Donald Trump’s boast that he will “run” Venezuela and that the money from selling millions of barrels of oil “will be controlled by me, as President” has pushed the world into a new era of geopolitics. But his deployment of US military might to seize Venezuelan oil smacks not so much of a lurch to the future as a return to a past.
For hundreds of years, the world was divided into spheres of influence when competition over resources — from spices to gold and from rubber to oil — led to the colonisation of nations and the determination of national boundaries.
It is only in the postwar period that international law and global trade rules have held a tenuous sway. Now that order appears to be breaking down and reverting to a former age characterised by resource imperialism.