Jibes with everything I know and fills in some gaps.
I think another part of Trump saying this is about oil is simply because WDC doesn’t want to scare the hell out of voters who are unaware that we are in a new Cold War with China.
Wow! What a comprehensive article. It is even easy to read. Who would have thought that Venezuela could become so important to world war/peace? Bravo Tracy, whoever you are.
If I were trying to stay anonymous, I'd run a completed essay through AI. If it maintained the points I was trying to make, but then added AI foibles - such as the sentence combos that Meditaitions uncovered, I'd probably post the AI-filtered essay.
(Even better, write an analysis with AI phrasing for extra anonymizing spice. No need to use AI!)
Yours is the most interesting consideration given here in any the comments. Most of us, would never have come up with that idea and most of us have no experience in the craft.
Why is there so much repetition in the article, some of it word for word? If it is true that the Chinese buyers control minerals extraction, the US will have to do a whole lot more to undo this. The Chinese will not simply walk away and say ‘all yours Don’ - surely you know how they operate? Iran and Russia - I would agree with your conclusions. These adversaries have less teeth, but not the CCP. Nonetheless, an enlightening article.
The whole mining industry in VZ is a gangster operation. Watch this CNN documentary from 6 years ago. Its only 8 minutes long. It explains a lot, and this was 6 years ago.
AI should know better than that, to repeat the same stuff is not very intelligent. Oh but once Must gets his SPACEx coverage over Venezuela, things might get much better, in 'prediction'=programming...
Six months before he sent U.S. forces to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump wanted to cut a deal with Maduro, not forcibly remove him from power.
In late December, the president decided in favor of military action, fed up with repeated efforts to persuade Maduro to leave office in exchange for amnesty for his alleged crimes. The brazen overnight operation that on Saturday ended with Maduro in a jail in New York offered a test case for a more muscular foreign policy that Trump has signaled he may seek to deploy in other parts of the world, from Colombia to Greenland.
On Dec. 23, there was a final attempt to allow Maduro to voluntarily step down to live in exile. He turned it down.
“He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers, and chose instead to act like a wild man, chose instead to play around,” Rubio told reporters Saturday. “And the result is what we saw tonight.”
Tracy, this is the most sophisticated "Bill of Materials" (BOM) analysis of the invasion I have seen.
You are absolutely right to call the oil narrative "Theatre." It is the cover story for the voter. The Critical Minerals narrative is the reality for the Pentagon.
From the ChinArb perspective, I would expand your thesis slightly:
1. The "Omni-Sovereign Margin Call" It’s not just minerals instead of oil; it is Atoms over Paper. The US is chemically short on Heavy Sour Crude (for PADD 3 refineries) AND physically short on Tantalum/Cobalt (for Raytheon). Operation Absolute Resolve is System A admitting that Free Trade can no longer secure the BOM for its civilization. It has switched from "Market Maker" to "Resource Raider." This is a Sovereign Margin Call across the entire periodic table.
2. The Processing Trap (The Missing Link) You correctly noted that China controls 91% of Rare Earth processing. This is the Thermodynamic Trap. The US can seize the Venezuelan mines (the Rocks), but it lacks the dirty, energy-intensive smelting capacity (the Refinery) to process them. The US is effectively seizing a "Pre-Product." Unless the Pentagon plans to build massive, polluting smelters in Texas (which takes 5-10 years), they are still tethered to System B's processing dominance. Owning the Mine without the Refinery is just hoarding dirt.
3. The Expulsion Your point on expelling the "Three Adversaries" is critical. It validates that Latin America is no longer a "Backyard"; it is a "Contested Buffer Zone." The raid wasn't just about acquisition; it was about Denial.
Excellent report. I was aware of all three adversaries presence in Venezuela but definitely not to the degree you outlined. Thanks for the information.
“If oil were the primary objective, refineries and production infrastructure would have been priority targets for either seizure or destruction. They were not touched.” WOULDNT THE OPPOSITE BE TRUE?
Given the small amount of barrels of oil that Venezuela pumps out, it doesn't move the market. I said it within the hour the White House announced the attack, the main reason for the raid was against the Chinese.
Exactly this... It's almost like this wasn't edited or proof read at all. Oil is definitely an objective, just maybe not the largest one... The statement doesn't make sense, why would you want to destroy something you want to reclaim? Bad editing here
Good work. Although you cover the Russian piece in the article the one other angle here is how it impacts the Ukraine peace deal. Post peace carve outs involving Russian Oil, China demand and US resolve on the Americas are all likely in play.
