Escalation in Venezuela, China fear root cause.

 CONTAINING CHINA IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE

RETALIATION INCOMING

The embargo of Venezuelan oil is now a reality, with the U.S. seizure of an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan oil in the Caribbean. It is now becoming more clear that the Venezuelan crisis is more about Chinese investments in the Caribbean than drugs or other supposed issues. 

Venezuelan oil requires special refineries and the only refinery that handled that oil is in Houston, Texas. That is why after the sanctions levied against Venezuela their oil output dropped dramatically, that was until China and India began buying Venezuelan oil and refining it in their refineries. Then China eventually invested in a cooperative agreement with Venezuela and built a refinery in Venezuela, a cooperative effort that benefited China and Venezuela. That, coupled with Chinese investments in Bahamian ports and other port facilities in the Caribbean has raised red flags in Washington, especially with the Monroe 2 doctrine attempting to limit others investing in the Western Hemisphere.

It could be pointed out that the U.S., rather than tilting a windmills around the world, could have been investing in cooperative agreement in the Caribbean for decades, but chose to engage in intimidation and sanctions rather than cooperative agreements.  Obviously there is need and a void of investment that is now being filled by those who have the investment capital. I suspect that much of the investment capital in the U.S. is tied up servicing its massive and increasing debt.

This seizure is going to have repercussions around the world, much like the seizure of Russian assets in 2022. We can now expect others, not only in South America, to increase their liquidation of U.S. debt and flee to alliances with those we hope to contain. We can expect that the repercussions may grow into a very costly and dangerous result.