Search results for "venezuela"

Trump's massive new economic boast exists only inside his head

Donald Trump is not very good at running the economy, but he does have a great imagination about how he runs the economy. Trump continually boasts about the incredible amount of foreign investment coming into the country. It was $20 trillion last I heard, but it might be up to $30 or $40 trillion the next time Trump decides to boast about it.

This boast has absolutely nothing to do with reality. Contrary to what Trump says, there is no boom in auto factories or any other factories coming into the United States. Factory construction has actually plummeted since Trump came into the White House, after booming under Biden.

The looniness about the investment boom should be kept in mind when considering Trump’s deal to take control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuela’s oil. Trump is promising that this deal will both lower gas prices and be used to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserves that he has largely drained as a result of his war on Iran.

If Venezuela doesn’t honor this deal, what will a future administration do, take them to court? Or will they send US soldiers to die for Venezuela’s oil?

While people are naturally offended by the blatant imperialism in this deal, that is precisely the reason why there is not much cause to be concerned. The basic story is, because the deal is so transparently an effort by the United States to steal oil from a country that it controls militarily, it is virtually guaranteed that as soon as the country is not run by a U.S.-installed dictator, Trump’s deal will be dumped in the trash.

This point was well-made by Venezuelan economist and opposition leader Ricardo Haussman (also cited in a piece by Michael Tomasky in The New Republic). The deal is seen as a joke by pretty much everyone in Venezuela.

If Venezuela doesn’t honor this deal, what will a future administration do, take them to court? Or will they send US soldiers to die for Venezuela’s oil?

In terms of its immediate impact, there is not some spigot that can be turned on that will get massive amounts of Venezuela’s oil flowing. It’s currently producing around 1.25 million barrels a day. While it has massive reserves, its production facilities deteriorated badly as a result of U.S. sanctions. The country was largely unable to get needed parts, and it lacked funding because it was prevented from selling its oil to much of the world.

Oil production can only get back to its 3 million barrel a day turn-of-the-century pace with billions of dollars of foreign investment. It is unlikely that this deal will make companies happier about putting large sums at risk. Any investment will only pay off over many years, long after Trump will be out of office.

It also is not plausible to use Venezuela’s oil to refill the Strategic Reserves. Venezuela’s oil is very heavy and highly acidic. The Strategic Reserve is designed for light, alkaline oil. It could not easily store Venezuela’s oil.

In short, file Trump’s Venezuelan oil deal with the $60 trillion in foreign investment pouring into the country. It exists only in his head.

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‘Congratulations on combating socialism’: Trump Republican cornered on TV

Oil prices continue to rise as the war with Iran rages on. CENTCOM announced that new strikes on Iran were launched around 12 p.m. EST. The attack came after Trump said that he was pivoting to try sanctions against Iran again.

Gasoline prices were up over $4 per gallon every day in the month of August, CNN reported, and the stock market didn't appear to be happy about the new strikes and oil surged to over $94 a barrel. Before the war began, fuel prices were below $3 a gallon, but today they are up 38 percent at an average of $4.10, AAA reports.

Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton agreed that the situation is "bad" for Republicans as the election approaches, but claimed that "it's always bad," quoting Democrat James Carville saying "it's the economy, stupid" over 36 years ago.

"Now, look, if the president can somehow figure out a way to utilize an executive authority to get these CEOs to lower prices, maybe you work with Congress and say, we'll offer a 4 or 5 year tax incentive," Singleton proposed. That said, he acknowledged that there are few days left for the legislature to do anything, much less for it to take effect.

The White House announced a "deal" with Venezuela that would grant the U.S. rights to billions of dollars in oil. Co-host Brianna Keilar said that it's not going to work because something like that will take a very long time before it's effective. CNBC reported on Monday that the deal isn't going to lower fuel prices. Barron's noted that getting the oil to tankers will require at least $100 billion in infrastructure investments from the United States.

Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett explained that the White House is simply "Trying to save face and convince the American people that they're going to lower their gas prices before the midterms. That's not going to happen."

