![America's Energy Imperialism Era: Control, Resources, and Global Power [2025]](https://tryrunable.com/blog/america-s-energy-imperialism-era-control-resources-and-globa/image-1-1767874071891.jpg)
Introduction: The Return of Resource Colonialism
When Donald Trump announced plans to seize control of Venezuela's oil reserves in early 2025, he didn't bother with diplomatic pretense. "We're gonna get the oil flowing the way it should be," he stated bluntly, signaling a dramatic shift in American foreign policy. This wasn't subtle statecraft or quiet backroom negotiation. This was old-school imperialism dressed up in 21st-century language, as noted by the Council on Foreign Relations.
But here's what most people miss: the push for Venezuelan oil is just one piece of a much larger strategy. Trump's administration is simultaneously eyeing Greenland's rare earth minerals, threatening Mexico and Colombia, and openly discussing the need for American dominance across the Western Hemisphere. White House adviser Stephen Miller made it explicit: acquiring Greenland isn't just idle speculation—it's now formal US government policy, as reported by CNN.
This isn't new behavior. America has been doing this for over a century. What's new is the brazenness. Previous administrations cloaked resource grabs in humanitarian language or national security concerns. They operated through backchannels, proxy wars, and carefully constructed justifications. Trump's approach? Say what you mean. Want another country's resources? Take them. Want territory? Annex it.
The implications ripple far beyond oil prices and mineral markets. This represents a fundamental shift in how a superpower approaches smaller nations, a test of international law and sovereignty, and a signal that the rules-based global order might be breaking down. For climate advocates, energy strategists, and anyone concerned with global stability, understanding what's happening right now is critical.
This article breaks down the mechanics of modern energy imperialism, explains why resources like Venezuelan oil and Greenlandic minerals matter so much, traces the historical patterns that led us here, and explores what happens next—both for affected countries and for the global energy system.
TL; DR
- Venezuela's strategic value: Holds world's largest proven oil reserves (over 300 billion barrels), but produces only 1% of global crude due to decades of mismanagement, as highlighted by AS.
- The Greenland play: Contains rare earth elements critical for tech, defense, and renewable energy, making it a geopolitical flashpoint, according to Newsweek.
- Historical pattern: US imperialism has shaped Latin America for 150+ years through direct intervention, economic pressure, and military action.
- Modern mechanics: Energy imperialism now operates through sanctions, blockades, technical sabotage, and the threat of military intervention.
- Consequences: Rising global instability, climate complications, and a potential unraveling of international law and sovereign borders.
China currently controls 70% of the global rare earth refining capacity. Greenland's potential contribution could help diversify this capacity. Estimated data.
The Oil Prize: Why Venezuela Matters More Than Its Politics
Venezuela sits atop 303 billion barrels of proven crude oil reserves. To put that in perspective, that's roughly 17% of all oil proven to exist on the planet. Saudi Arabia, historically the world's energy kingpin, has about 268 billion barrels. The only difference: Saudi Arabia actually produces its oil. Venezuela's reserves are largely inaccessible, sitting in tar sands that require sophisticated extraction technology and enormous capital investment, as detailed by The New York Times.
For decades, this shouldn't have mattered much. Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1971 under the assumption that controlling their own resources would make them wealthy. Instead, mismanagement, corruption, and underfunding crippled the industry. By 2025, Venezuelan oil production has collapsed from historical peaks of 3.5 million barrels per day to barely 600,000 barrels daily. That's an 83% decline in production capacity, as reported by CNN.
Why does Trump care? Because fixing Venezuela's oil infrastructure would be wildly profitable, and because controlling that much energy gives you enormous geopolitical leverage. If American companies could rehabilitate Venezuelan production to just 2 million barrels per day—still far below historical levels—it would dramatically shift global oil markets. Prices would drop. American allies would gain leverage. Rivals like Russia and China would lose influence in the region, as noted by the International Energy Agency.
But there's a deeper strategic calculation here. Trump's administration believes in "energy dominance," a doctrine that positions energy as a primary tool of American power projection. The logic goes like this: if you control the world's energy supplies, you control global politics. OPEC couldn't organize without American permission. Europe couldn't refuse American demands. China couldn't compete.
Venezuela represents a shortcut to this fantasy. Why spend decades building domestic renewable energy infrastructure when you could just take control of the world's largest oil reserves and claim victory?
The problem: Venezuela has a government, a president in Nicolás Maduro, and millions of citizens. Technically speaking, you can't just waltz in and take the oil. This is where the legal and political gymnastics come in.
The Justification Machine: How Imperialism Gets Rebranded
The Trump administration has built an elaborate scaffolding of justifications for its Venezuela incursion. First came the drug trafficking charges against Nicolás Maduro. Legitimate concerns about corruption? Sure. But also a legal hook that allowed for military-style enforcement actions that would otherwise violate international law, as discussed in Politico.
Then came the human rights angle. Maduro's regime has absolutely committed documented human rights abuses. Political prisoners, forced disappearances, torture allegations—these aren't fabricated American propaganda, though American officials certainly amplify them. But here's the thing: many countries the US supports have equally terrible human rights records. The fact that human rights suddenly became the justification for Venezuela specifically suggests the real motivation lies elsewhere.
