The expectations that a good part of Venezuelans had of the first actions of Donald Trump's administration regarding Venezuela, upon his arrival to the US government, are very different now than before January 20, 2025, the date of President Trump's inauguration. The scale could vary from waiting for the sanctions on the regime to be so strong in the following days that they would force them out of power, to the violent intervention of armed groups with the consent of the US government.
But what nobody ever expected was that from the first decisions taken, the TPS (Temporary Protected Status) granted to Venezuelans would be suspended and all the compatriots who have migrated to the US would be persecuted, with the excuse of being criminals of the Aragua Train, being these criminals a minuscule minority in relation to the number of Venezuelans in the US; And even less, that they were confused and mixed with the real criminals of that gang, and sent to Guantanamo and El Salvador, using a nineteenth century law of war that was not applied since World War II, when Japan and the US went to war because of the attack on Pearl Harbor, because according to that law, the US is at war with Venezuela because of a gang of criminals.
Nor before Trump came to power did we expect that an envoy of the President of the United States would come to “talk” with Maduro, and that an extension of the licenses of the oil company Chevron to operate in Venezuela -or at least not to touch the one that had been granted during the administration of Joe Biden- in exchange for American hostages imprisoned in the dungeons of the regime, even though it is declared that “nothing was negotiated”.
But it is important that we clarify something before continuing. Everything the governments of the United States -or of any other country- do is in the direction of safeguarding their interests, not ours, so the above does not represent any complaint, displeasure or claim on my part, although things could have been handled in a different way. But there are opinions for all tastes. That is what came after the Biden administration, whether we like it or not, even if some of us had hoped that things would have been different for us immediately.
There is another group of Venezuelans who are still betting heavily that at some point the Donald Trump administration will deal with the authoritarian regimes of the continent, existing in Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela, an opinion in which I agree, but even if I believe that this may be so, our opposition actions cannot and should not be subject to that hope, and that somehow I think as a Venezuelan, that the actions that we undertake in some way must be synchronized with the situation that those who can help us to get out of the Castro-Chavist-Madurist hell, such as the US, are going through, and propose actions accordingly.
But in order to do that, it is necessary to understand why what is happening in the US -and in the rest of the world because of the US- is happening, and instead of getting upset about what they are doing to us -even though it is indeed horrible- let us see the picture on a larger scale, establishing to what extent we can insert ourselves in what is happening -bad or good- and in what positive way we can act accordingly. If we don't, we will continue to move reactively - and usually badly - to whatever they do that affects us in one way or another, not using what is happening to our advantage, at least discursively.
So what was happening in the US before Trump came to power? Regardless of what many think, the US faced - and still faces - serious problems in its domestic economy. The only reason the most powerful nation on the planet has not collapsed is because, unlike the rest of the world's countries, they own the dollar printing machine. For any other country, keeping all economic indicators afloat, permanently generating unsupported debt, results sooner rather than later in an inflationary chaos of the economy. The case of Argentina is the most emblematic in our times, not to mention our own case.
But in the case of the USA it can be sustained if you are the owner of the machine that produces the monetary sign of more than 60% of all world monetary reserves and 64% of the world debt denomination: “...about 60% of world foreign exchange reserves are dollars (in second place is the euro, with 20%); 54% of international trade is conducted in dollars; 64% of world debt is denominated in dollars” (see in Spanish Trump and the risks of losing the “exorbitant privilege” of the dollar, in https://letraslibres.com/politica/trump-y-los-riesgos-de-perder-el-privilegio-exorbitante-del-dolar/28/02/2025/).
Coupled with the above, the US does not produce what it mostly consumes: “The US posted a record trade deficit of $131.4 billion in January 2025, up from a downwardly revised deficit of $98.1 billion in December 2024 and exceeding forecasts of a $127.4 billion deficit. Imports rose 10% to an all-time high of $401.2 billion, boosted by anticipation of upcoming tariffs. ...The U.S. goods trade deficit widened with China ($-29.7 billion versus $-25.3 billion in December 2024), the EU ($-25.5 billion versus $20.4 billion), Switzerland ($-22.8 billion versus $-13 billion), Mexico ($-15.5 billion versus $15.3 billion), Vietnam ($11.9 billion versus $11.4 billion), and Canada ($11.3 billion versus $7.9 billion)” (see Trading Economics, USA Trade Balance, in https://es.tradingeconomics.com/united-states/balance-of-trade).
Simply put, the U.S. is importing far more than it produces, especially with China, the European Union, Mexico and Canada. And if they don't produce enough, what do they pay for it with? With debt. And if you can't pay, you have deficits in your budget accounts that you have to plug. Since 2000, the US debt jumped the following year 2001, from 33.3% to 52.4% of GDP. The reason? The attacks on the Twin Towers in New York. And from then on, central government debt has not stopped rising to the point where it exceeded 114.9% of GDP in 2023 (see Central government debt, total as % of GDP, IMF, Yearbook of Government Finance Statistics and data files, and World Bank and OECD GDP estimates, at https://datos.bancomundial.org/indicador/GC.DOD.TOTL.GD.ZS?locations=US).