He explained that every expert reviewing the Venezuela deal has made it clear that Americans wouldn't see any savings at the pump for 5-15 years. But worse, he said that the talking point isn't great for Republicans who are desperately trying to make the election about socialism and communism.

"And, you know, it's funny that we're having that we keep having these conversations, you know, in the midterms about socialism and communism," said Hackett. "Meanwhile, the president is pursuing a plan to have the U.S. military seize a 35 percent stake in a Venezuelan oil company. So congratulations on combating socialism. You brought it into Venezuela and into America. It's great!"

That's when Singleton laughed awkwardly and confessed, "That's a good talking point. That's a whole — I'll give you that one."

"That's a whole other panel," said Keilar.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

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A quiet storm's brewing —and it could change everything before the midterms

It has been more than two months since President Donald Trump’s tentative ceasefire with Iran broke down, and gasoline prices are still high. With the midterm elections looming, the president seems to have turned his attention to the problem, rolling out a series of actions he says will secure more crude oil from Venezuela and exempt refineries from renewable fuel mandates. Most recently, he summoned refiners to the White House earlier this week to discuss ways to lower prices at the pump, although the refiners left without making any public statements and the White House didn’t publish a list of the attendees.

This story was originally published by Grist. Sign up for Grist's weekly newsletter here.

In the months since the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, the world has found ways to conserve oil and move Middle East crude around, but structural factors are still keeping prices high. The U.S. average gas price on Thursday was around $4.11 per gallon, up more than 90 percent from this time last year, and diesel was even higher.

The “crack spread,” which is the difference in price between crude oil and refined gasoline and diesel, soared to an historic high of more than $70 per barrel. This is a clear sign that the market for refined products is going haywire, and oil companies are raking in profits. The largest refineries in the United States have been operating at almost maximum capacity for several weeks now, longer than at any time in recent history, and they have deferred regular maintenance to take advantage of these soaring prices.

The president’s frustration with the high fuel cost has become clear over the course of the summer.

“Based on a shortage, they’re making too much money,” Trump said at an Oval Office briefing last month. “They ought to give some of that back to the public, and they better cut the retail price, the consumer price.”

The biggest reason prices have remained high is that there isn’t enough refining capacity to make gasoline from all the available oil. Many refineries in the Middle East have shut down during the conflict, and Russia’s diesel refineries are also offline thanks to Ukrainian drone attacks. The remaining refineries in North America and China are not large enough to fill that gap.

In its effort to lower prices at the pump, the Trump administration first turned to Venezuela, where it kidnapped leader Nicolas Maduro in January and announced a plan to revive the country’s moribund oil industry. Experts said after the Maduro raid that American companies would be hesitant to tap Venezuela’s oil reserves, but the Trump administration has tried to make the country more palatable by easing sanctions and pushing interim leader Delcy Rodriguez to rewrite the country’s oil laws.

These efforts seem to be paying off. The Pentagon announced last week that it would take a stake in North American Blue Energy Partners, a private Venezuelan company that controls around 20 percent of the country’s reserves; the company plans to increase production in oil fields that had once been drilled by China and Russia. Alejandro Betancourt, the head of the company, has been described as Trump’s “viceroy” in Venezuela, and earlier this year, the Trump administration helped him avoid a Swiss arrest warrant. Chevron, the largest U.S. company that operates in Venezuela, also announced on Wednesday that it would double its production there, signing an agreement with the Rodriguez government at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas.

“In general, the read is positive,” said Ramón Andrade, a lawyer focused on the energy business and a partner at the law firm Ponte Andrade & Casanova in Caracas. He said that the business community in Venezuela is optimistic about a revival of the sector, but cautioned that on the Pentagon deal, “I think we need to look at what’s actually going to be signed.”

Even so, there is no chance that this will help reduce gasoline prices, even after the midterms. For one thing, only a small number of U.S. refineries can process the heavy crude from Venezuela, and they are already working overtime to take advantage of high fuel prices.

