Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the Donroe Doctrine.
Under the cover of night, US Delta Force entered Venezuela, raided President Nicolas Maduro’s safehouse, and extracted both the leader and his wife.
They are already in US custody, have landed in New York, and are preparing to face trial.
We’re talking about a flawless execution; the CIA had an inside man and Maduro’s movements down to a tee.
Delta Force had even been training on an exact replica of that safehouse for weeks to ensure the operation was perfect.
The Message
The US has officially signaled that it views the entirety of the Americas as its own, and it is willing to strike unilaterally to maintain that dominance.
The United States doesn’t need a declaration of war or multinational authorization when it comes to Latin America.
This is the backyard, and the rules are whatever Washington says they are.
Central and South America had already been undergoing a sharp rightward shift and realignment toward the United States over the past few years.
Now, countries like Brazil, Cuba, and Colombia are being forced to reprice political and security risk overnight.
The "Why"
Look at the timing.
Just hours before his capture, Maduro was photographed meeting with high-ranking Chinese diplomats who were caught completely off-guard by the raid.
Why did this visit particularly piss off the White House?
Since 2018, Venezuela has been selling oil directly to China, bypassing the dollar, and building payment channels outside of SWIFT.
Venezuela sits on 303 billion barrels of proven oil reserves worth roughly $17 trillion.
That is the largest reserve on Earth, surpassing even Saudi Arabia.
It’s 20% of the world’s oil, and Maduro was actively using it to fund the dismantling of the petrodollar by accepting payment in yuan.
The Strategy
Losing the petrodollar is an existential threat to the United States and the functioning of its economy.
But by cutting off Venezuela’s ability to sell crude in currencies outside the dollar, the entire calculus changes.
Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska has already warned that by securing Venezuela, on top of the recent move into Guyana, Washington could soon oversee more than half of the world’s oil reserves.
This gives the US the power to pin oil at $50 a barrel and effectively bankrupts adversaries like Russia that relie on high energy prices to survive.
The New Reality
This is the Monroe Doctrine on steroids.
International law be damned, the US is using kinetic force to enforce a geographic ringfence.
If the world is fragmenting into rival blocs, the Western Hemisphere is being claimed by the bald eagle.
The "DragonBear" alliance of Russia and China is being cut out of Latin American resources in real-time.
While the jury is still out on theories of a pre brokered deal, with some suggesting the US traded Venezuela for a walk away in Ukraine or Taiwan, what is undeniable is that this move places America’s vassals on a much shorter leash.
The European Enclosure
With the Nord Stream pipeline gone, Europe became dependent on US LNG. But the US couldn't be self-sufficient and fully supply the EU at the same time until now.
By seizing the world’s largest oil reserves, the US has completed the three pillar enclosure of Europe: military through NATO, trade through new EU US mandates, and now energy through Caracas.
This amounts to full control of Europe by its actual sovereign, as European leaders issue statements expressing discomfort with how international law was bypassed, while welcoming Maduro’s removal and promising only to “monitor the situation.”
The Bitcoin Angle
So, where does Bitcoin fit?
The price barely moved on the news, but Bitcoin proved a point on the 17th anniversary of its launch.
When kinetic action heats up, the "sovereign property" argument grows stronger.
If a sitting head of state can be removed from his home overnight, what is truly safe?
Gold in a vault can be seized and reserves can be frozen with a single phone call.
But Bitcoin is different.
It is uncensorable and non-sovereign.
In a world where the US is redrawing the map with Delta Force, Bitcoin remains the only asset that lives outside the logic of violence.