And what do Americans spend most of their money on? “U.S. defense spending accounts for 13% of the U.S. federal budget: in the trend of recent years, almost half of the annual fiscal deficit. Thus, if on the one hand Treasury bills are the main collateral asset of the international financial system, on the other hand the fiscal deficit represents the main source of funding for the military umbrella under which the United States has so far exercised its role as security guarantor in the system of global political, economic and trade relations” (see in Spanish, Trump and the risks of losing the ‘exorbitant privilege’ of the dollar, in https://letraslibres.com/politica/trump-y-los-riesgos-de-perder-el-privilegio-exorbitante-del-dolar/28/02/2025/).
An economics professor once told us: US Treasury bonds are the safest investment in the world, and the above confirms it. The US government always pays. That security is comparable to day follows night and the sky will always be blue. Anything else would turn the world upside down, so drastic urgent measures are required to avoid default. And that is where the largest federal budget expenditures must come in: “The majority of the budget is given to defense, social security and major health programs: Defense 13%, Social Security: 21%, Medicare-Medicaid: 24%” (see in Spanish, Congressional Budget Office, CBC, May 2023, in https://www.cbpp.org/es/research/federal-budget/como-se-distribuye-el-dinero-de-los-impuestos-federales-que-pagan-los).
These figures alone -and there are many more- explain why the Trump administration applies unusual tariffs to China, the European Union, Mexico and Canada, to reduce the trade deficit, and leaves the Europeans to sort out their problem in the Russia-Ukraine conflict on defense alone -moving armies costs too much money-, and Elon Musk's American chainsaw office does not stop at cutting every piece of public spending, starting with USAID aid. But it also explains the persecution and expulsion of immigrants, reducing their numbers to a minimum, which the federal budget can no longer support in health, education and security. The fact that they have taken the Venezuelan case as a banner is despicable to me as it is to everyone else, but it can be explained. What is regrettable is that there was no opposition counterpart with influence in that administration to defend our position.
In Musk's summary words: “...but I think we have a huge federal deficit, $2 trillion, it keeps growing. Interest outpaces the defense budget. That was my wake-up call: seeing the interest on the debt outstripping the defense budget and continuing to grow over time. If we don't do something, there will be no money for anything, we will just pay off debt...” (see Marc Vidal, Trump's secret plan: avoiding the collapse of the U.S. due to the debt tsunami, in https://youtu.be/kBY12tKEotU?t=132).
Governments prior to Trump 2025, including the president himself in his first term, simply issued more debt, running the problem and leaving it to future governments, until the system simply couldn't take it anymore, and this year they can no longer pay. And this is a simple explanation to a much more complex problem but it helps explain why Trump is doing what he is doing, although there are possibly better ways to do it, but if they didn't get in front of the issue, simply the world we know that is dependent on the US on all sides, would simply collapse.
They say that the fine line between madness and genius is success. I don't know who is the genius or the madman, Musk or Trump, but one thing is certain: if Trump doesn't succeed, he will be the madman who came in like an elephant in a china shop breaking everything. But if he does, he will be the genius who will have saved the world, establishing a new order.
In all this context, what can the US do to get these criminals off our backs? They have seen that they are definitely not going to - nor can they - put a dollar for us and anything they do that has to do with the Venezuelan regime will go in the direction of solving their own problem, not ours. And that is precisely what they did with the Executive Order to impose additional tariffs on countries that buy our oil (see The White House, Imposing Tariffs on Countries Importing Venezuelan Oil, in https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/03/imposing-tariffs-on-countries-importing-venezuelan-oil/).
On the one hand, they prevent the regime from opening new oil markets or expanding existing ones, and fix the US as the only possible buyer. Indirectly, China receives the greatest impact because the largest percentage of our debt is with them and paid with Venezuelan oil. And this helps the US because they are not directly affecting a trading partner, but they are imposing additional tariffs to those already imposed on imports of their products into the US, and at the same time it helps us to economically strangle the regime, in a very skillful double-crossing move.
It is an accurate measure for US interests, but unfortunately it still relies on considering that all Venezuelans belong to the criminal gang of the Aragua Train. It is about time that the Americans base their next decisions regarding Venezuela on something else, but that is definitely not going to happen because that is not their problem, it is ours, even if it is crazy. We still have a lot of work to do in the corresponding geniality...
Caracas, March 26, 2025
Blog:
TIC’s & Derechos Humanos, https://ticsddhh.blogspot.com/
Email: luismanuel.aguana@gmail.com
Twitter:@laguana
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario