SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
erik prince
Trump Admin Planning to Use Private Mercenaries to Shield Oil Plunder Efforts in Venezuela
Erik Prince, the notorious founder of Blackwater, has reportedly been floated as a possible option as the Trump administration seeks help securing and exploiting Venezuela's oil operations.
Jan 15, 2026
The Trump administration is reportedly planning to hire private military contractors—including possibly the notorious mercenary Erik Prince—to provide security as the US works to plunder Venezuela's massive oil reserves.
CNN reported Thursday that "multiple private security companies are already jockeying to get involved in the US presence in Venezuela" as American oil giants push for physical security guarantees before they back President Donald Trump's push for $100 billion in investment in the country.
"Interest is high given the potential payday; during the Iraq War, the US spent some $138 billion on private security, logistics, and reconstruction contractors," the outlet noted. "One source suggested that Erik Prince, the former Blackwater founder and controversial Trump ally, could also be tapped for help. Prince’s Blackwater played an outsized role in Iraq after the 2003 US invasion, providing security, logistics, and support for oil infrastructure. But the firm came under intense scrutiny following the 2007 deadly shooting of Iraqi civilians."
Prince is currently operating in the region, having partnered with Ecuador's right-wing government as part of a crackdown on organized crime that has been replete with human rights abuses.
News of the Trump administration's potential use of private mercenaries in Venezuela came after the US officially completed its first sale of Venezuelan oil. The sale, valued at $500 million, came days after Trump met with top oil executives at the White House to discuss efforts to exploit Venezuela's oil reserves following the illegal US abduction of President Nicolás Maduro earlier this month.
Darren Woods, the CEO of Exxon Mobil, said his company would need "durable investment protections" before making any commitments in Venezuela.
CNN reported Thursday that the Pentagon has "put out a Request for Information to contractors about their ability to support possible US military operations in Venezuela."
"Contractors are also in touch with the State Department’s overseas building operations office to cite interest in providing security if and when the US embassy in Venezuela reopens," according to CNN.
Keep ReadingShow Less
11 Haitians—Including 8 Children—Killed in 'Kamikaze' Drone Strike on Birthday Party
"Who, ultimately, will assume responsibility for this attack: The prime minister? The transitional presidential council? Private security companies? The leadership of Haitian National Police?” asked one advocate.
Sep 23, 2025
A weekend attack by a pair of so-called "kamikaze" drones attributed to Haiti's fragile government killed at least 11 people including eight children, drawing widespread condemnation this week and demands for accountability.
The Miami Herald reported Monday that kamikaze drones, also known as suicide drones, targeted a party in Simon Pelé, a gang-controlled area in the Cité Soleil neighborhood of the capital, Port-au-Prince, where Albert Steevenson, a gang leader also known as Djouma, was celebrating his birthday and handing out gifts to local children.
According to The New York Times, the first exploding drone killed three adults including a pregnant woman and eight children ages 2-10, and wounded six others. A second drone then exploded outside the gang's headquarters, killing four members and injuring others.
Mimose Duclaire, 52, told the Herald that children including her 4-year-old granddaughter Merika Saint-Fort Charles were playing outside when she heard an explosion.
"I heard a ‘boom’ and when I looked I saw her both of her knees were broken and her head was split open," Duclaire said.
"If they cannot effectively use the drones they need to stop their use."
Nanouse Mertelia, 37, told The Associated Press that she was inside her home when she heard an explosion and ran outside to see what was happening, because her son had just left to go get something to eat. That's when she saw her child on the ground with one of his arms and legs blown off.
“Come get me, come get me, please mama,” she said he told her, but it was too late. “By the time we got to the hospital, he died.”
There is still some uncertainty over who carried out the attack. There has been speculation that mercenaries from the private contractor Vectus Global, which was founded by Erik Prince—the founder and ex-CEO of the notorious mercenary firm formerly known as Blackwater—was involved in the strike.
The Times previously reported that Haiti's government is working with Prince “to conduct lethal operations against gangs that are terrorizing the nation and threatening to take over its capital.”
According to the new Times reporting, it is unclear whether Prince's contractors or the Haitian National Police (HNP) were responsible for Saturday's massacre. Neither Prince nor the HNP have responded to Times' requests for comment.
