread anxiety over shortages, instability and the prospect of further foreign intervention.
This moment of crisis is rooted in what might be called Venezuela’s black demon: petroleum addiction. Since the mid-20th century, vast oil reserves promised prosperity but instead entrenched a rentier economy. Petroleum became the nation’s near-exclusive economic pillar, distorting development, fostering corruption, and leaving the state dangerously exposed to price volatility and mismanagement. Rather than diversifying, successive governments treated oil as an inexhaustible source of wealth, producing classic symptoms of the resource curse — boom-bust cycles, inflation, institutional decay, and deep inequality.
Hugo Chávez’s rise to power in 1999 represented a radical response to this historical imbalance. Through democratic elections, he mobilised a mass uprising of the excluded against entrenched elites, shifting political power toward the poor and indigenous majority. The Bolivarian project elevated collective values: discipline, loyalty, solidarity and endurance, over competitive market individualism, drawing heavily on military and communitarian ideals. For more than two decades, this project endured sustained internal opposition and external pressure, including sanctions, attempted coups, and diplomatic isolation. Yet its resilience came at a cost. Because alongside the virtues of resolve emerged intolerance of dissent, suppression of pluralism, plenty of episodes of coercion, and deepening social polarisation. The warrior mentality from after Chávez made serious blunders.
After years of economic collapse, political repression, and mass emigration, Venezuela now risks fracturing along hardened lines. Clearly, the Acting President Delcy Rodriguez does not want that to happen. It would not be manageable to go into some kind of civil war. Pro-government supporters, including armed militias, rally in defence of the existing order, while opposition voices at home and abroad demand fundamental change. The danger is not merely political instability, but social disintegration. It appears the Acting President wants to rule that out.
Perhaps she envisages — sensibly — that at the point of crisis lies a possible path forward. Venezuela’s society is already a complex cultural synthesis. There has been five centuries of integration / intermarriage blending indigenous, African and European roots into a shared national identity. That is a sign of cooperation also. Reviving cooperative and community-based economic models could help rebuild that unity. These need to be based on economic democracy, not state socialism which also has cooperatives from the Chávez-era but on ‘party lines’ — meaning interference.
Initiatives such as Vuelvan Caras (“About Face!”), launched in 2004 to combat unemployment through education, training and community-led production, offer a template. The program sought to transform marginalised citizens into active producers embedded in cooperative structures and modern liberal socialist values. The problem is that the Acting President of Venezuela likely sees this, but the President of the United States does not. Hence the Acting President’s comment regarding cooperation. But it will have to be on liberal lines. There are plenty of successful cooperatives in the United States.
A renewed emphasis on such cooperative training seems essential for Venezuela. It has to be grounded in shared cultural traditions, collective labour, and mutual support. That could help heal divisions, restore local economies beyond oil dependence, and foster social cohesion. Venezuela’s tragedy is not inevitable. The oil curse will not be broken through deeper extraction or foreign domination, but through a deliberate turn toward solidarity, cooperation in society and in economic ventures, and inclusive development. Then the nation can truly do a vuelvan caras—turn about face—from dependency and division toward a shared and dignified future. Let’s hope the psychological barriers can be broken for divides to be bridged.
A blank look …
Statements at the UN Security Council on 5-6 January 2026.
RUSSIA: “We firmly condemn the U.S. act of armed aggression against Venezuela, in breach of all international legal norms.”
CHINA: “We are deeply shocked. We call on the US to release President Maduro at once.”
IRAN: “We affirm full support for the legitimately elected government of Venezuela.”
CUBA: “In the criminal attack perpetrated by the United States, 32 Cubans lost their lives in combat actions. They were carrying out missions on behalf of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior at the request of counterpart bodies of that country.”
But … it matters little what they say.
This is predictable diplomatic theatre rather than meaningful constraint on events. Each statement follows a well-worn script: denunciation of US aggression, invocation of international law, affirmation of sovereignty, and rhetorical solidarity with Maduro. None of this alters the balance of power on the ground, nor does it create credible consequences for the US.
What truly matters is not their language, but their capacity and willingness to act. This is basically zero. None of these states are in a position to reverse the capture of Maduro, enforce international legal norms against the US – whatever that enforcement is supposed to involve or even if enforcement has any meaning, or risk escalation that would materially challenge US power in the Western Hemisphere.
Their statements therefore function primarily as signals. To whom? To domestic audiences, to allied regimes, and to history (well at least they want something in the history books – though it may not even make a footnote). Nothing here is about instruments of deterrence or enforcement.
Cuba’s statement is the most revealing because it ‘inadvertently’ strips away moral posturing: it confirms the presence of Cuban personnel engaged in security or combat roles inside Venezuela. This does not strengthen any legal case against the US action. It shows Venezuela’s dependence on foreign security assistance and ‘inadvertently reframes the crisis as a proxy entanglement rather than a purely sovereign matter. That is, a proxy entanglement of Cuba with Venezuela. What is Cuba’s statement about – that its interests were hurt more than Venezuela’s?
