Venezuela explained in 10 maps and charts
47 comments
·December 13, 2025mohsen1
e40
The similarities with Iraq are insane
https://youtu.be/C5QGzYFjVaU?si=09nRUo_ddUd5H3D7
The Daily Show segment on comparing them.
kristopolous
let's get a time stamp:
cm2187
When US supports dictators, US bad. When US topples dictators, US bad…
To me the similarity with Iraq is that it is run by a ruthless dictator that destroys the country. I don’t care that much which pretext is used to topple him. The reason why the Iraq war was a bad idea isn’t that the pretext used turned out to be bullshit, it is that Saddam’s brutal regime was keeping a lead on ethnic tensions, that ended up killing over a 100k people. Though it isn’t clear it wouldn’t have happened ultimately when Saddam would have died of natural death.
Oil is unconvincing since it took years before production recovered, so that clearly wasn’t the priority.
But I see no such risk in Venezuela. Not that it is likely to become a wealthy Switzerland, the voters elected Chavez after all. But a poor democracy is better than a poor dictatorship.
Not sure how Trump will still claim he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize if he starts an unprovoked war (and also rewards the dictator having started an unprovoked war in Ukraine) though.
oersted
When US initiates aggressive unilateral military action on other sovereign countries, US bad yes, of course.
Old-school UN-led "police action" as in Korea is one thing, at least there's a somewhat universal institution making judgements on which countries need to be "saved" under a consistent legal framework, but that's such a slippery slope too.
The US does not have the authority to make such decisions and definitely does not have a good track record of them. It's just vigilantism at a large scale, at best. Even when being charitable about intent, US has done some things in legitimate good faith, at least partially, the results are always catastrophic. There's been no instance of actually positive outcomes for the local population, it has always destroyed the country for decades to come and set the stage for significantly worse regimes.
sirfz
I think the problem with your take is your assumption that the US topples regimes because of dictatorship or to support "democracy".
gpderetta
> When US supports dictators, US bad. When US topples dictators, US bad…
there is a third option.
drysine
>I don’t care that much which pretext is used to topple him.
The US also destroyed the country in the process and caused more deaths than Saddam.
4gotunameagain
This doesn't mean that they are wrong. We should not have another was for the petrodollar. We have enough suffering in this planet. We should not only not create more, but actively try to reduce it.
apples_oranges
Good video on the oil: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgwny1BiCYk
sofixa
It's not that easy/clear. Venezuelan oil is really poor quality, needs lots of refining, and is thus only profitable only when the price per barrel is on the higher end.
So Qatar (which mostly exports natural gas anyways), Saudi Arabia, etc. can just dump oil at a cheaper price to make it unprofitable to extract and refine Venezuelan oil.
US decision makers salivating over war/oil/whatever def don't take that into account, but it really doesn't matter either.
faidit
It could also reduce US dependence on Qatar, reducing the value of all the bribes they paid to Trump so far and requiring them to bribe him more.
armchairhacker
What do Venezuelans think about the US aggression? Both in numbers and what are some common opinions?
FullMetalBitch
I only know expats and they can't wait to see Maduro gone.
febed
Interesting how Venezuela has more oil than Saudi Arabia but is not able to capitalize on it due to systemic issues
HPsquared
Venezuelan crude is heavier and has more sulfur than Saudi oil which makes it harder to process. (Still easier than Canadian oil sand though)
decimalenough
Venezuela was processing it just fine before Chavez showed up, nationalized the industry, put his cronies in charge and let it all fall to pieces.
https://www.ceicdata.com/en/indicator/venezuela/crude-oil-ex...
grunder_advice
From what I understand the root cause is racism and classism.
Venezuela was in a deep economic crisis for a very long time before Chavez was elected. The then ruling elite were pretty happy living in a bubble, extracting oil, selling to the west, embezzling the proceeds and ignoring most of the population.
The reason I say, the root cause is racism and classism, is because they totally underestimated the power of the people to overthrow their corrupt regime.
hexbin010
Systemic issues is a nice euphemism
ksynwa
> systemic issues
Like sanctions?
nusl
Trump has been begging for a peace prize, got his FIFA pretend-prize, and immediately threatens war on a country over pretense after illegally killing their citizens over dubious claims. They've been pressuring Ukraine into handing over valuable resources, and now they're going for a country over Oil. Okay, enjoy your peace prize Mr. Global FIFA Peace Man.
globular-toast
The export charts appear to have been taken from OEC[0]. They appear to be CC0 from the source but they've applied CC BY-NC-SA and put their own logo on it. A bit odd.
crazybonkersai
It is shocking how openly US planning a war of aggression against Venezuela and the whole civilized world is just fine with it. EU could grow a pair and show the US that this type of behaviour is not accepted. Sanction the fuck out of the US regime, boot off Swift, kick American companies out of the EU market, barren American citizens from travelling to EU. EU can prevent this war, while it is not too late.
oersted
While I like the sentiment, we have to be somewhat pragmatic. The sanctions on Russia have had a deep impact on the EU economy, mainly the energy crisis and other connected systemic consequences. Germany and much of central and eastern EU became highly dependent on Russian natural gas over the last 20 years, and higher energy prices in general have been quite harmful to the already precarious industrial and agricultural sectors (high-tech farming as in NL, while quite profitable, is very energy intensive and sensitive to tightening margins).
