🧨 Like an Evil Colonizer Trump Claims Ownership of Venezuela and Effectively Declares War Against Them. Literally No American Wants This!

He’s demanding “our oil” and “our land.” That’s not diplomacy—it’s public theft and a march toward war.

Donald Trump just posted something so extreme it reads like a colonial decree, not a statement from a modern president. He claims Venezuela is surrounded by “the largest Armada ever assembled,” demands Venezuela return “Oil, Land, and other Assets” to the United States, and announces a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE” of oil tankers going in and out of the country. Members of Congress and international observers are saying the obvious: a naval blockade is an act of war.

Before I break down what’s happening and why it’s so dangerous, I want to ask you from the heart to become a member today. I keep this work free for the world—for readers in Gaza, for students in public schools, for families living in deep poverty, for elders on fixed incomes—because a smaller circle of people who can afford it chooses to carry some of the cost. If that’s you, please click here to become a member and click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support keeps this work free for them, and even for you when you can’t afford to pay.

Now let’s talk about what Trump just put in writing—and what it really means.

---

Trump didn’t merely threaten Venezuela. He claimed ownership of it.

He wrote that Venezuela must “return to the United States” “all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets” it supposedly “stole from us.” He labeled the Maduro government a “foreign terrorist organization.” He bragged that Venezuela is surrounded by an armada “like nothing they have ever seen before.” And then he announced a “TOTAL AND COMPLETE BLOCKADE” of oil tankers going into and out of Venezuela.

I need to say this as clearly as I know how: Venezuela does not have any oil or land that belongs to the United States.Not historically. Not legally. Not morally. Not even in Trump’s imagination should it be acceptable to say out loud.

When a U.S. president says, in public, that another country must hand over its oil and its land to America, that is not “foreign policy.” That is colonialism. That is resource theft. That is a man speaking as if the Western Hemisphere is his private property.

And here’s what makes it even more obscene: Trump isn’t even trying to hide the point. This isn’t framed as “Venezuela must improve human rights.” It isn’t framed as “Venezuela must hold elections.” It is framed as “give us your oil and your land.” That’s the whole message. Extraction. Control. Submission.

The BBC is already calling Venezuela’s response what it is: they denounced it as “warmongering threats.” Because that’s exactly what a blockade is. A blockade is a nation using force to control another nation’s trade routes and borders. It’s economic strangulation backed by military power. It is how wars begin.

And Congress knows it. Rep. Joaquin Castro said plainly that Trump’s “naval blockade is unquestionably an act of war,” and he said lawmakers are voting on a resolution to end hostilities with Venezuela. Rep. Thomas Massie has said regime change abroad isn’t “America First” and that he’ll vote to keep U.S. forces out.

That matters, because the Constitution does not give a president the right to slide the country into war from a social media post. A “total and complete blockade” is not a tweet. It’s a fuse.

Now let me hit the part that makes my stomach turn as someone who has spent years fighting for civil rights and basic fairness in this country.

I cannot tell you the number of times I’ve seen children jailed—sometimes for months or years—for petty theft of something almost worthless. I remember the case of Jamycheal Mitchell, a man who died in a Virginia jail in 2015 after being arrested over the alleged theft of a Snickers and a Mountain Dew. The punishment for the poor is swift, brutal, and unforgiving.

And now look at what Trump is doing in broad daylight.

He is openly describing a plan to take another nation’s resources—oil, land, “assets”—by threat of overwhelming force. That is theft on a scale so massive it would make every petty theft case in America look like a rounding error.

If a kid steals candy, we put him in cuffs.
If a president steals oil, we call it “national security.”

That is the moral sickness at the heart of empire: the law is a cage for the weak and a costume for the powerful.

And the world sees it. The entire world knows Venezuela’s oil is not Trump’s. Everyone knows it. The only question is whether we will pretend not to know it because the thief has the biggest navy.

The BBC also notes that the U.S. has conducted deadly strikes on alleged Venezuelan drug-smuggling boats and has provided no public evidence those boats were carrying fentanyl or other drugs. So the pattern is familiar: make the accusation, show no receipts, escalate anyway, and then use the chaos to justify doing what you wanted to do from the beginning.

This is not about “protecting our children.” This is about power. This is about control. This is about oil. And the fact that Trump is saying the quiet part out loud—“return our oil and our land”—should scare every person who ever believed America was done with colonial thinking.

Because it isn’t.

And if Trump is allowed to treat Venezuela like a colony—demanding its wealth while threatening a blockade—then the question isn’t whether this becomes a war. The question is how long it takes before somebody fires back and the machine starts screaming, “We can’t stop now.”

We can stop now. We should stop now. And we should tell the truth now.

If you want this kind of reporting and moral clarity to stay free for the world, I need you with me. Please click here to become a member and click here to join as a monthly, annual, or founding member. Your support is how this work stays independent, fearless, and available to anyone who needs it.

Love and appreciate each of you.
Your friend and brother,
Shaun

---

Don’t Stop Here: Here are 3 FREE articles for you…

---

---