In short, these declarations matter little because they are cost-free speech in a system governed by power. And bear in mind international law has always been (to date) a combination of geopolitics and international norms that go with it. International law works when its norms are willing to be upheld by powerful states. You can have equality of states in the UN, but you certainly don’t have political equality.
The statements made are meagre attempts at asserting some wanted shift in power. But they constrain nothing. International law operates less as some kind of autonomous and/or authentic moral authority than as a negotiated framework through which geopolitical interests are stabilized, legitimized and selectively enforced. That means member states of the UN have to cooperate and collaborate to achieve real goals and outcomes that are supposed to come from international law. The powerful states are not cooperating, or properly cooperating, on achieving outcomes in current conflicts.
Incidentally there are international treaties on drug trafficking, but they operate through state consent and enforcement, not automatic supranational authority. Imagine trying to get consent from Maduro’s Venezuela to do something that is not just a perceived problem, but a real one. States can request mutual legal assistance with each other on this matter per international treaties. States may request evidence, bank records, witness testimony, asset tracing in terms set out and agreed. The US can ask and Venezuela could deliver. Mutual legal assistance is legally robust. But nothing came of it.
International law and condemnation at the UN Security Council would only carry weight when backed by enforceable leverage. There is none. Absent that, such statements serve mainly to preserve ideological alignment, save face, and document dissent—while events move on regardless.
https://substack.com/@macropsychic/note/c-195898229
Seizing Venezuelan Oil Tankers Isn’t Piracy — It’s Law Enforcement
When calls are made for the USA to seize Venezuelan oil shipments, critics quickly reach for dramatic language: piracy, aggression, economic warfare. But strip away the theatrics and a simpler truth emerges. This is not about stealing oil or flexing military power. It’s about enforcing court rulings that Venezuela has refused to honour for years.
The problem began long before early January 2026 headlines. In the 2000s, Venezuela’s government expropriated foreign oil projects, tore up contracts, and seized assets — promising compensation that never fully arrived. American companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips didn’t respond with force or political pressure. They went to court. They won.
International arbitration panels and U.S. courts ruled decisively in their favour, issuing binding judgments worth roughly $35 billion. These rulings weren’t symbolic. They were final. And they carried legal weight.
Venezuela did pay some relatively small compensation, but far less than the full amounts awarded in arbitration, and many large awards remain unpaid. ExxonMobil received some compensation in the past when Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA paid about $255 million to ExxonMobil in 2012 as part of settlement arrangements for nationalized assets. PDVSA also made payments to other U.S. firms around that time (e.g. compensation to Williams Cos. and Exterran Holdings). But these payments were partial and predated the larger arbitration awards that came later.
Venezuela’s response has been simple defiance. Rather than pay what it owes, the state ignored the judgments outright. That basically left creditors with only one remaining option: to enforce the law by attaching Venezuelan commercial assets wherever they can legally be reached. Practically, they have never been able to do that. Until now, but through the USA’s state power.
This is where oil tankers come in. Tankers carrying Venezuelan crude oil are not sacred symbols of sovereignty. They are commercial property, no different in principle from a bank account, an aircraft, or a cargo shipment. In international commerce, when a debtor refuses to pay, creditors are entitled to seize assets to satisfy the debt. That is not punishment — it is how the system works.
Opponents describe this as ‘extreme’. But what is truly extreme is allowing a state to seize billions in assets, lose in court, and then walk away without consequence. Venezuela didn’t just default. It actively rerouted exports and used evasive practices to dodge lawful enforcement.
Seizing oil shipments is not military escalation. No missiles are fired. No territory is occupied. It is civil enforcement — the same principle that allows courts to freeze assets, garnish accounts, or impound property. In this case, civilians or civil enterprises are not in a position to seize oil shipments — but the state of the USA is. At current prices, a single oil tanker can be worth over $100 million. The scale of enforcement reflects the scale of the unpaid debt.
Why does this matter beyond Venezuela? Because global trade depends on trust. Contracts mean nothing if governments like Venezuela can break them without consequence. Court rulings are meaningless if losing parties can simply ignore them. If Venezuela is allowed to evade enforcement indefinitely, it sends a dangerous signal to every investor, worker and trading partner around the world.
This isn’t about politics or ideology. It’s about whether the rule of law still applies when the debtor is a state rather than an individual. And that is the important point – the debtor is a state (the state of Venezuela) so it is sensible that the like power of the state of the USA can also be used in debt recovery. Enforcing judgments is not optional — it is essential to deter future expropriations and protect the integrity of international agreements.
Calling this ‘piracy’ gets it backwards. Piracy is taking what doesn’t belong to you. Enforcement is taking back what a court has already said is owed. After years of defiance, insisting on consequences is not aggression. It is overdue accountability. This is not a debate about capitalism versus socialism, or ideology versus ideology. It is about basic trust, honesty and enforceable rules in trade and international investment. Without rules, no economic system, public or private, can function.
https://substack.com/@macropsychic/note/c-196386437