Trump has a serious problem. He wants to be the `stupor mundi’ i.e. the master of the world, but he is running out of things to conquer.

Alexander the Great ran into a similar problem when his vanguard reached today’s Afghanistan: ‘oh Zeus! Not another damned desert. Will they never end?’

Trump has won the US presidency twice despite scandals and impeachment. Now, he speaks of an illegal third ‘term’ to be engineered by his battalions of lawyers and louche political advisors. He just overthrew Venezuela’s Maduro regime, long a target of US machinations. In doing so, Trump pulled off a highly competent coup and military operation that surgically decapitated the Maduro regime.

The much reviled and derided Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, formerly of Fox TV, deserves kudos for this complex military-political operation. Ditto CIA which prepared the groundwork for this successful operation. The late President Jimmy Carter had no such good luck when trying to free American hostages held in Iran after its revolution.

There seems little doubt America’s big oil firms were in on this game. Could they have been surprised by Trump’s claim that the US would henceforth take under tutelage Venezuela’s huge reserves of low-grade oil? It was only a question of time before US oil experts were sent to ‘upgrade’ Venezuela’s oil production. This is what we used to call ‘plundering.’

Ever since WWII, the US has embraced the notion that all oil, everywhere, really belongs to the USA. We all know that the wars in the Pacific and Europe were primarily won thanks to America’s absolute control of oil. How dare the crazy Japanese believe they could take on the US, other European colonial powers and the Soviet Union with at most a year’s supply of oil?

Israel has had its eyes on oil-rich Venezuela since the 1950’s. There seems little doubt that Trump and his close ally Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu collaborated closely on a new campaign to overthrow Iran’s shaky regime. Add in Syria’s Bashar Assad, Lebanon’s wobbly government, and Venezuela’s annoying Maduro regime. Israeli government spokesmen clearly stated they intended to ‘change the face of the Mideast’. Trump’s invasion of Venezuela and plunder of its oil riches means that Cuba, which ran on free Venezuela oil, appears destined for economic collapse unless Mexico steps in to supply no-charge oil to Venezuela.

What can former Venezuelan allies Russia and China do about this? Probably not much but huff and puff. Who will be on Trump’s list of nations opposing the new US imperialism? Colombia and Brazil of course. Add Turkey, Serbia, Spain, South Africa, and naturally big bad boy China. Trump has it in for the Swiss and, for some reason, goody-two shoes Canada. Could all wild animals soon appear on Trump’s kill list?

Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2026