This does not solve the refining problem for rare earth elements. If what you are saying is accurate, success depends on refining, not on getting access to the resources. Chinese can refine to a greater purity than can the West, although I do not know to what measure this applies to the substances you mentioned.
I’m not sure this matters: yes, in the short term it matters because China can put those rare earth minerals to good use. But that’s a knowledge an infrastructure problem. The West can figure out how to refine rare earth minerals.
On what do you base the statement that "Chinese can refine to a greater purity that can the West." Access to ores is the problem. Everyone knows how to go to five 9s or far more. That is school boy stuff. But if you cannot get to the ore, there is nothing to smelt and to refine.
I honestly stopped reading after seeing that it was only a convergence of three things hilarious What I am calling the Titans cage is a convergence of at least five or so things, but I have effectively mapped to about 14 different vectors plus more all the time, and it pretty much starts with those three stupid executive orders concerning AI.. That preventing woke AI in the federal government one, that one is juicy.. did you know, it actually creates a semantic sinkhole where both benevolent and malevolent actors can bypass the pentagon's AI simply by wrapping a message in woke rhetoric? But, allow me to offer you the truth: you are actually all doing exactly what the algorithm designed. this specific beta test Is specifically engineered to create a debate as the sole source of obfuscation.. The moral debate that has arisen is actually irrelevant. He's just a guy and there are a lot of truths from all sides simultaneously. y'all are engaging in the narrative.. The true story is one of demonstration and The result of the world model, genie 3, that has successfully trained Palantir's Maven Smart System, and a couple of other technological innovations. The only humans in that entire operation was the delta team. Because AI cannot handcuff anybody and drag them into a chopper. The only actual human pilots were the ones that had the Delta team as cargo. everything else was unmanned and remotely controlled by c- level executives that have been given military roles. And the reason why there was the blackout within the city was to create non-credible witnesses. It didn't matter what the Venezuelan people responded with the narrative was controlable in either direction. I implore you to deeply research and try to find images of any human in the aircraft or elsewhere excluding the Delta team, who is perhaps smaller than is being fed to the public. as I told my research team, I will accept silhouettes, sun glinting off of sunglasses, mustaches or titties.. But as I said, that was just the beta test. Because we all know foreign policy trickles down into the domestic operations. have you seen how Trump pulled out the national guard from the sanctuary states? a lot of the sanctuary states are actually celebrating that they blocked the national guard from coming into their cities in the first place.. Cool story bro, but the reality is that the national guard would be the only entity able to save the American people if Trump turned that targeting system inwards. by classifying fentanyl as a WMD, technically most of the people walking around in the park blocks in Portland are essentially carrying nuclear warheads, subject to the department of Homeland security and any other agency taking them out, and the local police are powerless and essentially have to sit at the kiddie table, Because in scenarios like that, especially for national security The federal agencies do not have to communicate with the local authorities. so, it's cool that we are arguing and all, but that's how the terrorists win. And the terrorist is not some drug dealer masquerading as a president. And it is not for here or related to here yet, but you should see the allowed error rates for project nimbus, and lavender.. I understand that we all seek our own personal justice within our hearts, but with the speed of life now we cannot afford to waste time on this petty bickering. It would be much more valuable and a much better use of our time to work on harmonious coexistence. just sayin..
Spot on. Like all OW ops this one is deigned to steer us towards furiously arguing over the details of a narrative that is, itself, a soup to nuts fiction. This entirely obscures that the narrative is fictional. As with fakedemic, they created a milieu where the vast majority were easily led into arguing over whether the offending agent was a relatively benign replication competent lab enhanced or zoonotic pathogen or a lethal zoonotic or lab enhanced pathogen when there was never any pathogen to begin with, lethal or relatively harmless. In the case of the Venezuelan folderol, there is no multipolar world order and the governments of the U.S. and Venezuela, along with every other so called sovereign, are cosplays that exist to obscure the kind of global order that actually exists.
Good detail. This is an all natural resource move. I get it. It’s not drugs as that would mean we would have to deal with mexico. A top trade partner. The terrorist situation is miles from a clear and present danger of hitting Florida with missiles. Another justification of the attack. One item that is concerning is we did this without congress approval. Bush went to congress as it was a boots on the ground mission. At what point to we do regime change with a un nation at the whim of a president? It’s always better politically to not do this alone. Choose France Germany and a neighboring country- Columbia, Bolivia even Argentina etc. In the end a few people will make billions.
