Donald Trump and predatory capitalism

Donald Trump and Venezuela

Nicolás Maduro was kidnapped and taken to New York, certainly with some kind of inside information and support. The US government agreed to negotiate with the vice president and has already begun giving orders. If Nicolás Maduro was illegitimate because he rigged the election, would Nicolás Maduro's vice president be legitimate?

No one should expect consistency from Donald Trump. This initial negotiation, if confirmed, indicates that there will be no territorial military occupation. In other words, the US will not send troops to invade Venezuela. That would be a huge setback, with the deaths of American soldiers and a significant loss of popular support for Donald Trump.

The Venezuelan government has moved closer to Russia and China, and after the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro, the government remains the same; everyone is in the same place. Donald Trump wants to negotiate access to oil with the government that holds power, not with the opposition leader, Maria Corina Machado, who has no influence in the government.

Venezuela's vast oil reserves are located inland, in the Orinoco Oil Belt, making operational control and commercial exploitation very difficult for the US, and facilitating sabotage by potential resistance. This helps explain why Donald Trump is unlikely to prioritize direct military action, preferring indirect measures such as economic sanctions, trade blockades, political and diplomatic punishments, etc. Military strategy theorists know that weaker actors tend to achieve relative success when they manage to shift the conflict to arenas where the adversary's material superiority loses effectiveness.

The Democratic Party has no moral authority to denounce Donald Trump for bombing Venezuela in a war-like operation, without prior congressional support and ignoring the Constitution and the UN Charter, because former President Barack Obama did the same when he bombed Libya for seven months in 2011.

According to some analysts, the Supreme Court, although with a conservative majority, will condemn Donald Trump to pay substantial damages for lowering tariffs without prior authorization from Congress. This will cause significant financial losses and enormous political damage to Donald Trump. It would not be impossible that this decision, if it actually comes, could impact some judicial decision recognizing the blatant illegality of the bombing of Venezuela and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. And election polls already point to a serious defeat for Donald Trump in the upcoming parliamentary elections of "mid-term"scheduled for next November. The possibility of impeachment has already been raised in journalistic speculation in the US."

US decline?

There is a certain consensus among political scientists who analyze international relations that Donald Trump's administration is a strong indication of the decline of US unilateral hegemony in the world, which would be moving towards multilateral geopolitical relations.

There are clear signs of the economic decline of the US, which consumes more than it produces and imports more than it exports. Its power today resides not only in technology, but mainly in financial control, in the role of the dollar as a global currency. The payment and exchange system in the world market is based on SWIFT, referenced to the dollar, which is beginning to be threatened by the much more efficient and faster Chinese financial system CIPS (Cross-Border Interbank Payment System).

Even Brazil has launched an effective and immediate payment method, Pix, which doesn't exist in the US and has been attacked by Donald Trump because it goes against the interests of American credit card companies like Visa or Mastercard. Through its participation and certain leadership in BRICS, which threatens the power of the dollar in the medium term, Brazil contributes to weakening American influence in its Latin American backyard.

The US is no longer a democracy. Donald Trump controls the Executive, the Legislative, and part of the Judiciary. He withdrew the US from international commitments and organizations, and boycotted universities and scientific research, unleashing a culture war to prevent debate and research on certain topics, and to change the history recorded in museums, which would then adopt a false narrative to his liking.

But Donald Trump wants to go beyond US territory. He wants his decisions to have universal validity and to be respected by other countries.

Donald Trump against national sovereignty.

The world has been divided into nation-states since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, which ensured the legal equality of all countries, however different they may be from an economic, social, cultural, or military standpoint. The concept of the nation-state created by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 was based on the principles of territoriality, sovereignty, autonomy, and legality.

Thus, a decree from any country's government is only legally valid within its territory. In other countries, it is not valid because each country is sovereign and has its own laws. In practice, however, this situation is more complex, and some exceptions are allowed when a country agrees to follow the law of another country due to diplomatic pressure, treaties, or commercial interests.

There are many examples of decrees issued by the US government that were obeyed by other countries, even without internal legal validity, for economic reasons. The best-known example is the trade embargo imposed by the US against Cuba, which prohibited American companies from maintaining commercial relations with that country.

Indirectly, foreign companies cut trade relations with Cuba to avoid losing access to the US market. A unilateral decision by a government ended up having a transnational effect. Even more important is the fact that the global financial system is highly dependent on the US dollar and US banks.

