The US didn't have an issue with nationalized wealth in Vietnam or Korea as there weren't any US companies there. And nationalism doesn't prevent US firms from making a profit. The minerals need to be processed to become worth something - this processing is something that US companies do. The reason I mention oil is because that is what is mentioned constantly. The Seven Sisters, Big Oil, blah, blah, blah. This argument was used before I was born. It was used when I was in college and grad school and it is still being used. "The US is in Afghanistan because of an oil pipeline." "The US went to Iraq to steal it's oil." So. If Truman/Eisenhower went to Korea for the oil and (minerals) and Kennedy/Johnson went to Vietnam for the oil; and Bush went to Iraq and Afghanistan for the oil and the minerals - where is it? Why wasn't it taken? Nah. It's because we were there for other reasons.
Firstly, I didn't really hear the suggestion that the U.S. went to some of these place 'because of oil' either from the from those arguing for or against the actions.
Secondly, the world is fairly awash in oil, and fossil fuels more generally. Transport is a factor, but probably not the main one. Once the 'rights' have been established, the owners main problem is to NOT have the resource on the market. Artificial scarcity is the way to extract the biggest profits because you get more money from users for less product.
To be more clear, if I own the drilling rights in (A) but not (B), I cannot provoke artificial scarcity in the market by closing (A) because (B) will pick up the slack and reap the rewards. I need to contro (A) and (B). If I do then it's a no-brainer to close (A) for a while to jack the prices up and collect the profits of my operations in (B)
Artificial scarcity can be accomplished by 'creative destruction' of a region (it's society and it's infrastructure) or by more novel means like the global climate change fraud. Or some combination there-of.
WRT global climate change, no matter what the greenies accomplish (which won't be much since they are useful idiots and pawns in the energy companies game) there is no way people are going to stop using oil. What will happen is that they might get oil up to $500/barrel. They Exxon makes an ungodly amount of money for doing nearly nothing. This on top of the money they make selling solar panels.
Back to Venezuela, I suspect that the goal of the U.S.'s activities is to completely remove all Venezuelan heavy crude from the market for a long long time. Probably by turning the country into the next Libya. The few Venezuelan peeps who actually believe that they are going to get back to the deal where Exxon took most of the profits but at least provided some jobs are in for a rude awakening I'll bet.