“Everything that the Venezuelans could produce right now, I’m sure they’re squeezing out,” said Al Salazar, an analyst at the energy firm Enverus Intelligence who studies oil and gas markets. “You could get incremental production out of there in six to twelve months, but what really is causing the gasoline and diesel price spike is the lack of refining capacity.”

For another thing, scaling up production will take many years, if the legal agreement with the Pentagon even holds that long — the final details aren’t yet available, and some parties have alleged that conceding resource wealth to the United States would violate the Venezuelan constitution. The interim government has yet to face voters in an actual election.

“You need that long runway to be able to develop this resource,” said Salazar, who spent decades in the Canadian oil industry, which also produces heavy oil like Venezuela’s.

The administration’s other major move this week might do more to keep prices down at the margins, though likely not enough for most consumers to notice. The Environmental Protection Agency ended its summer ethanol blending requirements early. The rules mandate that refiners and fuel importers add ethanol to the nation’s fuel supply to reduce gasoline-caused smog. It also announced a series of waivers that would exempt a few dozen refineries around the country from having to integrate biofuel into their diesel and gasoline products. The purpose of this “renewable fuels standard” is to support farmers and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, since biofuels don’t warm the planet as oil does, but many oil industry parties argue that using ethanol drives up costs for refiners.

A number of major lobbies opposed these waivers. Midwestern politicians and biofuel associations argued that they will harm farmers by reducing demand for the corn that makes ethanol, and even the American Petroleum Institute warned that sudden exemptions would create an unpredictable business environment for refineries. The two sides of the biofuel debate argue that the exemptions either will or won’t reduce gasoline prices. Given that crude oil prices are still high, it’s possible ethanol is a cheaper ingredient than oil, and it’s unclear whether the exempt refiners like Marathon and Chevron will pass costs on to customers.

Even with the waivers, gasoline prices in many states are $1.50 above their pre-Iran highs. The early months of the conflict hinged on the question of the Strait of Hormuz, but even if the strait were to open tomorrow, the gasoline market will remain tight, and neither more oil from Venezuela nor cheaper inputs will free up refining capacity.

“I think it’s going to have a tremendous impact; ultimately, prices are going to come down,” said Trump at the Oval Office on Monday. “Will it happen before the election? I can’t tell you that.” The stubborn high prices do not bode well for Republicans in the midterm elections. On average, the president’s party loses 25 more congressional seats in midterm elections after gas prices spike than in those after gas prices go down, according to a Politico analysis of elections since 1978.

Things could get even worse by then. Around half of U.S. refining capacity is located on the Gulf of Mexico, in the bullseye for Atlantic hurricanes. Forecasters are predicting a quiet season, but there’s still potential for a massive outage. Tropical Depression Edouard formed in the Gulf of Mexico and passed over a Texas refinery complex this week, but it fizzled out before it could become a major storm.

This article originally appeared in Grist at https://grist.org/energy/trump-iran-venezuela-biofuels-gasoline/.

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Trump's crazy new cheap scheme destined to backfire in spectacular fashion

Here we go again with American colonialism, this time with a crazy scheme Trump thinks is “brilliant.”

You’d have thought we’d have learned our lesson with our stupid intervention in Iran in 1953, which led us straight to America’s humiliation in 1980 and today’s war with the Mullahs. This is going to be an epic disaster, one that will most likely cost us dearly in both American blood and treasure.

Back in February of 1989 I arrived in Caracas, Venezuela for a brief visit. Just a few hundred yards onto Venezuelan soil, I was stopped by a group of soldiers who told me I had to turn back and leave the country. My main memory is how young they were and how they seemed apologetic.

What I’d stumbled into was an uprising called the Caracazo.

Four years earlier, Reagan and his Treasury Secretary James Baker had begun leaning hard on Venezuela to cut back on their social programs and reduce their taxes on rich people, just like they’d done here with trickle-down, only this one under the banner of “austerity” and IMF-supervised “restructuring.”