Next came the "restoration of democracy" framing. Never mind that Venezuelans have been protesting against Maduro for years—the Trump administration didn't wait for Venezuelan opposition movements to invite American military intervention. The intervention came first, the justifications followed.
This is the classic pattern of modern imperialism. You identify a genuine problem (corruption, human rights abuses, economic collapse), amplify it in your media, then use it as cover for doing what you wanted to do anyway. The genius of this approach is that the justifications aren't entirely false. Maduro's government really is corrupt. Venezuela really is collapsing. So when critics point out the obvious resource grab underneath, supporters can dismiss them as cynical.
Catherine Abreu, director of international climate politics, captured the dilemma perfectly: many Venezuelans absolutely want their government to change. They want economic stability and political freedom. But they also don't want that change imposed by foreign military force. The distinction matters because it's the difference between self-determination and colonialism.
China currently controls about 70% of global rare earth refining. If Greenland's resources are developed, it could help diversify and reduce China's monopoly. Estimated data.
Greenland: The Next Frontier of Resource Imperialism
If Venezuelan oil is the immediate prize, Greenland represents the longer-term strategic objective. This massive Arctic island, technically part of Denmark, contains something even more valuable than oil: rare earth elements.
Rare earth elements—17 metals including neodymium, dysprosium, and erbium—are essential for modern technology. Smartphones contain them. Electric vehicle motors rely on them. Military radar systems and defense technology depend on them. The global clean energy transition basically requires them. And right now, China controls about 70% of rare earth refining capacity worldwide, giving Beijing extraordinary leverage over tech development everywhere, as reported by CIRSD.
Greenland has significant deposits of rare earth elements, possibly among the largest untapped reserves on the planet. If you controlled Greenland, you could theoretically break China's monopoly on rare earth processing. You'd gain leverage over every tech company, every defense contractor, every nation trying to build an electric vehicle industry. That's not hyperbole—that's geopolitical dominance.
So Trump wants Greenland. He's talked about buying it. He's suggested it should be part of the United States. Stephen Miller told CNN that acquiring Greenland is now official US policy. The Danes are horrified. The Greenlanders are divided. Denmark's government has repeatedly said Greenland is not for sale at any price, as highlighted by The Guardian.
But Trump's administration is applying pressure. Economic pressure. Diplomatic pressure. The suggestion that if Greenland doesn't cooperate, there might be consequences.
This is where imperialism meets the 21st-century reality that you can't just invade developed nations anymore (or at least, you can't do it without facing serious international backlash). So instead, you negotiate. You make offers. You apply economic pressure. You hint at military capabilities. And eventually, if a country is small and isolated enough, sometimes they comply.
Greenland's situation is complicated because it's not fully independent. Denmark controls foreign policy. Greenland wants autonomy. So you have a weird three-way tension where Greenland might actually benefit from independence, but definitely doesn't want to become an American state to achieve it.
The Broader Threat: What Comes After Venezuela and Greenland
Here's where the Trump administration's "energy imperialism" doctrine becomes genuinely scary: it doesn't stop with Venezuela and Greenland.
Trump has explicitly warned Mexico and Colombia to watch out. Mexico sits directly on oil reserves and contains the infrastructure to move Central American minerals. Colombia has coal, oil, and strategic geographic location. Cuba still exists as a rhetorical punching bag for American politics. Panama controls the canal that moves global trade, as noted by Yahoo Finance.
All of these countries have something the US might want. All of them are geographically close. All of them are weaker militarily than the United States. The implicit message: the Trump administration views the Western Hemisphere as an American sphere of influence where the usual rules of international law and national sovereignty don't necessarily apply.
This represents an extraordinary departure from the post-World War II international order. After 1945, the world theorized that formal empires were finished. Sure, countries would compete for influence. Sure, superpowers would meddle in weaker nations' affairs. But the framework was supposed to be: respect borders, don't invade, use economic and diplomatic tools instead.
Trump's approach abandons this framework entirely. If you want something, you take it. Borders are negotiable. International law is a suggestion for countries too weak to ignore it. This is 19th-century imperialism with 21st-century military capability.
The question nobody's asking loudly enough: if the United States can seize Venezuela's oil and absorb Greenland, why can't China take Taiwan? Why can't Russia maintain claims on Ukrainian territory? Why can't India redraw its borders with Pakistan? Once you break the principle that borders are inviolable and nations are sovereign, you've opened a Pandora's box that benefits every large power at the expense of smaller ones.
Historical Context: America's Century-Long Pattern in Latin America
Here's the thing about calling this "energy imperialism": it's not really new. It's just a continuation of patterns that have shaped American-Latin American relations for over 150 years.
The history is brutal and well-documented. In 1898, the US seized Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines from Spain. In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt supported Panamanian independence from Colombia specifically because Colombia refused to let the US build a canal. Once Panama "became independent," the US immediately gained control of the canal and maintained quasi-colonial authority over the territory for nearly a century.
