Extractive capitalism and Trump’s adventurism

President Donald Trump

“The gleaming cities of capital, the spires of skyscrapers, our handheld devices with access to avalanches of information, data centres that perform the millions of calculations our gadgets require to function, the transportation we take on land and sea or in the air all depend on the extraction of raw materials from the earth..... Primary commodities like sand, iron ore, bauxite, coal – and of course oil - are excavated, transported, refined or assayed, and then sold on at great markup. Where labour is unionised and legally protected, the process of extraction is increasingly automated. Where labour – or life – is cheap, many of the steps in the process of extraction are still performed manually. Think of shipbreaking in South Asia or stevedoring in Africa, which still rely on the power of human muscles rather than gleaming high-tech machinery. To understand how globally and locally unequal the world was made, extractive capitalism holds many of the answers (Laleh Khalili, Extractive Capitalism, Profile Books, 2025, pp. 1-2).

EGOMANIAC Donald Trump’s adventure into Venezuela, kidnapping its head of state Nicolas Maduro, producing him before a US court on charges of narcotrafficking and threatening the interim head of that country Delcy Rodriguez of even more punishing consequences if she doesn’t abide by Trump’s plan for Venezuela, if anything, has made a mockery of national sovereignty and the rule of international law. Following this adventure Trump has renewed his threat either to annex Greenland or buy it outright, has threatened to invade Cuba, Panama, Mexico and a few other countries in Latin America and the Caribbean, and is crowing about bombing Iran to reinstall the Pahlavi Monarchy: all this indicates that the US Presidency under this maniac has become a “threat to civilization” as the American political economist Robert Reich put it, and signals the collapse of a world order which the US itself pioneered to install after WWII. But is Trump acting alone or in concert with the agents of another program?        

If there is one common element that links all of Trumps erratic actions internationally it is his, or rather his agents’ voracious thirst for oil, natural gas and rare earth minerals - the lifeblood of extractive capitalism. During Trump’s first term as US President, he withdrew US support for the Paris Accord on climate change because that would put a brake on drilling operations. He also initiated the Abraham Accord in the Middle East not with any love for peace in Palestine, but to encourage the Gulf countries to normalise relations with Israel so that they, Israel and the US, could commercially exploit the natural resources of oil and gas in Palestine waters. This again is the ultimate agenda behind his 10 October 2025 ceasefire hoax for Gaza endorsed shamelessly by eight Muslim countries including Turkey, Indonesia and Pakistan. The US boycott of COP30 in Brazil last year and the Interior Department’s release of 1.3 billion km2 of US seawaters for drilling for oil and gas are all measures to satisfy the unceasing appetite for profit and power for the agents of extractive capitalism.     

Agents of extractive capitalism 

Who are these agents? They are primarily the multinational corporations which virtually control governments in the Global North irrespective of those governments’ philosophical hues. The US economy whether managed by Republicans or Democrats is virtually a prisoner of US corporations. Trump’s tariff war against foreign competitors is also more in the interests of domestic corporations than that of US consumers.  In the oil and gas industry, there are about 30 such corporations, although they are not the world’s largest, whose lobby groups are quite influential in ruling circles. Trump’s invasion of Venezuela, his daring seizure of Venezuelan oil carrying ships and his audacity to declare US management of that country’s oil resources, which are known to be the world’s largest, would not have happened without the backing of US oil companies. Venezuela’s interim president Rodriguez has announced her willingness to negotiate with the Trump administration on this issue. To that extent Trump seems to have won. However, if Trump could get away with it why not other regional giants like China and India in the Asian region?

Where do profits from the US oil and gas industry end up eventually? It ends up strengthening the infamous US Military Industrial Complex and enriching the US weapons manufacturing industry, which is undoubtedly the world’s largest. A part of these weapons is now being exported quite regularly to Israel to help Netanyahu’s genocide in Gaza, take over the West Bank and allow Trump to enter as a sinister peacemaker whose ultimate objective is to grab Palestine’s oil and gas resources jointly with members of the infamous Abraham Accord which he engineered in 2015.  Extractive capitalism via Trump’s adventurism has become the handmaiden of US imperialism.  

The so-called World Order erected after WWII, refurbished after the victory of liberalism in 1980s celebrated as “The End of History and the Last Man” is collapsing before the very eyes of the celebrators. An order that was expected to narrow the gap between the haves and have nots has widened immeasurably to make the ratio 99:1 meaningful.  Emigration of the able and struggling from the Global South to the Global North has become unstoppable despite measures to restrict immigration. Trump has become the leading campaigner against immigration to translate his Make America Great Again (MAWA dream to Make America White Again (MAWA). The ruling world order if anything has succeeded in creating an international division of humanity between the Global North and Global South. Extractive capitalism is accentuating this division.

Is the US eyeing 

Sri Lanka’s minerals?  

However, there is also a geopolitical side to Trump’s adventurism in Venezuela, and that is to protect the US backyard from the menacing intrusion of other imperial hegemons like China and Russia.  Economically China has out beaten US if one were to measure their respective economic growth in terms of the Purchasing Power Parity theory. Russia on the other hand is already a challenge to Europe as evidenced by the saga over Ukraine. To the disappointment of Trump, the EU is not spending enough on weapons and its financial contribution to NATO is also, according to him, insufficient. Given this background the US is not going to tolerate either Russia or China flexing their muscles closer to what US considers as its zone of influence.  Hence the invasion and kidnapping of Maduro. Trump’s warning to Iran and preparation to bring about a regime change there by installing one of the remnants of the Pahlavi dynasty is also to keep China away from the Middle East and regain access to Iranian oil. 

Finally, Trump’s hunt for rare earth minerals may have put Sri Lanka also under the US radar, because this island lies closest to the Indian Ocean Avinash seamount which is rich in cobalt and lithium.  Extractive capitalism prioritises short-term gains of a tiny minority at the expense of long-term sustainability of the vast majority. Its impact is both brutal and destructive to people and ecosystems as Ditwah has taught Sri Lanka.      

(The writer is attached to the School of Business and Governance, Murdoch University, Western Australia.)