Strange roommates: Trump, Delcy and Machado

In the ruthless world of Realpolitik, politics brings together actors that seem utterly incompatible...

Watching the Trump administration loudly celebrate a strategic pact with acting president Delcy Rodríguez is the definitive demonstration that international capital's interest in hydrocarbons heals any diplomatic wear and erases any ideological line.

For chavismo, this agreement is the product of a pragmatic surrender to harsh reality. First came the sweeping sanctions against Venezuela and the financial and commercial isolation that strangled the Venezuelan economy. Then came the definitive loss of CITGO and with it Venezuela's refining network in the United States and one of PDVSA's few valuable assets abroad. And finally, the forced removal of President Maduro on January 3. Faced with such a landscape, Venezuela was left with little capacity to decide or act, and had to submit to Washington's interests and yield to its oil demands, without much protest.          

Amid this peculiar transactional embrace between Trump and Delcy, the complex and desolate situation of the Venezuelan opposition, led by María Corina Machado, comes into view. It is an extremely poetic and bitter irony that the same leadership that for years applauded and promoted the policy of "maximum pressure" and isolation now watches as Donald Trump (its former and most vociferous rhetorical ally) prefers to secure the long-term supply of oil rather than insist on rhetoric about political transition in Caracas. While Machado and the hardline faction of the opposition insist that Venezuela faces an institutional rupture, Trump and Delcy seal 25-year contracts...

It is the cruelest lesson of geopolitics: capital has no ideology, flag or loyalty; it has only spreadsheets, checkbooks and thirsty refineries.