Whatever else the United States is up to around Venezuela, it’s probably not after the country’s oil. There is lots of chatter—and plenty of memes —about U.S. interest in the world’s largest oil reserves. Similar shadows hung over the United States with Bolivia and its lithium in 2019—theories that were baseless but boundless . Still, there is reason to wonder, given U.S. President Donald Trump’s own oft-repeated complaint that the United States should have “kept the oil” from Iraq after the U.