In 1913, the US military landed in Mexico to remove a government Washington didn't like. Throughout the 1920s and 1930s, American companies basically controlled Central America through banana companies and mineral extraction operations. In 1954, the CIA orchestrated a coup in Guatemala because the elected government tried to implement land reform that threatened American corporate interests. In 1973, the US supported a military coup in Chile that toppled the democratically elected Salvador Allende, replacing him with Augusto Pinochet's dictatorship, which then proceeded to massacre 3,000 people.
The pattern was consistent: identify a country with resources or a government unfriendly to American interests, find or create a pretext for intervention, remove the government, and install a regime favorable to American corporations and military strategy.
What changed over time was the mechanism. Direct military occupation became politically costly. The Vietnam War made Americans skeptical of foreign interventions. International law evolved. So the US adapted: instead of overthrowing governments directly, American administrations would impose sanctions, block international financing, support opposition movements, and orchestrate economic pressure until the target government either complied or collapsed.
Venezuela was basically the proving ground for this new imperialism. Starting in 2002, the US government has repeatedly intervened in Venezuelan politics, supporting coup attempts, freezing assets, imposing sanctions, and providing military and financial support to opposition movements. The sanctions regime became so comprehensive that Venezuela couldn't sell oil to most of the world, couldn't access international financial systems, and couldn't import basic medicines or food.
Were there legitimate reasons for concern? Yes—Maduro's government really is corrupt and authoritarian. But the consistency of American intervention suggests the motivation goes beyond concern for democracy or human rights, as discussed in The New York Times.
Venezuela holds the largest share of the world's proven oil reserves at over 300 billion barrels, surpassing other major oil-rich countries. Estimated data.
The Energy Transition Complication: Why Imperialism Matters for Climate
Here's where this gets complicated for anyone concerned about climate change: the Trump administration's energy imperialism directly undermines the global transition away from fossil fuels.
If you believe that climate change requires rapid electrification, renewable energy deployment, and a shift away from oil and coal, then the last thing you want is a powerful nation seizing control of oil reserves and pushing for increased extraction. That's the opposite direction of what physics and climate science demands.
But the Trump administration doesn't accept the premise that climate change requires urgent action. The administration includes oil executives, fossil fuel lobbyists, and climate skeptics. To this group, the idea that you could take over Venezuela's oil infrastructure and increase production is a feature, not a bug. It's profitable. It's strategically advantageous. The climate consequences are someone else's problem, as highlighted by The Atlantic.
For the rest of the world, though, this creates a genuine dilemma. Climate advocates want Venezuela to leave the oil in the ground. But Venezuelan citizens are suffering through economic collapse partly because they can't sell their oil. International development organizations want to help Venezuela's poor with resources. But how do you fund development without either selling oil (which requires infrastructure investment) or getting international aid (which now comes with strings attached by an American government trying to influence Venezuelan politics)?
Simultaneously, the global clean energy transition desperately needs rare earth elements. Greenland has them. If the Trump administration could actually take control of Greenland and accelerate rare earth extraction, that would theoretically help the clean energy transition. But it would also establish a precedent where powerful nations can seize territory and resources from smaller countries. That precedent applies to resource-rich developing nations that are trying to build their own energy infrastructure.
The climate movement is realizing it has a major problem: in trying to prevent climate catastrophe, you can't simply demand that poor countries leave their oil in the ground while also accepting that rich countries can seize their territory and resources. Those two things are connected. You can't build a just global energy transition on the foundation of continued imperialism.
Catherine Abreu from the International Climate Politics Hub put it this way: the climate movement is alarmed that the Maduro regime change is being justified partly in terms of expanding US oil and gas production. That's explicitly going in the wrong direction for climate goals.
How Modern Imperialism Actually Works: The Mechanics
Understanding how 21st-century imperialism operates requires understanding that it rarely looks like traditional military occupation anymore. Instead, it works through a combination of economic pressure, legal mechanisms, diplomatic threats, and the strategic use of media framing.
First comes the identification of a target. Usually, it's a country with resources (oil, minerals, strategic territory) and a government that won't cooperate voluntarily. Venezuela checks both boxes. Greenland has resources but is protected by Denmark.
Second comes the amplification of legitimate grievances. Every government is flawed. Every nation has corruption. The trick is to relentlessly highlight these flaws while ignoring similar problems in allied nations. Venezuelan corruption gets endless media coverage. Saudi Arabian corruption gets ignored. This creates a narrative where the target government is uniquely illegitimate.
Third comes the economic pressure. Sanctions are imposed, often on the justification of human rights concerns or drug trafficking (sometimes accurate, sometimes exaggerated). These sanctions are designed to make ordinary citizens suffer while specifically targeting government assets. The logic is that citizen suffering will create pressure on the government to either comply or collapse.
Fourth comes the military positioning. Aircraft carriers appear in nearby waters. Military exercises happen near borders. Troops are positioned in allied nations nearby. The message is implicit: compliance is negotiable, but defiance has military consequences.
