In August 1990, Saddam Hussein, his financial resources strained after a long conflict with Iran, directed his forces to invade nearby Kuwait, driven in large part by a desire to expropriate its oil and wealth.
The move prompted international outrage, and a US-led coalition launched a counteroffensive against Iraq – the first Gulf War – securing Kuwait’s oil reserves for their rightful owners, and making Hussein even more of a pariah on the world stage.
Much can change in 36 years. This August, it is the US President – his financial resources strained after his months-long conflict with Iran constricted one of the world’s most vital shipping lanes – who is expropriating the oil reserves of a nearby nation.
This seems like an extraordinary claim, given the US has not sent troops, tanks and gunships to occupy a neighbouring country as Hussein did. But it’s one that is being made by Donald Trump himself.
Late on Friday evening, he posted that he had secured “THE BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY”, having “secured majority US control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven oil reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American taxpayer”.
Trump could certainly use a new, plentiful source of oil right now. The USA’s ongoing cost of living crisis – which Trump was elected on the promise to fix – is being made worse by his conflict with Iran, and the global oil and gas shortages it has fuelled. But Trump’s supposed huge, new deal is outright confusing.
If it were a normal private-sector oil deal by US companies, the companies involved would have announced it themselves, too – indeed they would be obliged to do so, as publicly listed companies. Also, typically, the federal government would not involve itself in such a deal.
That raises the possibility that this supposed deal is something else: Trump did, after all, launch a military raid to kidnap and extradite the leader of Venezuela in January, and subsequently declared that the US was “running” the country. Trump credits Venezuela’s “interim President” Delcy Rodríguez with brokering the deal to give the USA majority control over Venezuela’s oil reserves – a dubious deal for any sovereign nation to make. Indeed, critics say her unelected government doesn’t have the authority to make it at all.
One sovereign nation seizing the oil reserves of another without proper consent or compensation would run headlong against several foundational principles of international law: it could violate sovereignty, qualify as a coercive measure and if connected to January’s use of force, violate laws there.
This is the sort of stuff that used to top the headlines for days at a time, but Trump’s announcement has made barely a ripple – partly because no one is at all sure whether the Venezuelan oil deal is even real. If it is, then it has seismic implications for international law, for oil markets and more. But the US President announcing something is no longer a reliable indicator as to whether or not it’s really happening.
Trump has announced huge tariff packages that never materialise. He has announced what seems like dozens of peace deals and ceasefires with Iran, some of which fall apart within minutes of his social posts. Last month, he declared a deal to permanently disarm Hamas, only for it to transpire that Israel had never even signed up to the agreement. Time and again, Trump tries to make dramatic moves on the world stage, only for them to turn out to mean almost nothing in reality.
At their worst, Trump’s announcements often represent actions that, if followed through, would overturn the world’s existing international order. He has repeatedly “joked” that Canada should be a US state – a jibe that becomes less funny the more he applies economic pressure on America’s northern neighbour to force it to comply with his will. Every few months, Trump reopens the possibility of invading and seizing Greenland.
Perhaps on some level, Trump is succeeding in normalising his erratic and preposterous behaviour. It is simply not possible to maintain a constant level of outrage every day for 18 months, even against the most extreme of provocations.
But something more than exhaustion might be at work here. Partly, it is increasingly difficult to take Donald Trump seriously, because so few of his announcements are actually backed up by substance.
His proclamations on serious world affairs are interspersed by endless trivia – renaming Lake Ontario as “Lake America”, and threatening to rename the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean; botching the renovation of the reflecting pool; or endless digressions about the apparent urgent military need for a new White House ballroom.
That is his fatal flaw. Trump is trying to project the image of a decisive man of action, a strongman imposing his will on the world, with no one able to stand in his way – he wants the world to know that what Donald Trump wants, Donald Trump gets. That bullishness helped send him to the White House in 2016 and 2024.
It’s just that now we can all see Trump often doesn’t get what he wants. He is struggling to renovate his own house, so no wonder he can’t extricate himself from the wars he starts.
Perhaps the Venezuelan oil deal is different. Maybe this time, he’s actually got a plan. But to almost everyone, the President just looks like he’s become absorbed in yet another of a long line of distractions.