Venezuela has the largest oil reserves in the world. Neighboring Guyana recently found a massive oil field off its Atlantic coast. Why aren’t we talking about oil as a main reason for Donald Trump’s push (along with Marco Rubio’s and Pete Hegseth) for military confrontation with Venezuela?

The United States has a long and well-documented history of interference in Central and South America, though one episode gets little attention. In 1963, President John F. Kennedy ordered the CIA to help rig elections in British Guyana, a British colony that was about to gain independence. Cheddi Jagan, feared to be another Castro, was defeated in the 1964 election, and the United States has been involved in Guyana ever since.

Next door, the United States has been interfering with Venezuela from the first days of Venezuela’s independence through today’s escalating violence. A 1961 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) by the CIA said bluntly, “Venezuela has a record of close ties to the U.S., based in large part on the mutual interest of the two countries in the development of Venezuela’s oil industry.” The CIA supported the overthrow of Venezuela’s elected government in 1948, siding with dictator Pérez Jiménez. Jimenez was replaced in 1958 by the somewhat democratically elected Romulo Bettencourt, whose reign included use of U.S.-trained and funded special forces to quell opposition. Per a 1964 NIE, the U.S. had the third-greatest level of foreign capital investment in Venezuela, only behind Canada and the United Kingdom.

Venezuela nationalized its oil resources in 1976, gaining control of oil fields formerly run by Exxon, Conoco Phillips, and Chevron and funding massive social welfare spending. The share of oil revenue that went to the government of Venezuela and its people reached 79%, with only 21% going to the state oil company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A. — though that has declined sharply over the years through mismanagement and corruption.

After the election of Hugo Chavez in 1999, Venezuela built its relationship with China and now exports a majority of its oil to China’s fast-growing economy. After the Trump administration ended Chevron’s license to operate in Venezuela on May 27, the percentage of Venezuela’s oil exports that went to China reached 90%. Three months later the Trump administration reinstated Chevron’s license, despite an official embargo on importing Venezuelan oil and a 25% tariff on nations that buy oil from Venezuela.

In 1999, ExxonMobil found evidence of deep-sea oil reserves off the coast of Essequibo, a disputed area that comprises most of western Guyana. Essequibo has been disputed since before the independence of Guyana; England, Spain, and the Netherlands all claimed the rural, resource-rich land. Venezuelan governments have long asserted that the area is rightfully a part of their sovereign territory, while Guyana relies for its claim on an 1898 treaty between the United States (somehow representing Venezuela) and the United Kingdom. In 2015, ExxonMobil drilled its first well and struck black gold off the shores of Essequibo in the Stabroek fields. In 2016, Trump announced his choice of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as his first secretary of state.

In 2016, the Guyanese government, then led by David Granger, signed a deeply inequitable agreement with a consortium of oil companies, led by ExxonMobil. Under this deal, the first 75% of revenue from Guyanese oil goes to ExxonMobil and Chevron, purportedly to cover the costs of finding and developing the wells, while the remaining 25% would be split among a consortium of oil companies (ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Hess) and the government of Guyana — resulting in Guyana receiving only about 14.5% of the revenue, according to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. Compare this to the initial 79% of revenue for their oil resources going to the Venezuelan government after nationalization.

This contract also grants major tax breaks in Guyana to the oil companies and imposes weak environmental standards. According to a Reuters report, Guyanese oil production surpassed 600,000 barrels per day in 2024.

The United States has often cloaked its military actions in the clothing of moral aims while largely fighting for economic reasons. Even the U.S entry into World War II was precipitated by a struggle over oil and rubber resources in European colonies in Southeast Asia, especially Dutch-controlled Indonesia. Japan’s expansionist empire was threatening Indonesia, a major source of oil and rubber for the United States, so the U.S. built up its presence in the South Pacific. Amid these escalating tensions, Japan attacked U.S. forces at Pearl Harbor and in the U.S.-controlled Philippines on Dec. 7, 1941. The United States then joined the war against fascist Germany and Japan, two years after Germany invaded Poland and then France.

In recent years, the U.S. military has increased its operations in Guyana. While no troops are stationed in the country, the U.S. Southern Command has increased joint training sessions with the Guyanese Defense Force, financed and built new GDF facilities, and flown sorties of F/A-18F Super Hornet fighter jets in a demonstration of military commitment and as a warning to Venezuela.

More recently, the Trump administration, relying on a specious declaration that drug cartels are terrorist organizations and so legitimate targets of U.S. military action, has conducted a campaign of criminal, extrajudicial murder of people on boats they claim are running drugs. Alongside this, the Trump administration has been committed to a massive military buildup. This escalation, meant to intimidate Venezuelan President Nicols Maduro and embolden Venezuelan opposition politicians, includes moving the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford and its fleet to the Caribbean, stationing F-35 fighter jets in Puerto Rico, publicly authorizing CIA covert actions in Venezuela, and docking U.S. naval assets in Trinidad.

Nothing is simple, and Trump’s buildup of military resources aimed at Venezuela isn’t just about oil. It is in part about U.S. hegemony in the Western Hemisphere and removing an antagonistic leader, Nicolas Maduro, who has been a target of Trump going back to his first administration. It is about countering the growth of China as a superpower. And perhaps, it is even a little bit about the illegal drug trade. Maybe it is about Trump’s war on renewable energy. The most jaded voices might even say it is about using up some of the U.S. military’s massive supply of armaments to ensure the need for new orders from Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Grumman, and General Dynamics.

But mostly, it’s about oil. It’s about creating the conditions to overthrow Maduro and denationalize the Venezuelan oil industry. And about protecting the Guyana oil fields from Venezuela. And about preventing Guyanese nationalization of its resources. And about blocking oil exports to China. And it’s about protecting the billions of dollars flowing to ExxonMobil, to major ExxonMobil investors like Vanguard and Black Rock Capital, and to the donors of both the Republican and Democratic parties.

On Oct. 31, ExxonMobil announced a third-quarter profit of $8.1 billion, beating Wall Street analysts’ expectations. You can be sure Fox News and the New York Times reported about that.

Craig O’Connor is a resident of Scituate, R.I.