Venezuela’s President when I arrived was Carlos Andrés Pérez, a guy who’d successfully campaigned in 1988 against the Reagan/Bush austerity plan, calling the entire thing “a neutron bomb that kills people but leaves buildings standing.” He’d also been the president five years earlier, and in that time had nationalized Venezuela’s oil, making him a bit of a folk hero.

But when he took office on February 2, 1989, three weeks before I arrived, the previous president (Jaime Lusinchi) had run the country $33 billion into debt, giving Bush and the IMF an excuse to force their neoliberal austerity program onto new President Pérez, who — disastrously — went along with it. His first step was to raise bus fares, which he thought would be benign. It wasn’t.

In the country with the largest proven oil reserves on Earth — larger than Saudi Arabia’s, Russia’s, or America’s — Bush’s price for debt relief was that the country’s poor had to pay more to get to work. Just 25 days later, the day I arrived, millions of angry people flooded the streets in response to that increase in bus fares and Pérez declared a state of national emergency.

By the end of the next afternoon, the 28th, Pérez had suspended the constitution and his army had killed at least 276 civilians and wounded another 1,500. Human rights groups said thousands died as bodies were dumped into unmarked pits in a corner of the Cementerio General del Sur that Caraqueños call La Peste, “the plague.” The brutal state of emergency, endorsed by US President GHW Bush, lasted another month.

Now, we’re not only risking a repeat of that, but we’ve also run this movie before in other countries. In an incredible irony, the most well-known of those was Iran in 1953 when our CIA overthrew democratically-elected Iranian President Mohammad Mossadegh because he’d nationalized that country’s oil.

We replaced Mossadegh with the brutal, repressive rule of the Shah, and we’re still paying for that one, this time with American blood and treasure thanks to Trump’s and Hegseth’s criminal attack and bumbling incompetence.

Calling his latest imperialist scam in Venezuela “the biggest oil deal in world history,” Trump is now filling in some of the details of his corrupt attempt to make off with some 65 billion barrels of oil sitting across 17 fields that represent about a fifth of Venezuela’s estimated 303 billion barrels total.

And it’s a grim repeat of our worst experiments in colonialism from the 19th and early 20th centuries. As Gregory Brew, senior energy analyst with the Eurasia Group, told Fortune magazine yesterday:

“If the U.S. scheme in Venezuela sounds colonial, that’s because it is.”

Trump tried to put a happy face on his scheme to steal Venezuela’s oil by saying that he’ll be using it to refill our Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which he’s drained down to 286 million barrels in a desperate attempt to lower gas prices, its lowest level since 1982 in the wake of the Arab Oil Embargoes.

But, like with so much else Trump says, that’s an easily disproven lie; our salt caves can’t hold Venezuela’s thick, heavy sour crude because they and their pumping equipment are designed and built for light, sweet crude like we pump here. Putting Venezuelan oil into them would gum them up and destroy their usefulness forever.

We do have, however, massive refineries along the Gulf coast that were built by the Koch brothers and others specifically for that heavy Venezuelan crude back in the days when it was easily flowing to America. They’re probably salivating at the opportunity to dump the expensive Canadian tar sands oil they’re now refining and get back to the cheaper and easier stuff from down south. Perhaps this was all even their idea.

Trump says he’s “negotiated” a 100-year lease with Delcy Rodríguez, the illegitimate “acting president” of Venezuela who was Maduro’s VP when the two of them lost the election but stayed in power anyway. Today, the only things keeping her in power — after a majority of voters said “No” — are their army and our Navy and Air Force.

Like I said, we’ve seen this movie before.

To make things even more classically Trumpian, he’s giving the contract to handle this oil we’re snatching to an allegedly corrupt billionaire who’s wanted for arrest in Switzerland, a fellow named Alejandro Betancourt López.