Fifth comes the diplomatic offer. "We could remove sanctions. We could provide aid. We could invest in your economy. All you have to do is let our companies operate here." Sometimes this works. Sometimes countries are desperate enough that they accept.
Sixth, if resistance continues, comes the support for opposition movements. The CIA or State Department provides training, funding, and weapons to opposition groups. Coups are either orchestrated directly or supported logistically. If a coup succeeds, great—you have a new government. If it fails, you maintain the pretext that you're just supporting "democracy" against an oppressive regime.
Venezuela has experienced versions of all six steps over the past two decades. The difference with the Trump administration is that Trump isn't even pretending to follow the coded diplomatic language of previous administrations. He's just saying what he wants and moving toward it directly.
The Rare Earth Element Monopoly: Why Greenland Matters
Understanding why the Trump administration wants Greenland requires understanding the strange global market for rare earth elements.
Rare earth elements sound exotic, and they are—they're metals that occur in low concentrations in the earth's crust and require expensive processing to extract. But modern technology depends entirely on them. Permanent magnets used in electric motors contain neodymium and dysprosium. Smartphone screens use indium. Laser pointers use neodymium. Defense systems, wind turbines, MRI machines—all of these need rare earth elements.
Global demand is enormous and growing. If the clean energy transition proceeds as planned, demand for rare earth elements could triple by 2050. The problem: China controls the refining process. Even if mining happens elsewhere, China processes it into usable materials.
This creates a strategic vulnerability that keeps policy planners up at night. If China decides to cut off rare earth supplies to America or its allies, they could essentially cripple advanced manufacturing. No smartphones. No modern military systems. No renewable energy infrastructure. This isn't theoretical—China has threatened exactly this during trade disputes.
Greenland has extensive rare earth deposits. Some estimates suggest Greenland could meet global demand many times over if extraction scaled up. An independent or American-controlled Greenland could theoretically process rare earth elements at scale, breaking China's monopoly.
The problem is that Greenland is small (56,000 people), Arctic (extraction is technically challenging and environmentally risky), and currently part of Denmark. But those aren't obstacles that the Trump administration views as insurmountable. If the price is right—or if the pressure is sufficient—maybe Greenland's government would accept American integration or at least an American-controlled extraction operation.
Denmark's government has been absolutely clear: Greenland is not for sale. Period. But Trump's administration is applying pressure anyway, suggesting that the official position might change under sufficient economic coercion.
Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves globally but produces significantly less oil than Saudi Arabia due to infrastructure challenges.
The Role of Fossil Fuel Executives in Shaping Foreign Policy
One of the most striking aspects of the Trump administration's energy imperialism is how directly fossil fuel executives are shaping foreign policy.
Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy, is the CEO of Liberty Oilfield Services and a major advocate for expanded oil and gas production. The administration includes oil executives, fracking pioneers, and people who have spent careers profiting from fossil fuel extraction. These individuals are now designing American foreign policy in ways that obviously benefit their previous businesses and their former colleagues.
Wright explicitly stated that the federal government is in talks with American oil companies about Venezuelan oil production. That's not diplomacy. That's not strategic planning focused on American national security. That's corporate executives, now in government positions, using government power to arrange profitable deals for the oil industry.
This isn't subtle corruption or the revolving door between industry and government that's always existed. This is the direct translation of industry interests into foreign policy, conducted in the open, without pretense.
The implication is extraordinary: American foreign policy will be designed around maximizing oil and gas profits, not around American security interests, climate concerns, or the well-being of affected populations. If Venezuela's government becomes a problem for oil profits, it will be destabilized. If China's control of rare earths threatens oil company interests, American military might will be deployed. If Mexico's policies hurt American fossil fuel companies, Mexico will face consequences.
This is imperialism in its most straightforward form: using government power to expand corporate profit.
Why Small Nations Can't Resist: The Asymmetry of Power
One of the most disheartening aspects of energy imperialism is how thoroughly asymmetrical the power dynamics are.
Venezuela's military is not particularly strong. Its economy is in collapse. Its government faces internal opposition. Against the full weight of the American military, intelligence apparatus, economic system, and media infrastructure, Venezuela has almost no defensive capability. You can protest. You can appeal to international law. You can ask for support from other nations. But if the United States decides it wants your oil and is willing to use military force to get it, the theoretical options available to Venezuela are basically: fight a war you'll definitely lose, or negotiate the best terms you can.
Greenland is even more vulnerable because it's not an independent nation. It's under Danish protection, and Denmark, while not particularly militaristic, is allied with NATO, which is allied with the United States. So Greenland can't even appeal to Denmark's military protection because Denmark is fundamentally within the American alliance structure.
Small nations have international law, treaties, and appeals to bodies like the United Nations. But these are only effective if powerful nations respect them. If the United States decides that international law doesn't apply to its resource acquisition goals, what enforcement mechanism exists? Who will stop America?
Russia might object, but Russia has its own imperialism problems. China might object, but China also wants access to resources and has its own sphere of influence concerns. The European nations are either American allies or too small to challenge America alone. So the UN Security Council won't pass binding resolutions. No military alliance can successfully oppose American intervention in its own hemisphere.