Romain Le Cour, head of the Haiti Observatory at the Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime, told The Guardian Tuesday that the attack raises “urgent questions of accountability."
“It has now been [over] 48 hours since the incident, and the authorities have yet to issue any official communication or assume public responsibility," Le Court said. "Who, ultimately, will assume responsibility for this attack: The prime minister? The transitional presidential council? Private security companies? The leadership of Haitian National Police?”
Regardless of who committed the killings, they have sparked renewed focus on the use of kamikaze drones in Haiti. Pierre Esperance, who heads Haiti's National Human Rights Defense Network, told the Herald that—as in the case of the killing of two elite police officers in a drone strike last month—the culprit appears to be lack of coordination and oversight.
“We’ve always said that the use of drones have to be coordinated with the security forces,” Esperance said. “This is why you have collateral damage... If they cannot effectively use the drones they need to stop their use."
Keep ReadingShow Less
'This Is Bad': Haiti Reportedly Hired Erik Prince to Help Kill Gang Members
"It's hard to overstate how badly wrong bringing in foreign mercenaries, such as those allied with Erik Prince, will likely go given the current security, social, and political dynamics," one journalist warned.
May 28, 2025
"What could possibly go wrong?"
That's a question New York Times readers sarcastically asked on social media Wednesday, after the newspaper reported that Erik Prince, founder of the notorious mercenary firm Blackwater and a key ally of U.S. President Donald Trump, is working with Haiti's interim government "to conduct lethal operations against gangs that are terrorizing the nation and threatening to take over its capital."
The newspaper noted that Prince declined to comment, and while Blackwater is now defunct, the former Navy SEAL "owns other private military entities." The reporting is based on unnamed American and Haitian officials and other security experts.
"Haiti's government has hired American contractors, including Mr. Prince, in recent months to work on a secret task force to deploy drones meant to kill gang members," who "have been killing civilians and seizing control of vast areas of territory" in the Caribbean country, the Times detailed.
"Mr. Prince's team has been operating the drones since March, but the authorities have yet to announce the death or capture of a single high-value target," according to the paper. Pierre Espérance, executive director of the National Human Rights Defense Network in Haiti, said the drone attacks have killed more than 200 people.
American journalist Michael Deibert said on social media, "If this story is accurate, on what authority does Haiti's unelected, temporary interim [government] invite foreign forces into the country and by what means—with whose money—do they intend to pay them for their work there?"
The U.S. State Department has poured millions into Haiti's National Police but told the Times it is not paying Prince.
Deibert said that "as someone who has reported on Haiti's armed groups for 25 years, it's hard to overstate how badly wrong bringing in foreign mercenaries, such as those allied with Erik Prince, will likely go given the current security, social, and political dynamics in the country."
This is Bad. Like Capital B. www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/u...
[image or embed]
— r: The Alignment Problem, Christian (@jacky.wtf) May 28, 2025 at 5:44 PM
Also weighing in on social media, Keanu Heydari, a history Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, said: "A lot's going on here! A majority-Black nation, hollowed out by decades of foreign intervention, 'turning to' a white war profiteer to restore 'order.' That is not about logistics, this is about coloniality."
Heydari continued:
This isn't a story about drones and gangs. It's about how the world has made it structurally impossible for Haiti to govern itself—then offers mercenaries as a "solution." Haiti's sovereignty has been chipped away by debt, coups, U.N. missions, and now private warlords.
Why does Erik Prince show up where Black and Brown countries are in crisis? Because the global market rewards violence disguised as security, especially when it's sold by Westerners to postcolonial states. It's racial capitalism in full view.
The NYT missed the story: This isn't a desperate government making tough choices. It's a story of empire outsourcing control, where mercenaries profit from the very chaos empire helped produce. Haiti deserves justice, not occupation by other means.
The Times article follows The Economist's reporting earlier this month that Haiti's interim government, the Transitional Presidential Council, "is so desperate that it is exploring deals with private military contractors. It has been talking to Osprey Global Solutions, a firm based in North Carolina. The founder of Blackwater, Erik Prince, visited Haiti in April to negotiate contracts to provide attack drones and training for an anti-gang task force. The council declined to comment."
In response to that paragraph in the May 7 article, Jake Johnston, director of international research at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and author of Aid State: Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti, also asked, "What could possibly go wrong?"
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular