The Guardian's editorial condemns Donald Trump's seizure of Venezuela's oil wealth as a modern form of gunboat diplomacy conducted to serve his ego rather than help American consumers. It argues that after Trump's forces captured Nicolás Maduro and installed his deputy Delcy Rodríguez as president, the resulting deal handing a fifth of Venezuela's proven oil reserves to the US amounts to regime change in exchange for a commercial concession, with the additional oil unlikely to lower US petrol prices before November's midterms.

The piece notes that Rodríguez, a lifelong socialist reshaping Chavismo, granted North American Blue Energy Partners concessions to 17 oilfields, with the firm in turn giving the Pentagon a 35% equity stake at no cost to US taxpayers; Rodríguez claims the arrangement could generate $200bn in oil revenues for Venezuela. The editorial concludes that Trump bypassed the democratic opposition leader María Corina Machado in favour of a compliant authoritarian regime, and warns that such unequal bargains raise questions about what kind of economy and social order the oil revenue will ultimately produce.