This power asymmetry is the foundation of why imperialism remains so effective. It's not that the justifications are particularly convincing. It's that the target nations have no realistic way to defend themselves against a superpower that's decided it wants their resources.
The Global Order is Fracturing: What This Means for Everyone
The immediate victims of American energy imperialism are Venezuela, Greenland, and other resource-rich nations that lack the power to resist. But the global consequences extend far beyond these specific cases.
For 75 years, the world operated under an implicit agreement: borders are mostly permanent, sovereignty is mostly respected, and powerful nations shouldn't just take smaller nations' territory or resources because they want them. Was this system perfect? No. Powerful nations constantly violated these principles. But there was at least a pretense of respecting them, a framework that smaller nations could appeal to.
Trump's administration is breaking this framework openly. The message is: borders are negotiable if we want what's on the other side. International law is a suggestion. Sovereignty is conditional on military capability.
This has enormous implications. If America can take Greenland, why can't China take Taiwan? Why can't Russia maintain control over Ukrainian territory? Why can't India redraw borders with Pakistan? Why can't Brazil expand into the Amazon territories of neighboring countries? Once you accept the principle that territory is up for grabs, you've created a genuinely terrifying geopolitical situation.
Countries will start armoring themselves militarily, acquiring nuclear weapons, forming defensive alliances. The world becomes more militarized, more unstable, more hostile. Trade becomes harder because nobody trusts the rules. Smaller nations become increasingly desperate.
This could sound apocalyptic, but it's not speculative. This is literally what happened in the 1930s when powerful nations decided international law and borders were flexible. That decade led directly to World War II.
The Trump administration isn't planning for World War III. But the framework they're establishing makes that outcome more likely. If borders are negotiable and sovereignty is optional, then smaller nations have incentive to arm themselves for survival, and larger nations have incentive to move quickly before their rivals do.
China currently dominates the rare earth element processing market with an estimated 80% share. Greenland, if developed, could potentially capture a significant portion, reducing global dependency on China. (Estimated data)
Climate Consequences: Energy Imperialism Versus Energy Transition
The climate implications are particularly complex and troubling.
On one level, the Trump administration's push for increased Venezuelan oil production is straightforwardly terrible for climate goals. We need to reduce global fossil fuel consumption, not increase it. Seizing control of Venezuela's oil reserves and ramping up production moves in exactly the wrong direction.
But the second-order effects are worse. If the climate movement is perceived as supporting American imperialism—or at minimum, not opposing it loudly—then the movement loses moral legitimacy in the Global South. When climate advocates in rich countries tell poor countries to keep oil in the ground while rich countries are literally seizing their territory and resources, that message lands as "stay poor so we don't have to change."
Meanwhile, the rare earth element situation creates a different problem. The clean energy transition requires massive amounts of rare earth minerals. Greenland has them. But if America annexes Greenland to control rare earth production, that sets a precedent where powerful nations control strategic resources through territorial acquisition. That same precedent could apply to rare earth deposits in Africa, lithium in Latin America, and cobalt in Central Africa.
The result is that the energy transition becomes another form of imperialism. Poor nations that have rare earth elements, lithium, cobalt, and other minerals necessary for renewable energy become targets for resource extraction by powerful nations. The transition to clean energy happens, but it happens through renewed colonialism and military domination of the Global South.
For the climate movement, this creates a genuine ethical crisis. You can't simultaneously fight imperialism and demand an energy transition that seems to require it.
What Other Nations Are Doing: The Geopolitical Response
Countries around the world are watching what Trump does to Venezuela and considering the implications for themselves.
Mexico is deeply concerned. It has oil, it has geographic proximity to the United States, and it has internal political divisions that could be exploited. If Trump's administration is successful in Venezuela, why wouldn't they try the same playbook in Mexico?
Colombia is nervous. It has coal, oil, minerals, and sits at the gateway between North and South America. Trump has already threatened Colombia over migration policy. If those threats escalate to include resource demands, Colombia lacks the military capability to refuse.
Brazil is watching carefully. It's large enough that direct American military domination isn't realistic, but it has Amazon territories with valuable minerals and biodiversity. Climate advocates want the Amazon preserved. American corporations want resources extracted. If the precedent becomes "borders are negotiable," then Brazil's Amazon sovereignty becomes questionable.
African nations with rare earth elements or lithium deposits are worried that the same logic could apply to them. If Greenland can be absorbed to control rare earths, why not resource-rich African nations?
China and Russia are watching to understand how far America is willing to go. If the United States successfully takes Venezuela's oil and incorporates Greenland, both China and Russia will feel pressure to move aggressively to secure their own resource interests and sphere-of-influence countries before America does.
The result is that Trump's energy imperialism isn't just an American foreign policy problem. It's a destabilizing force that could trigger global realignment, military buildup, and resource wars.
The Role of Media Narratives: Shaping Consent for Imperialism
One of the most important but underappreciated aspects of modern imperialism is how media narratives shape public consent for resource seizures.
