After Maduro, Who Will Foot the Bill?

Luis Munguambe Junior"

The fall of Nicolás Maduro is making headlines in all the newspapers: "President captured by the United States," "Historic change in Venezuela," "New chapter in the fight for democracy." And amidst this chorus of geopolitical analyses, that simple, human question remains unanswered: who will foot the bill?

It's no secret that Venezuela possesses one of Earth's greatest treasures: oil. The world's largest proven reserves, whose Gulf Coast refineries have depended on this type of crude for decades to function properly. American interest in Caracas has never been merely rhetorical about democracy or combating drug trafficking. For years, this relationship has had a cold and simple name: energy. Venezuela's oil history has attracted global corporations, favorable legislation—and later sanctions and diplomatic disputes that have captivated foreign interests—throughout the 20th and 21st centuries.

Following the military action in early 2026, in which the US captured Maduro, official rhetoric speaks of combating transnational crimes. But the discourse was accompanied by another, more direct statement: the American government affirms that it will be "heavily involved" in the Venezuelan oil industry and that it intends to recover, use, and sell these reserves immediately.

That's when the story ceases to be abstract and leaps into everyday life. The international market is not deaf: the shares of the American oil giants rose after the operation, reflecting the expectation that control over Venezuelan oil will translate into extra profit and economic power for Washington and Wall Street.

And as always happens, those at the center of these schemes rarely pay the price, at least not to the extent they should. It's the average citizen who wakes up at five in the morning worrying about food, transportation, employment, and family stability. The same person who hears about "grandiose strategic interests" in the news, but never discovers that they too are, in a way, paying that price: whether through high taxes, an unstable global economy, or injustices that become the norm.

Because controlling oil isn't just about controlling energy. It's about controlling economies, alliances, political decisions, and above all, the lives of the people who depend on these resources to survive, not to get rich. Venezuelan oil production is far from what it was in the 1990s, but it still continues to attract the attention of major powers. And there's another ingredient in this formula: while Washington declares its commitment to a "safe transition" in Caracas, other countries view this situation with suspicion. At the UN, governments of countries like Brazil, China, Russia, and Mexico criticized the American intervention as a violation of sovereignty and international law.

But international politics has a curious memory: it rarely remembers those who suffer the most. The bill, then, falls back on us — on the immigrants who left everything behind, on the children who grew up without parents at home, on those who are still trying to start a small business in the midst of a fragmented economy, on the families who struggle for an essential medicine that never arrives.

The most ironic thing is that freedom and democracy are discussed as if they were commodities to be bought in the market. But this "freedom that is sold" rarely liberates anyone from the yoke of daily survival. No one questions the price of a barrel of oil when buying bread, but that price influences everything—from the energy that powers the factory to the money that enters or leaves the pocket of the average worker. It's the famous geopolitical dilemma: strategic interests are debated in air-conditioned rooms while real life drags on in the streets, in the neighborhoods, in the small daily economies. And those who really pay the price are always those who depend on this life to survive—whether in Caracas, Maputo, Luanda, or New York.

In the end, we realize that overthrowing a president or controlling a resource—those are chapters in official reports. But those who really pay the price are the ones who continue to live when the cameras stop rolling.

And this, this is the truth that no political speech, no pretty editorial, no expert commentary will be able to mask: the world may be looking at Venezuelan oil with eyes of conquest, but those below, those who pay, have weary eyes.

2025/12/3