The Huge Ramifications of Going After Venezuela
One of the most significant matters going on right now is Trump’s slow and steady moves upon Venezuela… causing Maduro to call for aid by Russia and China. READ:
Why? Venezuela is not only a shitty communist country where locals earn $2.00 a month…it’s a major player in the Americas and the “Eastern-affiliated” world, and not only due to its largest oil deposit on the planet… but because of it’s illicit markets.
A great analogy I’ve come up with is we can say is that Venezuela is a stock market… for Narcos. It’s where competing interests are able to operate freely as a means for drug trafficking, money-laundering and drug production. You may have read that #Maduro is the leader of the CJNG and CDS which is non-sense, but he is allowing them to freely operate neutrally on Venezuelan soil. Similar to #Apple vs. #Microsoft, MercadoLibre vs. Amazon or Chevron vs. BP, they are competitive with each other, but they operate on the same stock exchange (maybe not the exact same but you know what I mean here).
Competing cartels may use this as a place for mining gold, laundering money, drug trafficking or local drug production mediated by the cartel government of Maduro to ensure that everybody plays nice so the Maduro cartel can continue to get paid. In exchange for this service, Venezuela receives payment in drug product (that they later sell on the boats Trump targeted) or gold, similar to listing fees on these big exchanges. So what is the big picture here? What significance does such a stock exchange carry?
The viability of the Mexican state, as far as I can tell, demands that this narco money-laundering machine continues turning. Mexico’s 5th largest employer (directly) are narcos, which says nothing about the indirect benefits or assets held in country at any given time. It could be said that the Mexican state is already failed, so perhaps it’s more appropriate to say that the bubblegum holding it together can be broken off. Without these illicit funds coming in to such an extent, the politicians don’t line their pockets and power is chaotic in CDMX. Trump has the unique ability to get numerous stones at once with one toss at Venezuela & he currently has one the most notorious and brilliant money-laundering personnel in custody (I suspect his leverage of threatening with tariffs made him cough him over to the US) to spill the [refried] beans (Abigael González).
It’s already chaos in Mexico.
If this money laundering machine stops turning in Venezuela, it dramatically hurts profits of these large organizations located throughout LATAM. In-turn, it causes the Mexican political class to hurt and with Mexican corporations unable to pay their debts (https://imontheball.com/mexican-corporate-debt-is-huge/), energy supplies very sketchy (https://imontheball.com/the-mexican-economy-is-doomed-but-its-not-why-you-think/) you can see that this is a double play by Trump; how fitting given that we’re in the World Series now. It could be triple play or four for 1 if you include Nicaragua and Cuba, too who are reliant on Venezuela for food and energy.
Mexico and Venezuela are major economies with millions of citizens that politically are antagonist towards the United States. As I write in the first article referenced above, it would be a direct below toward the viability of either corrupt states to continue as efficiently as before. In effect, Trump, may be freezing the stock market for the cartels, rather than fighting fire with fire in a senseless drug war. Of course, it’s nice having massive oil reserves as an incentive to carry further attacks against Venezuela, too.
As significant as a disruption that would occur if the stock market were closed…(can you imagine how people would panic if the stock market didn’t open Monday morning) we’re looking at a different type of informal stock market that may be closed soon too which will resonate far beyond the capital of Caracas.
My immediate advice? Get the hell out of the Northern areas of South America as they will largely be weaponized against all fronts on Venezuela and get to a “boring” place in Mexico if you’re in the country.
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