Venezuela gets relentless negative coverage. The government is corrupt. The economy is collapsing. People are starving. All of this is true. But the coverage consistently frames America's military intervention as a solution, not as imperialism. The narrative becomes: "Maduro is so bad that American military intervention is actually humanitarian."
By contrast, American media rarely covers the history of American interference in Venezuela. It rarely mentions that American sanctions have made the economic situation worse. It rarely notes that American policy objectives (securing oil, removing a government unfriendly to American interests) have nothing to do with humanitarian concern for Venezuelan citizens.
Similarly, Greenland coverage focuses on whether Greenland might actually benefit from being part of the United States (resources, development, security). The coverage rarely frames this as what it is: a powerful nation trying to coerce or absorb a smaller nation's territory.
This media framing is essential to imperialism's success. If the American public understood what was happening (a superpower seizing control of smaller nations' resources and territory), there would be significant domestic opposition. So the narrative gets reframed. It becomes: "Stabilizing a failed state." It becomes: "Pursuing legitimate security interests." It becomes: "Expanding democracy."
The genius of this approach is that the justifications contain kernels of truth. Venezuela's government really is failing. The security interests in rare earth elements really do matter for national defense. But those truths obscure the larger reality: the United States is using military power and economic coercion to take things that don't belong to it.
The chart illustrates key US interventions in Latin America, highlighting a consistent pattern of intervention over decades. Estimated data based on historical events.
International Law: A Framework Breaking Under Pressure
The United Nations Charter, adopted in 1945 and endorsed by nearly every nation on earth, contains one clear principle: the territorial integrity and political independence of all nations shall be respected. Military force shall not be used except in self-defense or when authorized by the UN Security Council.
America's energy imperialism violates this principle. Seizing Venezuela's oil or absorbing Greenland would violate international law. But what enforcement mechanism exists? The UN Security Council won't sanction America because America is a permanent member with veto power.
This reveals something fundamental about international law: it only works when powerful nations respect it. When they don't, there's nothing stopping them.
Historically, this has happened before. The UN framework was designed after World War II specifically to prevent powerful nations from aggressive resource seizures. But the system has never actually successfully constrained a superpower. America's intervention in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan all violated international law in various ways, and nothing happened because no mechanism can punish America without America's consent.
Russia's takeover of Crimea violated international law, and Russia faced sanctions, but those sanctions were applied by America and its allies, not by an impartial international body. If Russia had been an American ally, the invasion would have probably been tolerated.
The problem is that international law is built on a fiction: that all nations are equal and equally subject to law. In reality, only weak nations are subject to international law. Powerful nations follow it when convenient and ignore it when they don't want to.
Trump's energy imperialism simply makes this reality explicit. International law is whatever powerful nations say it is. Borders are negotiable if we want them to be. Sovereignty is conditional on military capability.
Alternative Scenarios: What Could Happen Next
Venezuela's situation could play out in several ways.
Scenario 1: Military Intervention and Regime Change. The Trump administration orchestrates or supports a coup that removes Maduro, installs a government friendly to American oil companies, and American firms immediately begin oil infrastructure rehabilitation. Within two years, Venezuelan production increases dramatically. American oil companies make enormous profits. The international community protests but does nothing. This is the "straightforward imperialism" scenario.
Scenario 2: Negotiated Capitulation. Venezuela, facing overwhelming pressure (sanctions, military threats, internal opposition), negotiates with the Trump administration. In exchange for sanctions relief and American investment, Venezuela grants American companies operational control of oil production. The Maduro government technically remains in power but functionally serves American interests. This is the "imperialism with local puppet" scenario.
Scenario 3: Resistance and Stalemate. Venezuela's government resists, China and Russia provide military and financial support, America can't intervene militarily without catastrophic international consequences, the situation becomes a frozen conflict with Venezuela under sanctions but maintaining sovereignty. This is the "Cold War-style confrontation" scenario.
Scenario 4: Collapse and Humanitarian Catastrophe. Continued sanctions and economic pressure cause Venezuela's government to collapse from internal pressure, leading to state failure, regional instability, and a humanitarian crisis that destabilizes neighboring countries. America could then intervene under humanitarian justification. This is the "engineered collapse" scenario.
Greenland could follow similar patterns, though the Denmark complication makes direct military intervention more unlikely.
The most probable scenario probably combines elements of multiple outcomes: some military positioning and threat, some direct negotiations, some support for opposition movements, and ultimately either partial American control of oil operations or a freeze that lasts years or decades.
What Could Limit American Imperialism: Practical Constraints
Despite the overwhelming power advantages, there are actually some constraints on how far the Trump administration can push energy imperialism.
Domestic opposition: Many Americans oppose military interventions and resource grabs. Congress would need to approve direct military action. Public opinion matters even in authoritarian-leaning administrations. This limits options.
Military capability constraints: The American military is enormous, but it's also spread thin globally. A major intervention in Venezuela would require significant resources and would reduce American capability elsewhere. China or Russia could take opportunities in other regions while America is focused on Venezuela.
