Trump’s Billionaires and His New ‘Oil-for-Blood’ Doctrine

‘Liberation’ is now merely a euphemism for the acquisition of oil reserves by presidential donors.

By Jeff Nesbit

President Donald Trump’s decision to deploy the U.S. military to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro marks a chilling escalation in the “America First” agenda. The move has split his MAGA base. It also, it appears, directly benefits some of his wealthiest donors.

Though Trump and senior White House officials have framed the operation as a restoration of regional stability, the reality is far more transactional.

(Tomas Ragina/iStock)

What we’re witnessing is the birth of a new doctrine in which the U.S. military functions as the private security arm of the fossil fuel industry, and in which “liberation” is merely a euphemism for the acquisition of oil reserves by presidential donors.

The timeline of this operation reveals a disturbing subversion of democratic norms. While the 1973 War Powers Resolution exists to ensure that the people’s representatives in Congress have oversight over military hostilities, the Trump administration chose to bypass the Capitol.

Instead, Trump admitted to briefing major U.S. oil companies on the operation before it even began. In this administration, the “need to know” list prioritizes C-suite executives over the chairs of congressional intelligence committees.

And the dots between campaign contributions and foreign policy aren’t just connected; they’re drawn in bold, permanent ink.

Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth, recently noted in a LinkedIn post that “the billionaires are circling around Trump’s interventions in Latin and South America.”

Take, for instance, Harold Hamm, the fracking tycoon and founder of Continental Resources. A prolific donor to President Trump, Hamm is accelerating an expansion into Argentina’s Vaca Muerta formation, one of the largest shale plays in the world.

Hamm’s move comes on the heels of the Trump administration pouring over $20 billion into the Argentine economy to support the deregulation agenda of President Javier Milei. As Hamm told the Financial Times, “We like the rock there.” It seems the “rock” is much easier to like when American taxpayers are subsidizing the political landscape that allows for its exploitation.

Then there’s Paul Singer, the billionaire head of Elliott Management Co. and another prominent Trump donor.

In late November—just weeks before the military move against Maduro—Singer’s affiliate, Amber Energy, won a court-mandated auction for Citgo Petroleum Corp. Citgo is the crown jewel of Venezuela’s foreign assets, and its refineries in the Gulf of Mexico were specifically engineered to process the “heavy-sour” crude that sits beneath Venezuelan soil.

Singer secured Citgo for a steep discount of $5.89 billion, outbidding rivals with a plan that a Delaware judge deemed “most likely to close.”

With Maduro now in U.S. custody and the military securing Venezuela’s oil fields, Singer’s “shrewd” bet looks less like market intuition. As Pica observed, the refineries are ready, the billionaire owners are in place, and the military has just cleared the path.

The Trump administration’s defense, articulated by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is that the operation was “trigger-based“ and required “absolute secrecy” to protect troops.

But this argument collapses under the weight of Trump’s own admissions. If the mission was too sensitive for a secure briefing with the Gang of Eight in Congress, how was it safe enough to discuss with oil executives?

The implication is clear: The administration trusts the discretion of oil magnates more than the integrity of elected lawmakers. This represents a dramatic escalation of presidential authority, as analysts have noted, moving the United States toward a model of governance in which energy access justifies the unilateral overthrow of foreign heads of state.

Trump’s rhetoric confirms this mercenary intent. He spoke openly of sending “very large United States oil companies” into Venezuela to “start making money for the country” (and, by extension, themselves). He isn’t promising a return to Venezuelan self-determination; he’s promising a leveraged buyout enforced by the 82nd Airborne.

While the administration promises that this will drive the U.S. economy forward, the math tells a different story. American taxpayers already provide more than $30 billion in annual federal subsidies to the oil and gas industry. We’re now adding the astronomical cost of a military invasion and occupation to that bill.

The “America First” policy was sold as a way to avoid “forever wars” and unnecessary foreign entanglements. It’s what the MAGA base thought it was supporting. Yet, here we are, entering a new conflict in the Western Hemisphere, not to defend against an imminent threat, but to “fix the badly broken infrastructure“ for private corporations.

The seizure of Venezuela looks less like a strategic necessity and more like a massive repayment of the millions of dollars the oil industry contributed to Trump’s campaign. The American people are being asked to provide the bodies and the tax dollars while billionaire donors reap the dividends of oil crude.

The capture of Maduro should not be viewed only through the lens of human rights or democratic promotion. It is more properly viewed through the lens of the “Vaca Muerta” fields, the Citgo refineries, and huge campaign contributions.

When a president tips off oil executives about a military invasion before informing the people’s representatives, the transition from republic to corporatocracy is complete.

We’ve moved beyond the era of “Blood for Oil” and into an era in which the military is simply another line item in a billionaire’s portfolio.

If the goal of foreign policy is merely to enrich the donors who funded the campaign, then the “America” being put “first” is an extraordinarily small, wealthy, self-dealing group of people.

Jeff Nesbit was the public affairs chief for five Cabinet secretaries or agencies under four presidents.

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