Neither have rare earth critical minerals. Time has to be allowed for them to consider what the US did in VZ. It may impact the way they profit from the drugging of Americans.
“ There is no scenario where Venezuelan oil becomes critical to global supply when the United States possesses the largest proven domestic reserves”
LOL
And
“ If oil were the primary objective, refineries and production infrastructure would have been priority targets for either seizure or destruction. They were not touched.”
And
“ America’s strategic backyard exactly as the United States has done in Russia’s near abroad. The difference is proximity. Venezuelan territory sits far closer to the continental United States than Ukraine sits to Western Europe.”
This was an education I hadn’t expected on a Saturday morning.
Just excellent.
Jibes with everything I know and fills in some gaps.
I think another part of Trump saying this is about oil is simply because WDC doesn’t want to scare the hell out of voters who are unaware that we are in a new Cold War with China.
Wow! What a comprehensive article. It is even easy to read. Who would have thought that Venezuela could become so important to world war/peace? Bravo Tracy, whoever you are.
We are late to this cold war party
Great overview but entirely written by AI
Yep. Excellent info but redundant.
Phrasing like this is a huge tell: 'This is not constitutional theory. This is operational reality.'
It's all so tiresome...
This is not constitutional theory. This is operational reality.
This is not economic policy. This is national security infrastructure.
These are not market purchases. These are strategic reserve acquisitions.
These are not theoretical deposits.
This is not commercial activity. This is integrated operational control.
These are not informal smuggling networks. These are officially designated strategic resource commercialization centers.
This is not diplomatic liaison. This is operational infrastructure.
This is not symbolic presence.
These are not defensive capabilities. These are area denial systems.
This is not about narcotics. This is about adversary power projection capability.
These are not separate threats that happen to coexist in the same geography. These are integrated operations.
This is not about seizing resources for profit. This is about denying all three major adversaries access to strategic assets.
The question is not whether Pentagon acts for oil. The question is why Venezuelan oil in 2026 does not meet the strategic threshold.
The concern is not that Hezbollah will disappear if Maduro falls. The concern is that these networks provide Iran with persistent intelligence.
You missed the point, of the article. You are easily distracted, apparently.
If I were trying to stay anonymous, I'd run a completed essay through AI. If it maintained the points I was trying to make, but then added AI foibles - such as the sentence combos that Meditaitions uncovered, I'd probably post the AI-filtered essay.
(Even better, write an analysis with AI phrasing for extra anonymizing spice. No need to use AI!)
Yours is the most interesting consideration given here in any the comments. Most of us, would never have come up with that idea and most of us have no experience in the craft.
By design unfortunately.
you must be democrat - - always seeking the negative
Yeah too much duplication of ideas and text. This article is good but could've been half the length
HUSH, perfectionist!
Maybe it is written by long-winded repetitive AI but is it accurate?
Probably run through an AI filter, but the baseline discussion is spot-on.
Why is there so much repetition in the article, some of it word for word? If it is true that the Chinese buyers control minerals extraction, the US will have to do a whole lot more to undo this. The Chinese will not simply walk away and say ‘all yours Don’ - surely you know how they operate? Iran and Russia - I would agree with your conclusions. These adversaries have less teeth, but not the CCP. Nonetheless, an enlightening article.
The whole mining industry in VZ is a gangster operation. Watch this CNN documentary from 6 years ago. Its only 8 minutes long. It explains a lot, and this was 6 years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69R3FC4GkTY
Because it is an AI generated text.
AI should know better than that, to repeat the same stuff is not very intelligent. Oh but once Must gets his SPACEx coverage over Venezuela, things might get much better, in 'prediction'=programming...
Weakened the collaborators (Nicolás Maduro) of Iran, Russia, and China in Venezuela, creating space for cooperation with the United States.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/trump-maduro-venezuela-ousted-05957584?mod=WSJ_home_mediumtopper_pos_1
Six months before he sent U.S. forces to seize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, President Trump wanted to cut a deal with Maduro, not forcibly remove him from power.