On August 20, 2025, Donald Trump applied the Magnitsky Act to four members of the International Criminal Court, based in The Hague, for prosecuting the genocidal Benjamin Netanyahu for the massacre in the Gaza Strip. These judges of the International Criminal Court had their assets frozen in the US, their visas revoked, and were prevented from conducting financial transactions.

Nation-states weaken because they can no longer control dynamics that extend beyond their territorial boundaries. Electronic communications cross national borders, capital flows in and out of a country, often leaving behind an economic and financial crisis, labor, despite prohibitions, emigrates to other countries, and transnational corporations have larger budgets than most nations, which are effectively transformed into provinces.

Organized crime, such as the illegal drug and arms trade, bypasses national laws. Another striking example: to defend national sovereignty, the Brazilian Armed Forces depend on a foreign company. This is Elon Musk's Starlink, because the Armed Forces depend on its antennas for communications.

Environmental destruction in one country affects others, and the global climate crisis does not respect national borders. The common heritage of humanity conflicts with the national-territorial dimension. Shared ecosystems constitute a common heritage that transcends the framework of national sovereignty.

And for these and other problems, there are international regulatory agreements and standards, which are not always respected. In addition to the aforementioned dimensions, there are others that affect the autonomy of the national state, such as cultural and social issues. Cultural activities in one country, such as cinema or music, for example, impact social behaviors in others.

In light of this, what about national sovereignty? One of the foundations of the nation-state concept, it survives in the classical political and legal literature on democracy and the formation of the nation-state. In practice, however, it has been shaken and, in some cases, swallowed up by globalization. National sovereignty today generally functions as a demand and protest. It has become a doctrinal dogma, a strong sentiment in the consciousness of a people, but it often only functions when there is no interest from global capital, which has transformed the vast majority of countries into provinces.

It is true that the Donald Trump administration shuffled the cards and took a regressive turn in several dimensions of globalization, mainly in the economic sphere, with the aim of strengthening its nation-state, according to its perspective, to confront the economic and technological rise of China and the threat of BRICS. The predominant dominance of the US in the financial and other spheres was beginning to be threatened.

Capitalism – from liberal to predatory

We are currently experiencing a multifaceted crisis, which some call a polycrisis, encompassing geopolitical, social, and technological crises. Because everything is interconnected, we need to think systemically. One dimension of this reality is the structural depletion of resources, particularly fossil fuels. And Venezuela, as is well known, possesses the largest oil reserves in the world.

The capitalism of finitude is a concept coined by historian Arnaud Orain. It emerges during periods of crisis that lead economic and political elites to stop seeing the world as infinite. At that moment, the logic changes completely. The goal is no longer to maximize global wealth through competition and free trade, but to "secure"—that is, to appropriate, or even steal—scarce resources in exclusive zones of influence.

Capitalism is no longer liberal; it is predatory, violent, and rent-seeking, and it uses military force to achieve its objectives. Free competition ceases to exist as a principle. In a capitalism of finite resources, monopoly ceases to be a problem and becomes a geopolitical asset. And large multinational corporations have budgets and powers that surpass those of the states themselves.

Donald Trump has thrown away the liberal facade of capitalism and embraced predatory capitalism as official US policy. The military operation in Venezuela, with the kidnapping of its president and the threat of a new military offensive if the Venezuelan government does not comply with Donald Trump's orders, is a first step. And, earlier this week, Donald Trump announced that Venezuela will "hand over" up to 50 million barrels of oil. He pays but controls the money. This threatens oil sales to China, which has contracts with the Venezuelan government.

Donald Trump makes climate change denialist speeches, but he knows that natural resources are scarce. And to seize these resources, he disregards democracy and international institutions and rights, both public and private. He has already threatened Colombia and also Greenland, which belongs to Denmark, a NATO member.

The White House announced on January 6th that Donald Trump intends to acquire Greenland, but does not rule out the use of the Armed Forces. In other words, Donald Trump wants to buy, but if Denmark doesn't want to sell, he will invade. An invasion of Greenland in search of its natural resources would lead to the implosion of NATO. And, always in the crosshairs, is Iran, which, according to some, would be the next military objective of Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu.

Donald Trump is destroying the world order based on international rights and institutions. Like a brute, with a club in hand and no mask, he violently pursues his goals of establishing predatory capitalism in the US.