Why is Trump Focused on Venezuela?

It's interesting to see how many different reasons people are giving for why Donald Trump is so intently focused on Venezuela. Oil is the obvious first response. But it could be expansion of executive power, or immigration, or fighting drug trafficking, or even minerals. It could be Marco Rubio and Venezuelan expats.

I very much lean toward Jonathan Chait's answer of "who knows." The president gets fixated on particular things for idiosyncratic reasons. It could be partially based on a particularly compelling story he recently heard, read, or saw on TV.

In any case, I don't think it's reasonable to argue that there is one single factor. Some--for all I know, all--of these are combined. Most importantly from an analytical point of view, we have no way at all of using them to understand what is likely to happen. So in a sense it doesn't even matter. I have no idea whether Trump will send U.S. troops into Venezuela. I lean toward no, but that doesn't have anything to do with why Trump is so interested. Rather, it's based on the likely strong political blowback he will inevitably receive from his own base, especially as an occupation becomes drawn out.

This actually ties into the self-proclaimed "Trump Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine" that the administration announced. It's entirely meaningless because it gives us no grip at all on how the administration will act in any given situation, which again is "who knows." The "doctrine" provides no insight into the endgame of Venezuela policy.