In late December, the president decided in favor of military action, fed up with repeated efforts to persuade Maduro to leave office in exchange for amnesty for his alleged crimes. The brazen overnight operation that on Saturday ended with Maduro in a jail in New York offered a test case for a more muscular foreign policy that Trump has signaled he may seek to deploy in other parts of the world, from Colombia to Greenland.
On Dec. 23, there was a final attempt to allow Maduro to voluntarily step down to live in exile. He turned it down.
“He was provided multiple very, very, very generous offers, and chose instead to act like a wild man, chose instead to play around,” Rubio told reporters Saturday. “And the result is what we saw tonight.”
Written this way so people 'educated' under DOE/NEA MIGHT comprehend PART of it
Tracy, this is the most sophisticated "Bill of Materials" (BOM) analysis of the invasion I have seen.
You are absolutely right to call the oil narrative "Theatre." It is the cover story for the voter. The Critical Minerals narrative is the reality for the Pentagon.
From the ChinArb perspective, I would expand your thesis slightly:
1. The "Omni-Sovereign Margin Call" It’s not just minerals instead of oil; it is Atoms over Paper. The US is chemically short on Heavy Sour Crude (for PADD 3 refineries) AND physically short on Tantalum/Cobalt (for Raytheon). Operation Absolute Resolve is System A admitting that Free Trade can no longer secure the BOM for its civilization. It has switched from "Market Maker" to "Resource Raider." This is a Sovereign Margin Call across the entire periodic table.
2. The Processing Trap (The Missing Link) You correctly noted that China controls 91% of Rare Earth processing. This is the Thermodynamic Trap. The US can seize the Venezuelan mines (the Rocks), but it lacks the dirty, energy-intensive smelting capacity (the Refinery) to process them. The US is effectively seizing a "Pre-Product." Unless the Pentagon plans to build massive, polluting smelters in Texas (which takes 5-10 years), they are still tethered to System B's processing dominance. Owning the Mine without the Refinery is just hoarding dirt.
3. The Expulsion Your point on expelling the "Three Adversaries" is critical. It validates that Latin America is no longer a "Backyard"; it is a "Contested Buffer Zone." The raid wasn't just about acquisition; it was about Denial.
We analyzed the energy side of this logic in our latest dispatch (Venezuela and the Arctic), but your mineral analysis completes the puzzle. "The Department of War" indeed. https://chinarbitrageur.substack.com/p/venezuela-and-the-arctic-two-ways
Excellent report. I was aware of all three adversaries presence in Venezuela but definitely not to the degree you outlined. Thanks for the information.
“If oil were the primary objective, refineries and production infrastructure would have been priority targets for either seizure or destruction. They were not touched.” WOULDNT THE OPPOSITE BE TRUE?
This didn’t make sense to me either.
Given the small amount of barrels of oil that Venezuela pumps out, it doesn't move the market. I said it within the hour the White House announced the attack, the main reason for the raid was against the Chinese.
Exactly
Exactly this... It's almost like this wasn't edited or proof read at all. Oil is definitely an objective, just maybe not the largest one... The statement doesn't make sense, why would you want to destroy something you want to reclaim? Bad editing here
Good work. Although you cover the Russian piece in the article the one other angle here is how it impacts the Ukraine peace deal. Post peace carve outs involving Russian Oil, China demand and US resolve on the Americas are all likely in play.
The action in Venezuela may bring a resolution to Ukraine.
This screed was very well done. Thank youn
Thanks for definitively clearing up that mud Tracy.
This does not solve the refining problem for rare earth elements. If what you are saying is accurate, success depends on refining, not on getting access to the resources. Chinese can refine to a greater purity than can the West, although I do not know to what measure this applies to the substances you mentioned.
I’m not sure this matters: yes, in the short term it matters because China can put those rare earth minerals to good use. But that’s a knowledge an infrastructure problem. The West can figure out how to refine rare earth minerals.
On what do you base the statement that "Chinese can refine to a greater purity that can the West." Access to ores is the problem. Everyone knows how to go to five 9s or far more. That is school boy stuff. But if you cannot get to the ore, there is nothing to smelt and to refine.