López made his fortune from insider no-bid power plant contracts with Chávez; Transparency International’s Venezuelan chapter estimated he’d overcharged the Venezuelan government by $2.9 billion. American prosecutors identified him as an “unnamed co-conspirator” in a scheme they say embezzled more than a billion dollars from those deals, leading Swiss authorities to freeze his assets and issue an international arrest warrant for him.

When British police arrested Betancourt López in London in November of 2025, The Washington Post reports that Trump’s senior officials intervened, pushed the Swiss to close the case without charges, refused to act on the arrest warrant, and gave him a visa to enter the United States.

The corrupt lawyer who argued in American courts that López shouldn’t be charged with embezzlement was then staying at one of López’s mansions in Madrid and has a familiar name: Rudy Giuliani.

So, not only did Trump and Hegseth illegally and without congressional authorization invade a sovereign country, kill more than a hundred people, and abduct its head of state, but we then handed a massive chunk of that country’s oil — for the next century — to a man whose arrest warrant we’re sitting on and refusing to execute.

Meanwhile, nobody can find the money from the tanker-carried oil we first seized right after our invasion of Venezuela.

According to The Financial Times, Trump collected roughly $13 billion selling seized Venezuelan crude, routed at first through a bank account he controlled in Qatar, and six months later it appears to have vanished into thin air. It’s definitely not back in Venezuela.

Elizabeth Warren says the entire oil seizure and sale is a crime, and Democratic Representative Juaquin Castro and Republican Representative María Elvira Salazar are echoing her sentiment. The money didn’t even show up when the country was begging for it this June when two earthquakes killed 2,595 people and they desperately needed the cash for rescue and reconstruction.

Given all this, it should be obvious that this sleazy deal is going to fail, and that failure will be both spectacular, bloody, and expensive.

Exxon and ConocoPhillips are still owed billions from Chavez’ nationalization and aren’t going anywhere near this one. Trump sneered at Concoco’s CEO when he asked for reparations for what was taken from them back in the day.

And oil industry experts say it’ll take years, perhaps a decade, to get Venezuelan production meaningfully increased, a timeline that will run well past the political lifetimes of both Trump and Rodríguez.

Get ready: somewhere in the barrios I once worked in above Caracas, a young officer and his friends are running the political arithmetic I saw people doing during those hours I was there in February of 1989. He’ll be the next Hugo Chavez, the guy who overthrew López and re-nationalized the oil.

Seriously, do we really think the citizens of that country — after all they’ve been through over the past four generations — are just going to sit back and take it as our military props up a government nobody elected, hand their oil money to an accused money launderer Trump crony, and let us ship the proceeds through a Trump-owned bank account in Qatar?

Is anybody in America that naïve other than Republican voters who live on a diet of Fox “News”? As Senator Jack Reed — the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee — said:

“President Trump’s effort to turn the U.S. military into an investor in Venezuelan oil is a blatant abuse of power and taxpayer dollars.”

Which raises the question: Where are Republicans who control Congress on this harebrained doomed-to-fail scheme? Every one of them knows just how crazy it is, but it seems most of them are figuring that their silence will buy them a million-dollar-a-year lobbying job if they can just keep their heads down and not challenge Trump and his oil billionaire buddies.

Call your senators and your representative at 202-224-3121 and ask them what happened to Venezuela’s $13 billion and to support a war powers resolution to stop Trump’s insane war against Iran and further military actions in Venezuela.

And if my experience and this information that I spent hours digging up and composing was useful to you, please share it and subscribe to the Hartmann Report. Independent journalism like this doesn’t have a corrupt billionaire behind it. I just have you.

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Congress stops Pentagon from carrying out Trump’s oil scheme

President Donald Trump's new scheme to try and reduce fuel costs ahead of the election was to announce that he'd be taking some of the Venezuelan oil. But, Congress told the Pentagon it's not legal, Semafor reported Thursday.

Experts have made it clear that the thick, tar-like oil in Venezuela's fields requires a specialized refineries to process the oil into usable fuel. There's also a major infrastructure issue. The country lacks the necessary upgrades to get it out of the oil fields. Infrastructure has suffered years of under-investment and deterioration, CNBC reported. Repairing pipelines, power systems, drilling equipment and upgrades could take years.

