Hip, hip, hooray for yet another forever war
Donald Trump needs a distraction
See update for December 21, 2025, at end of post.
So in between the off-topic and utterly irrelevant and totally incoherent ranting, I think we know what Donald Trump’s address to the nation tomorrow (December 17) night[1] will be about. Supposedly, “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president will discuss his accomplishments since taking office in January and what he plans to do over the course of the next three years.”[2]
But I’m guessing it’s gonna be about Venezuela. It seems “[t]he U.S. is preparing to seize more sanctioned oil-filled tankers off Venezuela” and that a “new phase also could soon include ‘land strikes on Venezuela.’”[3] So there can be little doubt what this is about: Trump wants Venezuela’s oil.[4] It’s certainly not about drugs.[5]
In announcing the blockade, Trump said, “Venezuela is completely surrounded by the largest Armada ever assembled in the History of South America. It will only get bigger, and the shock to them will be like nothing they have ever seen before — Until such time as they return to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.”[6]
If you’re mystified about how or when Venezuela stole oil, land, and other assets from the U.S., I assume it refers to nationalizations that occurred under Hugo Chávez and his predecessor, Carlos Andrés Pérez.[7]
Trump will pretend that restitution to U.S. corporations—which in some cases had already received fair compensation[8]—will somehow benefit the U.S. public, which is already facing hard economic times.[9] He will also pretend that the U.S. can win, when the U.S. has not won a war of any significance since World War II, which itself could be argued to have actually been won by the Soviet Union.
Trump has no shortage of domestic problems. Yet another forever war might prove a valuable distraction.
Update, December 21, 2025: Donald Trump did not, in fact, talk about Venezuela in his waste-of-time address on December 17. It was his usual demented nonsense, leading to yet more speculation about his health. He blamed Joe Biden for problems and trumpeted his first year as a success. There was no empathy for people suffering a rising cost of living whatsoever.[10]
But as to Venezuela, “President Donald Trump said this week [December 14-20] that the expropriation of American oil company assets justified a ‘total and complete blockade’ of oil tankers arriving and leaving Venezuela in defiance of U.S. sanctions. The blockade will remain, he wrote on Truth Social, until the South American nation returns ‘to the United States of America all of the Oil, Land, and other Assets that they previously stole from us.’ . . .
“But U.S. companies never owned oil or land in Venezuela, home to the world’s largest proven reserves of crude, and officials didn’t kick them out of the country.”[11]
This is war: “No matter which purpose is pursued by the establishment of a blockade, it always involves the use of military force directed against the enemy’s coastline or ports (Colombos 716–17). Accordingly, a blockade is a method of warfare to which the general principles and rules of the law of international armed conflicts/international humanitarian law apply.”[12]
So, we are at war with Venezuela and we are at war for an entirely bogus reason. “It’s kind of like an odd argument. You owe me some money. We both went to court. The court said, ‘You pay me this.’ You start paying me, then I — by force, by the imposition of sanctions — make it impossible for you to continue paying me, and then I accuse you of stealing something from me.”[13]
And, as to Cuba, it seems to have already been in trouble and is now staring down the barrel at a complete cutoff of Venezuelan oil. The Wall Street Journal, hardly likely to be friendly either to Cuba or Venezuela, seems to think Cuba is collapsing. The situation there appears certainly dire enough[14] to suggest a violation of “the general principles and rules of the law of international armed conflicts/international humanitarian law,”[15] to the extent they apply to a third country.
[1] Kathryn Watson, “Trump says he'll deliver prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday,” CBS News, December 16, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-prime-time-address-wednesday/
[2] Kathryn Watson, “Trump says he'll deliver prime-time address to the nation on Wednesday,” CBS News, December 16, 2025, https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-prime-time-address-wednesday/
[3] Marc Caputo, “‘Quite a buffet’: U.S. ready to seize more tankers with Venezuelan oil,” Axios, December 16, 2025, https://www.axios.com/2025/12/16/trump-seize-oil-tankers-venezuela
[4] Maureen Tkacik, “The $30 Billion Identity Theft of Venezuela,” American Prospect, November 26, 2025, https://prospect.org/2025/11/26/30-billion-dollar-identity-theft-of-venezuela/
[5] Burgess Everett and Shelby Talcott, “Trump’s push against Venezuela faces Republican blowback at pivotal moment,” Semafor, December 1, 2025, https://www.semafor.com/article/12/01/2025/trumps-push-against-venezuela-faces-republican-blowback-at-pivotal-moment; Tobi Raji, “Former president of Honduras, convicted of trafficking, freed after Trump pardon,” Washington Post, December 2, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/02/hernandez-trump-pardon-prison-honduras/
[6] Donald Trump, quoted in Samantha Schmidt, “Trump announces ‘complete blockade’ of sanctioned oil tankers to Venezuela,” Washington Post, December 16, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/16/trump-venezuela-oil-tanker-blockade/
[7] Reuters, “Factbox: Venezuela's nationalizations under Chavez,” October 7, 2012, https://www.reuters.com/article/world/factbox-venezuelas-nationalizations-under-chavez-idUSBRE89701X/; Diana Roy and Amelia Cheatham, “Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate,” Council on Foreign Relations, July 31, 2024, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis
[8] Diana Roy and Amelia Cheatham, “Venezuela: The Rise and Fall of a Petrostate,” Council on Foreign Relations, July 31, 2024, https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/venezuela-crisis
[9] Lauren Kaori Gurley, “Unemployment rate rises, signaling weakness in the economy,” Washington Post, December 16, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/12/16/jobs-report-unemployment-rate/; Joe Hernandez, “Trump calls affordability crisis a ‘hoax.’ The data tells a different story,” National Public Radio, December 11, 2025, https://www.npr.org/2025/12/11/nx-s1-5639957/trump-affordability-hoax-economy-midterms
[10] Trevor Hunnicutt and Jeff Mason, “Takeaways from Trump's year-end address to the nation,” Reuters, December 17, 2025, https://www.reuters.com/world/us/takeaways-trumps-year-end-address-nation-2025-12-18/
[11] Tobi Raji and Leo Sands, “Trump says Venezuela stole U.S. oil, land and assets. Here’s the history,” Washington Post, December 20, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/20/venezuela-oil-nationalization-expropriation/
[12] Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, “Blockade,” Oxford Public International Law, October 2015, https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e252
[13] Francisco Rodríguez, quoted in Tobi Raji and Leo Sands, “Trump says Venezuela stole U.S. oil, land and assets. Here’s the history,” Washington Post, December 20, 2025, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2025/12/20/venezuela-oil-nationalization-expropriation/
[14] Juan Forero and Ryan Dubé, “U.S. Oil Blockade of Venezuela Pushes Cuba Toward Collapse,” Wall Street Journal, December 21, 2025, https://apple.news/ADJrPwuIwTeWa9Zovw1wXjw
[15] Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg, “Blockade,” Oxford Public International Law, October 2015, https://opil.ouplaw.com/display/10.1093/law:epil/9780199231690/law-9780199231690-e252