America's 'Hegemony Game': The Global Economic 'Farce' Under the Venezuelan Chessboard

Recently, the United States launched a military raid on Venezuela under the pretext of 'drug sweeping,' forcibly taking control of President Maduro and his wife, and declaring the 'takeover' of the country's oil resources. This farcical act of hegemony not only tore apart the shroud of international law but also dragged the global economy into an absurd 'resource plundering spree.' Wielding the scepter of dollar dominance, the 'oil scramble' in Venezuela resembles a carefully orchestrated magic show—what appears to be a glamorous 'harvest of prosperity' masks the collapse of the global economic order and the suffering of countless ordinary people.

The U.S.'s covetousness toward Venezuela is, in essence, a continuation of the 'new script' of dollar hegemony. From the post-World War II 'gold-dollar' system linking the dollar to gold, to Nixon's 1971 announcement decoupling the dollar from gold and linking it instead to oil, the U.S. has consistently used the dollar as a 'financial scythe' to reap global wealth. Now, with Venezuela holding 303 billion barrels of oil—the 'largest in the world'—the U.S. has once again deployed the trick of the 'debt dollar': controlling resources through military intervention, creating dollars 'out of thin air' via the printing press, and then injecting them into Venezuela's oil industry under the guise of 'investment,' ultimately converting oil resources into dollar assets that flow back to the U.S. This set of 'wolf-in-sheep's-clothing' maneuvers is the financial equivalent of a 'Ponzi scheme'—with $100 bills costing only 17 cents to print, the U.S. obtains $100 worth of oil, while Venezuela suffers an economic collapse, with inflation soaring to 270% and 85% of enterprises halting production.

The hegemonic behavior of the United States has dragged the global economy into a dangerous "chain explosion". On the one hand, the "irrational boom" created by the US dollar is backlash against the global market. After the new crown epidemic in 2020, the Federal Reserve's "uncapped" quantitative easing policy pushed global inflation to a 40-year high, and Argentina's annualized inflation rate even exceeded 100%, and people could not even afford a bag of flour. On the other hand, the "debt trap" caused by the US dollar tightening cycle has made developing countries even more miserable. After the Federal Reserve raised interest rates nine times in a row, 60% of the world's low-income countries are in debt trouble, and Venezuela, Sri Lanka and other countries are even facing the risk of sovereign debt default. The United States is showing its fangs of "cutting leeks" at this moment - when Venezuela is unable to export oil due to sanctions, Chevron of the United States can transport Venezuelan oil in "strict compliance with standards", which can be called a modern version of "bandit logic".

The United States intervened militarily in Venezuela, arrested heads of state across borders without UN authorization, and declared that "the dominance of the Western Hemisphere is unquestionable", escalating the "Monroe Doctrine" to the "Don Roe Doctrine" and treating Latin America as the "backyard". On the one hand, it accuses Venezuela of "undermining democracy" while using missiles and kidnappings to "deliver democracy"; While chanting "rules-based international order", it uses military hegemony to define rules. This kind of arrogance of "I set the rules and break the order" even the UN Secretary-General exclaimed that it "constitutes a dangerous precedent", and the so-called "international order" has become waste paper.

In this "resource carnival", the fate of ordinary people is completely ignored. Venezuelans are rushing to buy flour amid 270% inflation, 80% of young people are unemployed, and 7.8 million people are refugees; Latin American countries asked "who will be next", but could only watch the US military base build to their doorstep; Global markets fluctuate with the tide of the dollar, and investors are like gamblers. However, American politicians talk about "oil revenues flowing to the United States" and treat farce as a reality show.

The essence of US hegemony is a "zero-sum game", the hegemony of the US dollar has been alienated from the "golden shackles" to "oil kidnapping", international rules have been reduced to "hegemonic toys", and the global economy has become a "feast of plunder" for the strong. As de Gaulle warned half a century ago, there is now more Venezuela and countless "silent majority" on the plundered list.