But oil reserves aren't the same as barrels currently being produced. Experts agree that, at most, Trump's plot could put modest downward pressure on prices over the longer term, but it likely wouldn't impact fuel prices for 10-15 years, the report said.

Semafor cited a person familiar with the matter who said that Congress told the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital that it doesn't have the authority to take an equity stake in a private company. Trump used the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Capital to take an equity stake in the second-largest oil firm in Venezuela.

"It did so by declining to pass legislative proposals that would have granted the office the legal authority to seek equity stakes that were submitted by the Pentagon in recent years," the person told Semafor.

Skeptical lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are asking the Trump administration to give information about the effort and how it would work.

The more immediate problem is accessing oil elsewhere, like Iran. Analysts made it clear that the Iran conflict and disruptions in global oil routes are exerting a much greater short-term influence on prices than Trump's Venezuela scheme.

U.S. pump prices respond to worldwide crude prices, refinery capacity, transportation costs, seasonal demand and geopolitical disruptions. It trades on the global market. So, even Trump flooding the U.S. market with oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) can only go on so long. The Reserve continues to blow through its nearly 290 million barrels left in an effort to soften the blow of soaring gas prices.

Currently, U.S. refineries are operating at near capacity (97 percent), the Wall Street Journal reported this week. More oil doesn't automatically mean more gasoline if there isn't enough refinery capacity to process it.

Venezuelan oil would be only one additional source of supply and could not control the global market on its own.

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Living in a fantasy: Trump’s biggest liability isn't his lies

President Donald Trump’s greatest political liability is not simply his dishonesty or stubbornness, but his delusion, writes The New Republic's Michael Tomasky.

In a Monday column, Tomasky describes Trump's inability to recognize reality when it conflicts with his preferred one. Recent examples include Trump's belief that the affordability crisis is a "Democrat hoax." The other is Trump's delusion that he can make gas prices better and bypass the necessity for Iranian oil by using Venezuelan oil. Trump captured the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro just after the first of the year. In his absence, the remainder of his government has been largely cooperative with the U.S.

This all mixes in with Trump ignoring public polling about his failing popularity and the consequences of his policies.

First, Trump's belief that he can seize Venezuelan oil and solve the gas crisis isn't merely optimistic, but a fantastical understanding of what he thinks is American leverage.

Tomasky contends that the underlying facts are far less favorable: Venezuela’s oil industry faces substantial infrastructure and production constraints, and that adds to the kind of oil that Venezuela produces, which is tar-like and can only go through a few refineries in the U.S. Any agreement is unlikely to deliver the rapid, sweeping relief that Trump believes he can accomplish by the November 3 elections.

Tomasky explains that Trump is not merely exaggerating a diplomatic or energy-policy win, he is treating a hoped-for outcome as though it has already solved all of his problems. It's different from a politician who might stretch the truth, because at the very least, they understand the reality. Trump is creating his own reality because he simply can't admit his mistakes and his advisors protect his ego over the truth. It's all with the hope that his supporters will follow along with him.

It poses serious problems for the 2026 midterms. According to Tomasky, a president facing weak approval ratings as well as voter anger about affordability would ordinarily try to change course. There could be options to lower consumer costs, offer relief to affected industries, or revise policies that are driving public dissatisfaction.

But, the author argues, "won’t do these things because he doesn’t think anything is wrong. In fact, his plan right now is to make himself the centerpiece of the GOP’s midterm message and to that end will reportedly redirect part of a $400 million kitty on 'television advertisements about his own record.'"

Tomasky calls that record outright "delulu."

First, he said, "the Associated Press reported over the weekend that there are many aspects of this deal we don’t know about. First of all, the U.S. government and 'an unnamed private operator' formed a new company that was given the rights to 17 oil fields for 100 years. Gee, ya think maybe that operator is some kind of friend of Trump? Or maybe that Trump himself has a piece of the company?"