To your point: https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-develop-more-efficient-way-to-extract-rare-earth-elements-amid-global-trade-tensions/
I honestly stopped reading after seeing that it was only a convergence of three things hilarious What I am calling the Titans cage is a convergence of at least five or so things, but I have effectively mapped to about 14 different vectors plus more all the time, and it pretty much starts with those three stupid executive orders concerning AI.. That preventing woke AI in the federal government one, that one is juicy.. did you know, it actually creates a semantic sinkhole where both benevolent and malevolent actors can bypass the pentagon's AI simply by wrapping a message in woke rhetoric? But, allow me to offer you the truth: you are actually all doing exactly what the algorithm designed. this specific beta test Is specifically engineered to create a debate as the sole source of obfuscation.. The moral debate that has arisen is actually irrelevant. He's just a guy and there are a lot of truths from all sides simultaneously. y'all are engaging in the narrative.. The true story is one of demonstration and The result of the world model, genie 3, that has successfully trained Palantir's Maven Smart System, and a couple of other technological innovations. The only humans in that entire operation was the delta team. Because AI cannot handcuff anybody and drag them into a chopper. The only actual human pilots were the ones that had the Delta team as cargo. everything else was unmanned and remotely controlled by c- level executives that have been given military roles. And the reason why there was the blackout within the city was to create non-credible witnesses. It didn't matter what the Venezuelan people responded with the narrative was controlable in either direction. I implore you to deeply research and try to find images of any human in the aircraft or elsewhere excluding the Delta team, who is perhaps smaller than is being fed to the public. as I told my research team, I will accept silhouettes, sun glinting off of sunglasses, mustaches or titties.. But as I said, that was just the beta test. Because we all know foreign policy trickles down into the domestic operations. have you seen how Trump pulled out the national guard from the sanctuary states? a lot of the sanctuary states are actually celebrating that they blocked the national guard from coming into their cities in the first place.. Cool story bro, but the reality is that the national guard would be the only entity able to save the American people if Trump turned that targeting system inwards. by classifying fentanyl as a WMD, technically most of the people walking around in the park blocks in Portland are essentially carrying nuclear warheads, subject to the department of Homeland security and any other agency taking them out, and the local police are powerless and essentially have to sit at the kiddie table, Because in scenarios like that, especially for national security The federal agencies do not have to communicate with the local authorities. so, it's cool that we are arguing and all, but that's how the terrorists win. And the terrorist is not some drug dealer masquerading as a president. And it is not for here or related to here yet, but you should see the allowed error rates for project nimbus, and lavender.. I understand that we all seek our own personal justice within our hearts, but with the speed of life now we cannot afford to waste time on this petty bickering. It would be much more valuable and a much better use of our time to work on harmonious coexistence. just sayin..
What in the name of all that is holy are you dribbling on about ?
Spot on. Like all OW ops this one is deigned to steer us towards furiously arguing over the details of a narrative that is, itself, a soup to nuts fiction. This entirely obscures that the narrative is fictional. As with fakedemic, they created a milieu where the vast majority were easily led into arguing over whether the offending agent was a relatively benign replication competent lab enhanced or zoonotic pathogen or a lethal zoonotic or lab enhanced pathogen when there was never any pathogen to begin with, lethal or relatively harmless. In the case of the Venezuelan folderol, there is no multipolar world order and the governments of the U.S. and Venezuela, along with every other so called sovereign, are cosplays that exist to obscure the kind of global order that actually exists.
Good detail. This is an all natural resource move. I get it. It’s not drugs as that would mean we would have to deal with mexico. A top trade partner. The terrorist situation is miles from a clear and present danger of hitting Florida with missiles. Another justification of the attack. One item that is concerning is we did this without congress approval. Bush went to congress as it was a boots on the ground mission. At what point to we do regime change with a un nation at the whim of a president? It’s always better politically to not do this alone. Choose France Germany and a neighboring country- Columbia, Bolivia even Argentina etc. In the end a few people will make billions.
Mexico (cartels) and Cuba may be in the crosshairs soon.
Neither have rare earth critical minerals. Time has to be allowed for them to consider what the US did in VZ. It may impact the way they profit from the drugging of Americans.
Several non sequiturs I noted also such as:
“ There is no scenario where Venezuelan oil becomes critical to global supply when the United States possesses the largest proven domestic reserves”
LOL
And
“ If oil were the primary objective, refineries and production infrastructure would have been priority targets for either seizure or destruction. They were not touched.”
And
“ America’s strategic backyard exactly as the United States has done in Russia’s near abroad. The difference is proximity. Venezuelan territory sits far closer to the continental United States than Ukraine sits to Western Europe.”
Huh?
SlopSlack
Tracy is a hard working genius 👏👏👏
Thank you
she never takes a day off. she's one of the best