Norris R. McDonald | Venezuela, Exxon, and God King Trump’s militarisation of greed!

Exxon’s 2026 plunge into Jamaica’s Walton Morant Basin isn’t just about oil — it is imperialism snapping at Caribbean sovereignty. Early estimates suggest that a potential yield of 406 million barrels lies beneath those waters, comparable to Angola’s oil and gas fields.

Yet, like the RUSAL deal, the Government has revealed nothing about Exxon’s exploration terms, profit-sharing, or environmental risk. Is this more trust deficiency?

In 2019, following Trump’s meeting with Caribbean leaders, including Prime Minister Andrew Holness, Jamaica shortly afterwards — with no clear reason — seized Venezuela’s 49 per cent stake in Petrojam.

That triggered a US$112 million lawsuit by ConocoPhillips. A lawsuit from Chevron demanding the proceeds from these assets for money owed to them by Venezuela also sued Jamaica to recover its investments. How have those cases been resolved?

One thing is sure: Jamaica’s actions destroyed Venezuela’s low-cost energy support to the Caribbean through Petrocaribe.

EXXON, OIL, AND US MILITARY STRATEGY

Trinidad and Tobago has emerged, too, as a critical lynchpin in Exxon and Washington’s geo-economic strategy. Exxon recently invested US$21.7 billion in gas exploration there. Their growing role, like that of Guyana, was underscored in the US military’s Operation Trade Winds 2025 held in April at Chaguaramas. It follows Trade Winds 2021 in Guyana — the first sign of creeping militarisation of the Caribbean.

That contradicts the Havana Declaration’s principle of the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.

Trump’s lust for “American energy dominance” finds a new frontier in Caribbean waters, with Guyana, Jamaica, and Trinidad and Tobago folded into US strategic decision-making.

It is the same American playbook. US corporations reap vast wealth from resource-rich nations, locals get crumbs, while the US military secures Exxon’s empire, trading, and sea routes.

MILITARISATION OF GREED

Trump’s military operations in the Caribbean now hover directly over oil-rich tracts near the disputed Essequibo Basin — territory still before the International Court of Justice, where Exxon has already started drilling. What we are, therefore, witnessing is the fusion of economic exploitation and military power, where violence serves profit, and profit justifies violence.

Every attack near Venezuelan shipping routes occurs conveniently close to the Essequibo Basin — home to billions of barrels of disputed oil.

So far, 37 Venezuelan, Colombian, and Trinidadian lives have been lost to these military strikes. Colombia has been drawn into the conflict and is threatening to file war-crimes charges. CARICOM governments must clarify their positions and take a stand to avoid being seen as accomplices to US violations.

Admiral Alvin Hosley the head of US Southern Command, who is responsible for these military operations, resigned in protest. According to a leaked letter, he sharply condemned the military strikes as a “grave violations of international law and legal norms”. He wrote: “I cannot in good conscience authorise or risk innocent lives and compromise the principles I swore to uphold.”

Hosley’s protest, though dismissed in Washington, reverberated throughout the US military, leading to the resignation of some junior officers.

Venezuela holds the largest proven oil reserves in the world. Behind America’s false narrative of a “drug war” lies Exxon’s greedy desire for its untapped reserves.

In the 1980s, it was “fighting communism”. In 2003, “weapons of mass destruction”. Now, in 2025, “stopping drugs”.

Each mask conceals the same imperial lust: the seizure of resources under some hypocritical moral crusade.

This is the militarisation of greed: ugly corporate ambition fused with armed might, the Pentagon acting as Wall Street and Big Oil’s enforcer.

From Iraq to Libya, Sudan to Gaza, Nigeria to Niger, the pattern persists: resource-rich lands become targets of intervention disguised as liberation. The empire’s logic is consistent: privatise resources, criminalise resistance, militarise geography. Oil greed runs identical from the Caribbean Sea to the Mediterranean.

THE GAZA GENOCIDE AND THE IMPERIAL QUEST

Yes, my friends, from the Caribbean to Gaza, the US empire pursues its irrational geopolitical strategy. In Gaza, US weaponry sustains Israel’s annihilation campaign. Bombs on Rafah are stamped ‘Made in America’, financed by Congress and shielding Chevron and Halliburton.

The US Sixth Fleet patrols the Eastern Mediterranean under the guise of “stability”, securing maritime zones where Chevron and Italy’s oil company ENI hold illegal gas leases in waters recognised as Palestinian by international law.

Gaza’s offshore reserves hold 22 trillion cubic feet of gas worth US$525 billion to a free Palestine under the Oslo Accords. Instead, Chevron and ENI control those fields while children like six-year-old Hind Rajab lie in rubble. The world calls it war; it is a blood-for-oil genocidal agenda.

Trump’s shadow looms here, too. His son-in-law Jared Kushner’s Saudi-funded firm stands to profit from “reconstruction” once Gaza is emptied. The so-called peace plan would divide Gaza into enclaves for Israeli and US corporate control.

America’s bloody hand is already stamped on providing military support to Israel’s Gaza genocide. Now they turn to spilling innocent blood in Caribbean waters, too.

THE CARIBBEAN CHOICE: EMPIRE OR RESISTANCE?

Former Prime Minister P. J. Patterson warned that “the situation is dangerous and horrible”. He is right. The Caribbean — once a beacon of resistance to colonialism — faces a new occupation by contract and gunboat.

The fact that Exxon has financial ties to Guyana, Trinidad, and Jamaica may explain the political vacillation. But with Exxon tightening its grip and US Southern Command patrolling our seas, and killing innocent fishermen, regional sovereignty risks being swallowed by the mighty yawning Leviathan, who radiantly and, “bigly” materialises in divine-earth-spirit form as God King Trump.

Gleaner readers, the Caribbean must remember its history — from Dutty Boukman, Toussaint Louverture, Nanny, Paul Bogle, Sam Sharpe, Simon Bolivar, Garvey Maceo, José Martí, Marcus Garvey, Dr Eric Williams, Walter Rodney to Michael Manley’s defiance. Freedom is never gifted; it is fought for.

If our governments bow before imperial powers, perhaps we will remain forever trapped in poverty, debt, dependency, and environmental ruin.

This is the moment to resurrect resistance. Only collective action — CARICOM standing firm and citizens demanding disclosure — can save the region from becoming America and Exxon’s next sacrifice.

If we yield, Leviathan’s imperialist jaws may close tighter than before around our poverty-strangled necks.

That is the bitta truth.

Norris R. McDonald is an author, economic journalist, political analyst, a nd respiratory therapist.

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