Second, the country's infrastructure is so bad that it will take years to repair, which means years before any oil can get out. Meanwhile, there's a question about who is paying for these infrastructure improvements. Trump claimed it wouldn't cost taxpayers anything, but he also made the same comment about his ballroom and now taxpayers are on the hook for over $600 million.

Tomasky gives it about a year before America finds out just how corrupt the deal is. In the end, it won't do much to help Trump shore up votes for the 2026 election.

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The real story behind Trump’s 'no-cost' Venezuelan oil deal

President Donald Trump is touting a potentially massive new deal with Venezuela, but as a new piece from The i Paper argued, it seems primed to become yet another promise from him that will ultimately mean "almost nothing in reality."

Writing for the outlet this week, reporter and columnist James Ball detailed the "BIGGEST OIL DEAL IN WORLD HISTORY" that Trump claimed was underway between the U.S. and Venezuela, months after he ordered a military operation to detain its leader, Nicolás Maduro. The president claimed that the deals would give the U.S. "control of more than 65 BILLION BARRELS of proven oil reserves in Venezuela, at no cost to the American taxpayer.”

Given that "the federal government would not involve itself in such a deal" and given the fraught recent circumstances between the two nations, Ball suggested that the deal could be "something else" entirely, "one sovereign nation seizing the oil reserves of another without proper consent or compensation." This possibility is especially concerning, given that many now argue that interim Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez lacks the authority to make such a deal.

Beyond that, Ball also suggested that the deal could be yet another "dramatic" boast from Trump that will never materialize, or come to pass in a much more meager state than promised.

"This is the sort of stuff that used to top the headlines for days at a time, but Trump’s announcement has made barely a ripple – partly because no one is at all sure whether the Venezuelan oil deal is even real," Ball wrote. "If it is, then it has seismic implications for international law, for oil markets and more. But the US President announcing something is no longer a reliable indicator as to whether or not it’s really happening."

He continued: "Trump has announced huge tariff packages that never materialise. He has announced what seems like dozens of peace deals and ceasefires with Iran, some of which fall apart within minutes of his social posts. Last month, he declared a deal to permanently disarm Hamas, only for it to transpire that Israel had never even signed up to the agreement. Time and again, Trump tries to make dramatic moves on the world stage, only for them to turn out to mean almost nothing in reality."

Ball noted that such a deal, which could violate foundational international laws surrounding national sovereignty, could be the latest in a growing line of moves from Trump that "would overturn the world’s existing international order" if executed, citing such examples as his "jokes" about annexing Canada and Greenland as new states.

"Perhaps on some level, Trump is succeeding in normalizing his erratic and preposterous behavior," Ball added. "It is simply not possible to maintain a constant level of outrage every day for 18 months, even against the most extreme of provocations. But something more than exhaustion might be at work here. Partly, it is increasingly difficult to take Donald Trump seriously, because so few of his announcements are actually backed up by substance."

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Another Big Oil exec says he’s not swayed by Trump-controlled Venezuela

President Donald Trump’s decision last month to invade Venezuela has not persuaded Total Energies, one of the Big Oil companies Trump urged to return to the country, that overthrowing former President Nicolás Maduro will be good for business.

Although Trump is insisting Big Oil will invest heavily in US-occupied Venezuela because they “have Trump as a president,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné told reporters that his company initially quit the country in 2022 for reasons that Trump's invasion has not changed.

"It was too expensive and too polluting," Pouyanné explained, "and that is still the case.”

Pouyanné is not alone among Big Oil CEOs to not back Trump's Venezuela policy. After visiting the White House and speaking with Trump, Exxon CEO Darren Woods made headlines for saying that the Venezuelan market is “uninvestable” in its current state. Trump responded by raging at Woods, threatening to sideline Exxon because its leader was, in Trump's words, “playing too cute.”

