alt Hacker NewsThe pro argument I find most convincing is that the US's interest is mostly in restricting oil going from Venezuela to China, which previously was the majority destination of of Venezuela's imports. A similar case can be made for Iran.
China possibly expecting something to this effect has recently built up both it's coal and renewables capacity, as well as an extremely large SPR.
Any claim at all that Trump is running any sort of strategy against China blows right up the second you look at anything else he has done.
All his bullshit market screwing, tariffs, poor diplomacy has pushed everyone right into China's sphere of influence.
Instead of competing with the products China creates, we leave them out of our own market while the rest of the world continues to buy from China.
The stupid as hell war against Iran has eliminated our stocks of munitions, leaving the pacific basically undefended against China. We pulled weapons out of our Pacific allies to go waste them in the desert.
There is no cohesive strategy and China has been preparing for us to cut off their oil for over a decade now, and has made massive strides in the development of independent energy like Solar to protect them.