Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Well, howdy there, Internet people. It's Belle again. So today, we're going to talk about Trump's Venezuela dreams collapsing. Ever since Trump's military intervention in Venezuela, he's been making promises and statements about the oil in the resource-rich country. He and his administration have said oil companies pledged $100 billion.
Chapter 2: What are Trump's promises regarding Venezuela's oil?
He himself said, quote, They are going to go in. They are going to rebuild the whole oil infrastructure. They are going to spend at least $100 billion. We pointed out that this was likely Trumpian fiction due to the massive risks involved with investing in a politically unstable country and the fact that oil is already being overproduced. He probably should have talked to them first.
Trump met with what was described as the top 14 oil companies. ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods was probably the most blunt and slapped the administration across the face with reality and said, quote, it's uninvestable. There are a number of legal and commercial frameworks that would have to be established to even understand what kind of returns we would get on the investment.
The only company that seems even mildly interested is Chevron, because they're already locked into working down there due to pre-existing deals. With the big boys out, eyes turned to the wildcatters, who are known to take more risks. Harold Hamm is a wildcatter and a huge donor to Trump, so he was at the top of the list to monitor.
He's indicated that there needs to be more assurances first and that it would take time. Trump's meeting went so badly, at one point he reportedly said, if you don't want to go in, just let me know because I've got 25 people that aren't here today that are willing to take your place. No, he doesn't. That's a cute bluff though.
When you get to certain points in most industries, you know, like the point that you can rebuild an entire country's infrastructure, the number of players that can do it is extremely limited, and they all know each other. Trump knows his plan has collapsed because he's already got his staff trying to walk back his claims.
Energy Secretary Chris Wright is already out there trying to mitigate the harm caused by another very public failure for Trump. While talking about Trump's grandiose claims, he said, quote, That's not next week. That's not next month. But that's the trajectory we're aiming to get on.
While that kind of walking back might help Trump politically weather yet another set of failures, and it might even stop people from thinking about this set of pledges that turned out to be fictitious and comparing them to his claimed pledges from businesses related to tariffs. it doesn't help with Venezuela's issue of being rendered more unstable.
If the U.S. can't actually help economically after Trump's little stunt, the odds of the population becoming actively hostile to the U.S. dramatically increases. We talked about how blowback can sometimes take decades to show.
That's assuming a competent administration. Sometimes it shows sooner. Anyway, it's just a thought. Y'all have a good day.
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