By Gold & Geopolitics - March 30, 2026

There’s this theory that’s making the rounds. You’ve probably seen it:

Trump is running the most dangerous geopolitical blitz since Bretton Woods.

And the endgame isn't a trade war.

There's a theory circulating that Trump is running a far more ambitious play -- one designed to collapse BRICS, force China's hand, and lock in dollar dominance for… pic.twitter.com/Z5IrGSrfzZ

— GC Cooke (@Gccooke) March 5, 2026

“Trump is executing a 5D chess maneuver of historic proportions – cutting off China’s energy supply, flipping Russia, blowing up BRICS from the inside, and riding stablecoins to dollar supremacy for the next century”.

I admit, it’s intriguing, it’s bold, and it sounds elegant. It has this satisfying narrative arc with numbered steps and everything.

I, however, find it’s almost utterly bollocks.

I’m going to walk you through it. Piece by piece. Not because the underlying geopolitical moves aren’t real but because the interpretation being sold is the geopolitical equivalent of connecting random dots and calling it a masterpiece.

Let me show you why.

Step 1: Venezuela cuts China’s lifeline

The theory opens with Venezuela as China’s critical energy artery – and severing it as the first domino. The US moves on Venezuelan oil. China’s “lifeline” gets cut. Step one complete.

Well… Not really…

Of all China’s total seaborne crude imports, Venezuela accounted for maybe 4%. Four. That’s a trickle on a good day. Venezuelan crude went mostly to scrappy independent “teapot” refiners who process discounted sanctioned barrels. It’s not some severed jugular. It’s maybe a capillary.

There’s also a reason why those teapots are the buyers and not the big integrated refiners. The bulk of Venezuelan production is ‘Orinoco Belt’ crude. That’s extra-heavy sludge. We’re talking API gravity around 8-16°. For comparison, light sweet crude sits at 40°+. Venezuelan heavy requires specialised upgraders and cokers just to turn it into something a refinery can actually process. It also contains high sulfur on top of that, which means more hydrotreating, more capital, more complexity. It’s cheap precisely because it’s a pain to handle.

The presented theory suggests that Venezuelan oil is a strategic prize. It’s more like a discount bin item that nobody knows how to use.

And then there’s the “lithium, gold, and rare earths” angle. This is where the theory quietly switches from oil to minerals without acknowledging the problem: none of this comes online fast. Mine permitting, construction, and ramp-up run on decade-long timescales in the best conditions – not in a post-intervention country with crumbling infrastructure, unresolved property rights, and no functioning regulatory framework. And rare earths specifically: they’re not actually rare. They exist in many places. What’s rare is the processing capacity, and that’s environmentally horrific – acid leaching, radioactive byproduct management, tailings that contaminate watersheds for decades. China dominates rare earth processing not because they found the best deposits, but because they were willing to do the dirty work nobody else wanted to permit. Building that processing capacity elsewhere takes a decade and enormous political will. Venezuela is not where that happens.

And the moment Venezuelan flows to China started shrinking after Maduro’s capture in January, Chinese teapot refiners pivoted – instantly – to . . .

[SNIP]