Most of EU (and UK) is on (or near) recession right now, except for some southern EU countries which are doing surprisingly well, although relative to a long period of hardship after the 2008 crisis. It's not an acute recession, but there's no clear way out of this stagnation on the horizon, and the people are really starting to feel the squeeze.
Of course, the root cause of this is much deeper, the Russia situation was just the spark. EU industry has been complacent for decades, believing that while less competitive on costs and scale we still had the technological edge, which ironically led to severe underinvestment in R&D. And giving up on nuclear is backfiring badly too.
I do think the (shrinking) majority still believes that the (limited) actions against Russia were worthwhile, since they are not threatening sovereignty in general, they are threatening EU's territorial integrity at our doorstep. It is unacceptable, and while it is a heavy price, not retaliating would have much more catastrophic consequences.
But cutting off trade with US over Venezuela? Forget about it, EU's dependency on US is orders of magnitude higher than it was with Russia, it would be absolutely deadly to the EU economy.
wiseowise
Last time I've checked it was Pax Americana, not Pax Europeana.
> Checks registration date and comments
Ah, right, another Russian bot.
grunder_advice
The EU has consistently been anti-Chavez and anti-Maduro, probably because the corrupt Venezuelan elites who escaped with their stolen millions after Chavez was elected, have been whispering in their ears ever since.
mongol
EU can't prevent this war.
vkou
No, but it can freeze the assets of its perpetrators.
crazybonkersai
Not with this kind of attitude for sure. EU can at least send a strong signal by doing concrete actions. Sanctions against American corporations and individuals, travel restrictions, SWIFT ban. These will make Trump think twice before waging acts of unprovoked aggression.
mongol
EU has to focus on its hostile neighbour to the east. I can see you are no fan of the EU but be realistic
farseer
Sanctions against someone they need to contain Russia?
nusl
Trump and the US has never shown to care about this. The current US gov seems fixated on attacking the EU and trying to break it up. If they want to go to war, EU won't be able to stop them. Perhaps if they gift Trump a plane, though.
apples_oranges
War is bad .. yes very, of course, but look closer at life in Venezuela, it’s really gotten bad for people there.. millions left, just saying: regime change if it works might .. be good?
xkcd1963
EU is a puppet state of the US empire.
elktown
It will be interesting to see how quickly people & media will suddenly go "Well, actually Venezuela is a problem" or similarly spineless turnaround.
farseer
The EU is fine with it, because there are no principles in geo-politics. All their hue and cry about Ukraine is also because of their own security, not any virtue. Laughably it was the EU that went along with US plans to deorbit Ukraine from Russia's influence.
The only way for Venezuela to survive is to play dirty and be cunning/resourceful just like their Ukrainian counterparts fighting for their life.
bojan
> The only way for Venezuela to survive is to play dirty and be cunning/resourceful just like their Ukrainian counterparts fighting for their life.
You are trying very hard to make the situations sound similar, but they are not.
Ukraine is a democracy, Venezuela is not.
The scope of the attacks are entirely different. Still doesn't justify what Trump is doing, of course.
realusername
You make it sound like it's a bad thing, being the subject of weekly nuclear threats and invasion threats like the EU is is a valid reason on its own to support Ukraine.
Attrecomet
I also wonder why the EU should invest a significant amount of political, economical and hard military power to protect a failing dictatorship?
Make no mistake, the EU is not "fine" with the war in the sense that they will express diplomatic criticism of the US when Trump finally starts his idiotic (and narcissistic, and corrupt, but I already said "Trump") war. They are "fine" with it in the sense that they won't self-implode their collective political careers and perhaps the EU itself by sanctioning the US and destroying the economy of the entire EU for fucking Maduro. Doing that would be idiocy.
globalnode
all these world power grabs are manufactured stories with the back end being -- gimme your stuff. something something playbook something something.
Al Jazeera has been super loud and vocal about how US aggressions towards Venezuela is all about oil. It makes sense since Venezuela’s future oil exports in case the current regime falls will hugely impact the price of oil which funds Qatar which funds Al Jazeera.