For the foreseeable future, that probably won’t matter much. The US is now practically a net producer of oil, and certainly relies less on imports much less than it did, say, 10-20 years ago. Moreover, even under Chavez, it was impossible for Venezuela not to sell it to the United States, considering the US and China are the two largest oil consumers.
I see the Russian game in Venezuela being somewhat similar to their game in Syria. Anything that Putin can do to disrupt America’s alliance can weaken us, which is what he wants regardless of whether he puts Russian boots on the ground there or not. Putin wins by disrupting the American economic hegemony and weakening it over time to the point where we have less and less influence on what happens at their doorstep.
So, yeah, Bolton, Abrahams and others look like the boobs they are. However, they do have access to information and are the “best people for the job”, but never mind that, Trump will toss them under the bus.
Donald Trump contradicts top aides by suggesting Putin not meddling in Venezuela
With [del]friends[/del] leaders like that, who needs enemies like Maduro?