Trump eyes Venezuela's other natural prize in resources grab

The country owns a chunk of the Amazon Basin, which is being offered to foreign miners for a price

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Roads and cattle farming are two major drivers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo: Kate Evans/CIFOR.

(Michael Molinski is a senior economist at Trendline Economics. He’s worked for Fidelity, Charles Schwab and Wells Fargo, and previously as a foreign correspondent and editor for Bloomberg News and MarketWatch.)

CARACAS, Venezuela (Callaway Climate Insights) — Latin America has long feared that the United States would eventually take over the Amazon rainforest and protect it against deforestation and global warming. That invasion may be happening sooner than expected, but it won’t necessarily be to protect it.

When President Donald Trump ousted Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and seized the country, he got not just oil but also Venezuela’s portion of the Amazon rainforest, estimated to be about 7% of the Amazon. Technically, it still belongs to the Venezuelan people, but Trump makes the decisions.

What’s happening now is that Trump, a long-time critic of climate change, is chasing out some of those who oppose his policies and inviting those who will pay for the right to exploit the Amazon in exchange for access to the vast natural resources, whether those resources are in Venezuela or in other South American countries.

“You have steel, you have minerals, all the critical minerals. They have a great mining history that’s gone rusty,” U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said earlier this month while standing beside Trump. “President Trump is going to fix it and bring it back.”

What are the next dominos?