The Margin Call on American Power
https://www.tiktok.com/@malikstarchild/video/7591619902214278430?_r=1&_t=ZP-92pPVMQuU9P 

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What happened in Venezuela today was not a political operation. It was not about human rights. It was not even really about Nicolás Maduro. It was a margin call.

To understand why the United States just took the extreme risk of launching a military operation in South America, you do not need to look at the polls or the constitution. You need to look at a much more boring, much more terrifying chart: The United States Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

For the last three years, the United States has been draining its emergency oil tanks to artificially lower the price of gas. They have been selling the family silver to pay the rent. The reserve is now at its lowest level since the 1980s.

At the same time, the petrodollar—the system that forces the world to buy oil in U.S. currency—is on life support. Saudi Arabia has refused to renew its exclusive agreement. The BRICS nations are trading energy in yuan and local currencies. The exorbitant privilege of the dollar is evaporating.

And then, last week, rumors began to circulate in the financial capitals. Rumors that Venezuela, the country with the largest proven oil reserves on the planet, was about to sign a definitive agreement to price its oil exclusively in a basket of BRICS currencies.

That was the red line.

The United States cannot afford to let the largest oil tank in the world disconnect from the dollar. If that happens, the demand for U.S. Treasury bonds collapses. Interest rates skyrocket. The entire debt-based economy of the West implodes.

So Washington had a choice. They could accept the new multipolar reality and negotiate, or they could use the one asset they still have in abundance: military force.

They chose the gun.

What we are witnessing is not liberation. It is liquidation. The United States has effectively foreclosed on a country to secure its assets. They have seized the collateral. This is the return of 19th-century gunboat diplomacy, disguised as 21st-century humanitarianism.

We must remember the fundamental law of the post-1971 world: The U.S. dollar is not backed by gold. It is not backed by industrial productivity. It is backed by a simple agreement made fifty years ago with the House of Saud. Oil must be sold in dollars.

This is the magic trick. Because every nation on earth needs oil, every nation on earth needs dollars to buy it. This creates a permanent, artificial demand for the U.S. currency. It allows the United States to print trillions of dollars out of thin air, export the inflation to the rest of the world, and never face the consequences.

The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is watching this. He sees that an oil-rich leader was removed because he threatened the petrodollar status quo. Do you think this makes Saudi Arabia more loyal to Washington? No. It makes them paranoid. It convinces them that they must move their wealth into gold, into yuan, into assets the U.S. military cannot reach. It convinces them to speed up their entry into BRICS.

Think about the reaction in Beijing. China now knows that its energy supply lines from the Americas are not safe. This will force China to double down on its pipelines with Russia and Iran. It will force the Eurasian fortress to close its gates even tighter.

The U.S. hoped to secure cheap oil. Instead, they have solidified the anti-American alliance. They have drawn a line in the sand: The West versus the rest. And in this new, divided world, the West is finding itself outnumbered and out-resourced.

You can steal Venezuela’s oil for a year, maybe two. But you cannot steal the future. The economic gravity is shifting to the East. The productive capacity is in the East. And now, the moral high ground—as twisted as it sounds—is being claimed by the East.

The Venezuela raid will go down in the history books not as a triumph of American power, but as the moment the American Empire admitted it was bankrupt. They had to break the glass and pull the emergency lever. The oil may flow north for now, but the trust, the influence, and the legitimacy of the dollar have flowed away forever.

The petrodollar is dead. Long live the empire of debt.