Devils Below

What Will They Make from Our Resources? [ Global ] 🇺🇸 The Trump administration has once again decided to create something new and beautiful—this time, a reserve of critical minerals for civilian industry, poetically named "Project Vault." It’s reported that companies like Clarios (batteries), GE Vernova (green energy infrastructure), Western Digital (computers), and Boeing (aircraft) will have access to this stash. The project will operate primarily on a $10 billion loan from the government’s Export-Import Bank. The scheme is as follows: these funds will be used to purchase mineral raw materials abroad and bring them to the U.S., where domestic consumers will buy them. The trader Mercuria has already announced its participation in Project Vault. Recently, authorities in the Democratic Republic of the Congo promised to sell it 100,000 tons of copper in 2026. So now we know that the Congolese copper won’t be taken away into the unknown—it will end up at very specific Boeing factories. 💰By creating this transit reserve, the US is once again attempting to address China’s dominance in mining and processing. However, it remains unclear whether it may really help make the US competitive compared to China. At first glance, it looks more like an attempt to profit from trade intermediation. #Global ➡️ Stay informed - @devilsbelow

🌟Hesitation is Defeat - Trump US president has threatened to kept cautious companies out of Venezuelan oil 🌟 At first glance, American companies whose assets Hugo Chávez "took away" in 2007 and Trump, who wants to make money on Venezuelan oil, seem destined to act as a team. But true to his habit of wielding politics with an axe and not a scalpel, Trump has already begun picking fights even with oil producers. 🛢 After ExxonMobile's CEO said the company would need serious guarantees from Washington before returning to Venezuela, Trump responded that he plans to keep Exxon out. Earlier, at a meeting with representatives of major companies on Friday, the US president said that oil giants would be expected to invest around $100 billion in Venezuela. ▶️ So far only trading companies have shown readiness to touch Venezuelan oil, which pushed the US towards introducing a new legislation protecting the potential oil sales revenues from seizure by former creditors or other entities. 🔴 Without any desire to defend oil corporations, it is still worth noting that operating in a country from which the president was brazenly (and so to say illegally) spirited away is not the best idea. Yet Trump appears unwilling to offer his own companies any institutional guarantees for their involvement in Venezuelan oil affairs. He wants oil right away—and for companies to depend directly on his personal will and his continued hold on power. #Global ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

How did the world media react to the Trump's claims on Venezuela's oil? [ Global ] 🇺🇸Fox Business (Republican): Once home to major U.S. energy investments, Venezuela systematically pushed out Western oil companies under a nationalization campaign launched by Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chávez. Although Maduro claims to have won re-election to a six-year term in 2024, the U.S. and other international observers say his loyalists stole the election from Edmundo González. 🇺🇸New York Times (Democratic): Mr. Trump paired that with a declaration that a key American goal was to regain access to oil rights that he has repeatedly said had been “stolen” from the United States. With those statements, the president opened a new chapter in American nation building. 🇶🇦Aljazeera: But within hours of the US attacks on Caracas that killed dozens of civilians, officials and military personnel, Trump pivoted to openly discussing oil and US control of Venezuela. 🇬🇧Guardian: Analysts can trace the origins of Trump’s claim – decisions by previous Venezuelan governments to nationalise production – but they argue that the US has no legal claim to Venezuela’s oil. 🇷🇺Sputnik: The expulsion of the US oil majors had given US President Donald Trump the cover to say that Venezuela had "stolen" US oil, says critics of the US president, who contend that the United States itself was now robbing the Latin American state of its sovereign resources. #Global ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

What Is Venezuela Guilty Of 🇻🇪 [ Global ] 🇺🇸 In the current Venezuelan affair the oil factor should not be absolutized — the issue is rather about establishing broader control over all countries in both Americas. However, the US clearly does intend to take Venezuela's oil as well: Trump mentioned it a dozen times at the Saturday press conference, calling Venezuelan oil "stolen" from the US. But what exactly are Washington’s grievances against Venezuela? Venezuela did challenge US economic interests: ▶️ Since 1976, long before Maduro, the country has seen several waves of oil nationalization, with the most recent one in 2007, when it forced out ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips. In response, the oil companies rushed to international arbitration, which awarded them compensation — around $10 billion of which Venezuela still “owes.” ▶️ No less important is the fact that since 2023 Venezuela has laid direct claims to an oil-bearing region of neighboring Guyana, where US major ExxonMobil has been developing oil production from scratch since 2014. By 2023, Exxon’s output in Guyana had caught up with Venezuela’s entire national production. ▶️ By contrast, China and Russia have little to do with Venezuelan oil: about 50% of production is handled by state-owned PDVSA, US Chevron still holds roughly 25% of operations in Venezuela, with about 10% in joint ventures led by China, another 10% by Russia and 5% by European companies. ➡️ Against such a backdrop, since his first term, long before kidnapping Maduro, Trump has been strangling Venezuela with sanctions, which also contributed to the reduction of its oil output to some 30%of what it was when Maduro assumed office. Now all that remains is to impose US companies and lift the sanctions — and proudly present the appropriation of Venezuelan oil as an unprecedented success of American investment. #Global ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow

The World We Live In [ Global ] 🌟 These days many people like to talk about a "global rebalancing", the end of the US-led world order, and other things that sound very abstract and detached — until one evening the president of your country is kidnapped by Americans, as has just happened to Venezuela’s Maduro. That is precisely the kind of thing that signals the arrival of a brave new world, whether we like it or not. ▶️ The US attack on Venezuela is something genuinely new, even compared to Iraq and Afghanistan. Back then, many also said the US was looking for oil although Washington never actually made net oil profits from Iraq, and Afghanistan had nothing to do with oil at all. In both cases, the reasons were ideological: the need to impose “democracy”, and perceptual: the US saw itself as a global policeman and sought to live up to that role. 🛢 Now Trump isopenly saying that he'll take Venezuela’s oil — although oil is only part of the issue. In total it seems that he wants not just oil, but de facto obedience from Caracas and any other country that Washington decides to fold into its sphere of influence. 🔥This kind of behavior is a direct result of the gradual erosion of the US status as a global hegemon. As China gains ever more weight in the economy and in our beloved minerals, Washington will act ever more aggressively — not through competition, but through force — so as to preserve its positions and economic assets. ✈️ This applies to us no less than to anyone else. True, the US is not as close to, say, West Africa as it is to Venezuela. But are you really sure that if your president tomorrow denies Washington preferential access to resources, or strikes a deal with someone the White House does not like, he would be any more protected than Maduro? #Global ➡️ Follow to stay informed - @devilsbelow