Venezuela key customer China no longer needs it

Down and out: People walk past a mural depicting the now ousted Maduro in Caracas. Venezuela’s new parliament opened recently with lawmakers forcibly denouncing the recent capture of the leftist leader. — AFP

FROM one angle, the United States action to arrest Venezuela’s former President Nicolas Maduro and seize control of the country’s oil industry is an attempt to muscle China’s influence out of the Americas.

In a world breaking up into spheres of influence, the Donroe doctrine tells Beijing to keep its meddling hands out of the empire of crude that President Donald Trump is building in the Western Hemisphere.