International response: If America is too aggressive, it could face coordinated international opposition. NATO allies might refuse to support interventions they view as unjust. Trade partners might impose countervailing measures. The legitimacy costs could exceed the strategic gains.
Economic complexity: Even if America takes control of Venezuela's oil infrastructure, rehabilitating it requires enormous investment, technical expertise, and time. Oil can't be stolen the way a small nation's minerals might be. It has to be extracted, refined, transported, and sold. That requires infrastructure, relationships, and investment capital.
Precedent concerns: Once America openly seizes territory or resources from another nation, other powers feel pressure to do the same. This could trigger global conflict. American strategists recognize that a world of collapsing borders is dangerous even for the superpower.
These aren't sufficient to stop energy imperialism entirely, but they're real constraints that shape what's actually possible.
The Moral Dimension: Why This Matters Beyond Strategy
There's a moral dimension to imperialism that's worth explicitly addressing.
When the Trump administration threatens Venezuela, it's not theoretically threatening an abstract nation-state. It's threatening millions of ordinary people. Venezuelans who didn't choose their government. Venezuelans who are already suffering. Venezuelans who want freedom, stability, and opportunity.
Similarly, when the administration moves toward Greenland, it's not pursuing some abstract strategic goal. It's attempting to override the preferences of 56,000 people and the government that represents them.
Energy imperialism, dressed in any language, is fundamentally a claim that powerful nations' interests in resources and control override weaker nations' right to self-determination. It's a statement that some people's lives and futures matter less than other people's profit and power.
Throughout history, imperialism was justified with similar frameworks. Colonial powers claimed they were bringing civilization, modernization, and Christianity. American administrations claimed they were spreading democracy. But the underlying reality was always the same: powerful people taking things that didn't belong to them, justifying it with various language, and leaving enormous suffering in their wake.
The moral case against energy imperialism is straightforward: nations have a right to self-determination. People have a right to choose their own governments and determine their own futures. Powerful nations don't have a moral right to seize smaller nations' territory or resources, no matter how much they want them or how much profit they could make.
Whether that moral case will matter in geopolitical outcomes is uncertain. Morality rarely stops powerful actors from pursuing their interests. But it's important to state clearly what's actually happening here: not strategy or pragmatism or national security. Imperialism. The same thing that shaped the world for 500 years and caused incalculable suffering.
Looking Forward: Building a Different Future
If energy imperialism is the Trump administration's path forward, what could an alternative look like?
First, genuine respect for national sovereignty. This means: if Venezuela wants its oil to stay in the ground as part of climate strategy, that's Venezuela's decision. If Greenland wants to remain independent, that's acceptable even if it slows rare earth element extraction. Small nations get to determine their own futures, period.
Second, investment in alternative sources rather than seizure. If rare earth elements are strategically important, then wealthy nations should invest in mining them in their own territories, developing substitutes, or improving recycling technology. This is expensive and slower than seizing Greenland, but it doesn't require imperialism.
Third, genuine development assistance. Instead of using sanctions and military threats, rich nations could actually invest in developing poor nations' economies, education systems, and infrastructure. This would reduce global inequality, improve stability, and create better conditions for democracy.
Fourth, respecting climate goals. If we're serious about climate change, then we need an energy transition that includes both rapid deployment of renewables and actually leaving fossil fuels in the ground. That means Venezuelan oil stays underground. It means investing in clean energy in poorer nations instead of extracting resources.
Fifth, building institutions that actually work. The UN could be reformed to give smaller nations real protection. International law could be strengthened. Trade systems could be restructured to actually benefit developing nations instead of extracting wealth.
None of this will happen if the Trump administration controls American foreign policy. But it's worth articulating what an alternative would look like. It's worth remembering that imperialism isn't inevitable. It's a choice that powerful nations make, and different choices are possible.
FAQ
What is energy imperialism?
Energy imperialism is the use of military, economic, and diplomatic power by wealthy nations to seize control of energy and natural resources in poorer, weaker nations. It combines military coercion, economic sanctions, political interference, and strategic threats to gain control over resources like oil and minerals.
Why does the Trump administration want Venezuelan oil if America has domestic oil production?
Venezuela holds the world's largest proven oil reserves, giving any nation that controls it enormous geopolitical leverage. If American companies could rehabilitate Venezuelan production, they could profit enormously and gain leverage over global oil markets. Additionally, controlling Venezuelan oil reduces the power of rival nations and serves fossil fuel industry interests that are directly represented in the Trump administration.
What makes Greenland strategically valuable?
Greenland contains significant deposits of rare earth elements, which are essential for modern technology including smartphones, electric vehicles, military systems, and renewable energy infrastructure. China currently controls about 70% of global rare earth refining, giving China extraordinary leverage. Controlling Greenland would theoretically allow America to break China's monopoly on rare earth processing.
How is this different from historical American imperialism?
Modern imperialism is similar to historical imperialism in objectives and power dynamics, but different in mechanisms. Instead of direct military occupation, contemporary imperialism uses sanctions, economic pressure, political interference, support for coup attempts, and threats of military intervention. The Trump administration is unusual in openly stating its intentions rather than hiding them behind diplomatic language.
