WSJ confirms: Trump-appointed Venezuela coup leader plans neoliberal capitalist shock therapy

Venezuela’s US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó plans to privatize state assets and give foreign corporations access to oil, the Wall Street Journal admitted.

by Ben Norton

The Wall Street Journal reported that Venezuela’s US-appointed coup leader Juan Guaidó has already drafted plans for “opening up Venezuela’s vast oil sector to private investment” and “privatizing assets held by state enterprises.”

The report confirms what The Grayzone previously reported.

“Juan Guaidó, recognized by Washington as the rightful leader, said he would sell state assets and invite private investment in the energy industry,” read the Wall Street Journal’s January 31 article.

The paper noted that Guaidó plans “to reverse President Nicolás Maduro’s economic polices,” explaining:

“Mr. Guaidó said his plan called for seeking financial aide from multilateral organizations, tapping bilateral loans, restructuring debt and opening up Venezuela’s vast oil sector to private investment. It includes privatizing assets held by state enterprises … He also said he’d end wasteful state subsidies and take steps to revive the private sector.”

In other words, Guaidó plans to implement the neoliberal capitalist shock therapy that Washington has imposed on the region for decades.

Using funding from US-dominated international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the Venezuelan coup leader seeks to adopt an aggressive “structural adjustment” program, enacting the kinds of economic policies that have led to the preventable deaths of millions of people and an explosion of poverty and inequality in the years following capitalist restoration in the former Soviet Union.

In a speech, Juan Guaidó even echoed rhetoric that is popular among US conservatives: “Here, no one wants to be given anything.”

It is clear that the coup leader’s priorities reflect those of Venezuela’s capitalist oligarchs and right-wing politicians in the United States. Economic liberalization is the Venezuelan opposition’s first and most important goal; democracy is just a pretense.

Source, links:

https://grayzoneproject.com/2019/02/03/wsj-venezuela-coup-leader-juan-guaido-neoliberal-capitalist-shock-therapy/amp/

Comments

Gaza 2 Years On: Yanis Varoufakis & Katie Halper on the Flotilla, Israel's PR Machine & What’s Next

DiEM25 Two years since October 7, Katie Halper (‪@TheKatieHalperShow‬) and Yanis Varoufakis join host Mehran Khalili to break down Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the latest on the flotilla, Israel’s influencer PR push, and the “peace plan”.

World leaders rebel against US & Israel: to save Gaza, they demand international intervention

Geopolitical Economy Report Leaders from dozens of countries condemned the USA and Israel in their speeches at the UN General Assembly, demanding international intervention to save Gaza. Diplomats staged a mass walkout to protest Netanyahu's speech. Ben Norton shows how Latin American governments are standing in solidarity with Palestine.

Freedom Flotilla Coalition & Thousand Madleens to Gaza sailing to break the siege

Freedom Flotilla Coalition The next wave is already being prepared, help us buy the boats and get them ready to sail!

The Rise of the Thielverse & the Surveillance State

The Chris Hedges YouTube Channel Whitney Webb traces the Thielverse’s rise and the construction of the bipartisan modern surveillance state that Trump and his benefactors are deploying against dissidents and immigrants today.

Capitalism & Genocide - Yanis Varoufakis Speech at the Gaza Tribunal, 23rd October 2025, Istanbul

Yanis Varoufakis On 23rd October, Yanis Varoufakis testified in front of the Jury of Conscience in the context of the Gaza Tribunal. His speech focused on the economic forces underpinning the genocide of the Palestinian people. In particular, he spoke on the manner in which capitalist dynamics have historically fuelled the white settler colonial project and, more recently, how the accumulation of a new form of capital - which he calls cloud capital - has accelerated, deepened and amplified the economic forces powering and propelling the machinery of genocide.

Προβλέψεις ...

GR elections Update (15/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το δεύτερο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 28-30% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 2,5-3% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (11/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το πρώτο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 25-28% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (04/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (29/8): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 4-4,5% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 4-4,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update : Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 26-27% ...

WikiLeaks reveals that literally every router in America has been compromised

The latest Wikileaks Vault7 release reveals details of the CIA’s alleged Cherry Blossom project, a scheme that uses wireless devices to access users’ internet activity. globinfo freexchange As cyber security expert John McAfee told to RT and Natasha Sweatte: Virtually, every router that's in use in the American home are accessible to hackers, to the CIA, that they can take over the control of the router, they can monitor all of the traffic, and worse, they can download malware into any device that is connected to that router. I personally, never connect to any Wi-Fi system, I use the LTE on my phone. That's the only way that I can be secure because every router in America has been compromised. We've been warning about it for years, nobody pays attention until something like WikiLeaks comes up and says 'look, this is what's happening'. And it is devastating in terms of the impact on American privacy because once the router...

Confirmed: US imperialists wanted to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine since at least 2019

globinfo freexchange As we wrote in our previous article, after almost eight years, the US imperialists and the NATO criminals got what they wanted. They finally managed to drag Russia into a war with Ukraine. We now have indisputable evidence for that, through a document by the top US think tank, RAND Corporation. In the preface of a 2019 report under the title Extending Russia, Competing from Advantageous Ground we read: [emphasis added] The purpose of the project was to examine a range of possible means to extend Russia. By this, we mean nonviolent measures that could stress Russia’s military or economy or the regime’s political standing at home and abroad. The steps we posit would not have either defense or deterrence as their prime purpose, although they might contribute to both. Rather, these steps ar...

Already happens: Capitalism destroys human labor force and goes to the next phase

by system failure Connecting the dots one can discover the most nightmarish scenarios. Destructive capitalism's next phase is the total substitution of the human labor force with robotic machines, or in other words, the hyper-automatization. There is a process taking place right now, and no one (or nearly no one) knows what would happen after its completion. The true picture behind unemployment From a latest article in PressTV: “ Did you know that there are nearly 102 million working age Americans that do not have a job right now? And 20 percent of all families in the United States do not have a single member that is employed. So how in the world can the government claim that the unemployment rate has “dropped” to '6.3 percent'?” “ Well, it all comes down to how you define who is 'unemployed'. For example, last month the government moved another 988,000 Americans into the 'not in the labor force' category.” http://www.presstv.ir/detail...

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog