Finance, Real Estate and Law Professor Anthony Orlando explains that while the U.S. has expressed a desire to control Venezuelan oil indefinitely, today’s geopolitical landscape makes that goal far more complicated than in the past. “When we went into Iraq, we were living in a unipolar moment as the world’s only great power,” he says. “That era is over. China is now a great power, and most experts consider it a peer competitor. That means it has ways to hurt the U.S. economy and to push back militarily, including through proxy conflicts, if it chooses to oppose such actions.”

This article was originally published by Al Jazeera on January 8, 2026.