What happens if America successfully seizes Venezuelan oil?
Oil production could theoretically increase, generating enormous profits for American oil companies and reducing global oil prices. This would strengthen American geopolitical influence but would move directly against climate goals by increasing fossil fuel extraction. It would also establish a precedent that powerful nations can seize territory and resources from smaller nations, potentially triggering global instability as other powers pursue similar strategies.
Why can't Venezuela or Greenland simply refuse?
Venezuela and Greenland lack military capability to resist American power. International law protects their sovereignty in theory, but enforcement mechanisms don't exist when the violating party is a superpower. Economic leverage, military positioning, and support for internal opposition movements create pressure that smaller nations can rarely successfully resist. Their realistic options are negotiating better terms or experiencing sanctions and instability.
How does energy imperialism relate to climate change?
Energy imperialism and climate goals directly conflict. Climate change requires leaving fossil fuels in the ground, but energy imperialism aims to increase fossil fuel extraction in resource-rich nations. Additionally, seizing territory to control rare earth elements for renewable energy perpetuates colonial patterns, threatening the legitimacy of climate action among nations in the Global South.
What happens to international law if America successfully takes Venezuelan resources or Greenland?
Successful resource seizures would demonstrate that international law only constrains weak nations and that powerful nations can operate beyond legal frameworks when they choose to. This would encourage other major powers (China, Russia) to pursue similar territorial and resource grabs, potentially triggering global conflict and instability.
Why haven't other nations stopped American imperialism before?
No nation or alliance has sufficient military power to constrain American actions in America's own hemisphere. International bodies like the UN cannot enforce rulings against permanent Security Council members with veto power. Economic sanctions against America would damage the nations imposing them more than America itself. Small nations' only realistic option is negotiating and trying to minimize damage.
What would an alternative to energy imperialism look like?
Alternatives include: genuine respect for national sovereignty, investment in domestic resource extraction and alternatives rather than seizing resources, actual development assistance to poor nations, respecting climate goals by leaving fossil fuels in the ground, and reforming international institutions to actually protect smaller nations' rights. These approaches would be more expensive and slower than imperialism but wouldn't require violating international law or sovereignty.
Conclusion: The Stakes of Energy Imperialism
The Trump administration's push for energy imperialism represents a genuine turning point in how superpowers treat smaller nations. For 75 years, the world operated under a framework where borders were mostly inviolable and nations had a basic right to sovereignty. That framework is breaking down.
What's happening with Venezuela and the threats toward Greenland aren't aberrations or diplomatic escalations. They're signals about how the Trump administration intends to conduct foreign policy: take what you want, justify it with whatever language works, and don't worry about international law because no mechanism can stop you.
The immediate victims are Venezuelan citizens and Greenlanders, along with any other nations with resources America might covet. But the global consequences extend far beyond these specific cases. Once the principle that borders are negotiable enters international relations, smaller nations have incentive to arm themselves militarily. Larger nations have incentive to move aggressively before rivals do. The world becomes fundamentally more dangerous, less stable, and more militarized.
For climate advocates, this creates a genuine crisis. The energy transition requires respecting sovereignty, building institutions that actually work, and creating global cooperation. Energy imperialism destroys all three. You can't simultaneously pursue climate goals and permit powerful nations to seize resource-rich countries' territory.
What's at stake isn't just Venezuelan oil or Greenlandic minerals. What's at stake is whether the international system continues to function at all, whether smaller nations retain any meaningful protection, and whether the world can cooperate on challenges like climate change or whether it fragments into competing spheres of influence, military alliances, and resource wars.
The Trump administration is betting that American military power is sufficient to simply take what it wants. It might be right. But history suggests that empires that rely on force alone eventually collapse when their military advantages erode or they overextend themselves militarily. The Roman Empire, the British Empire, the Soviet Union—all thought their power was permanent until it wasn't.
For now, though, the question isn't historical inevitability. It's immediate: what happens to Venezuela in 2025? What happens to Greenland? And what precedent do their fates set for every other resource-rich, militarily weak nation watching to see whether international law still protects them?
The answers to those questions will shape global politics for decades.
Key Takeaways
- Trump administration openly pursuing 'energy dominance' doctrine by attempting to seize Venezuela's 300+ billion barrel oil reserves and Greenland's rare earth mineral deposits
- Modern imperialism operates through sanctions, military positioning, political interference, and media framing rather than direct occupation—making it harder to identify but equally coercive
- Venezuela's paradox: holds world's largest oil reserves but produces only 1% of global crude due to decades of infrastructure collapse and mismanagement
- China's 70% monopoly on rare earth refining makes Greenland's deposits strategically critical for US tech, defense, and clean energy industries
- Breaking the international law framework that protects smaller nations' sovereignty could trigger global instability as other superpowers pursue similar territorial and resource grabs
- Energy imperialism directly conflicts with climate goals by prioritizing fossil fuel extraction in resource-rich nations over leaving oil in the ground
