Venezuela's Lesson: When Politics Masquerades as Business and Sanctions Become Strangulation

The globalization era's belief described as a compelling gospel was that prosperous supply chains, trade, and investment would unite nations and make large-scale conflict unimaginable, resulting in shared wealth and peace. This ideal was a potent delusion that is now clearly broken by circumstances such as the one in Venezuela. What was once optimistically referred to as "interdependence" has turned out to be a very powerful tool for political influence rather than a preventative measure. A country has unintentionally created a way for itself to be strangled by permitting pipelines, bank accounts, and vital shipments to fall into the hands of a possible adversary. This dynamic represents a change in which the economy is now politics masquerading as business rather than just supporting politics.

In this new reality, national leaders and central bankers are portrayed as using sanctions as a kind of siege warfare. The SWIFT financial system, access to the US dollar, and the very foundation of global finance have all turned into strategic high ground that can be taken or denied at any time. The more economic entanglement there is, the more severe the wound when the controlling power chooses to inflict pain is confirmed by Venezuela, which serves as the first large-scale laboratory. As a result, the rules of Trumpism power are being quietly updated for the twenty-first century. The old rules, which were predicated on the notion that everyone has too much to lose from a collapse and the principle of mutually assured prosperity, are being dismantled.

It is being replaced by a colder, more truthful principle: the country in charge of a connected world's choke points controls the entire world. We have entered the era of mutually assured economic destruction. Being indispensable is no longer the ultimate skill in this new era; rather, it's reaching a point where people need you more than you need them.

Power has not disappeared; rather, it has simply changed its uniform and is now operating among us with the same ruthlessness as before, disguised as control over shipping lanes, financial routes, aircraft carriers, missiles, and military intimidation.