Trump’s former National Security Adviser John Bolton predicted in January that, despite Trump’s claim oil companies would happily invest in Venezuela, his own actions raised questions about the financial wisdom of doing so.

“If I were an oil company executive being pressured by Trump to invest billions of dollars of capital expenditures to revive Venezuela's oil infrastructure, I would want a regime in place committed to the rule of law,” Bolton said.

This lack of political stability can, according to critics, be laid at Trump’s feet. Earlier this month retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling wrote in the conservative publication The Bulwark that although he had no criticisms of Trump’s initial invasion, he believes the administration is flying blind when it comes to how to reconstruct the country.

"One month ago, the United States launched a dramatic military operation in Caracas that ended with the capture of Nicolás Maduro and his wife," Hertling said. "The military strike was fast, precise, and unmistakably American in its execution. Within hours, President Trump and various Cabinet officials stood before cameras to declare success, describe the removal of a criminal regime, and suggest the beginning of a new chapter for Venezuela."

Hertling continued, "They implied the end of Venezuela's longstanding authoritarian leadership. Tactically, it was executed with precision. But the immediate aftermath revealed a strategic uncertainty. Even in the (Trump) Administration's first press briefings, it was unclear who was in charge in Caracas, what authority Washington claimed to exercise, and what political end state the United States was pursuing. That ambiguity has not improved with time."

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The shadowy reality of Trump’s hidden aspiration

In the wake of the U.S. incursion into Venezuela to capture the country’s then-president Nicolas Maduro, President Donald Trump made it no secret that oil extraction was part of his intention. The United States, he claimed, would “run” the Venezuelan oil industry, and that within 18 months, “Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil,” and that "This Oil will be sold at its Market Price, and that money will be controlled by me, as President of the United States of America, to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!" But while it is true that oil exports from the country have reached a 7-year high, according to a new report from the New York Times, the revitalizing industry is shrouded in secrecy, raising serious questions about who is benefiting from the country’s oil wealth.

Under Maduro, Venezuela’s oil industry was famously corrupt. The “omnipresent state oil company, known as PDVSA, had become his family’s personal estate, allowing relatives and cronies to sell oil at highly preferential terms. The patronage greased the wheels of the ruling apparatus, ensuring its loyalty to Mr. Maduro, who survived multiple crises before being captured in January by U.S. Special Forces. The opaque oil trading schemes continued right up to Mr. Maduro’s fall, and some beneficiaries have kept quietly doing business with PDVSA” now that he’s been replaced by Venezuela’s new leader, Delcy Rodriguez, who has received the personal backing of Trump.

When Rodriguez was placed in power, “Trump said the United States would control Venezuelan oil sales. Venezuela would submit monthly budgets to the White House, the Trump administration said, and the United States said it hired auditors to check receipts,” while Rodríguez “said the public could trace every oil dollar on a new website.”

“None of these initiatives, however,” writes the New York Times, “have thus far shed light on where Venezuela’s oil money has been going.”

During Maduro’s leadership, an ally named Carlos Malpica Flores was known for managing the then-president’s family wealth, much of which was derived from oil corruption. But while Maduro’s removal resulted in Malpica’s loss of direct access to crude sales, Venezuelan officials report that he is still profiting from PDVSA, whereas other oil tycoons with ties to Maduro have been detained or ostracized. It has been suggested that Malpica has so far survived the new government purge due to his friendship with Rodriguez.

Meanwhile, the oil accountability website Roriguez launched, called Transparent Sovereignty, shows only a single entry since she assumed control of the country, claiming a $300 million sale in March to an undisclosed buyer. This clashes with reports, however, that the country sold at least $500 million as far back as February.

“Venezuela’s government did not respond to requests for comment,” noted the New York Times. “The Trump administration declined to comment publicly.”

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America's biggest enemy is not Venezuela

The only United States President in history to violently attack his own country, and attempt a coup to stay in power was always going to be a threat to illegally attack other countries like Venezuela, and destabilize the entire world.

This was the greatest fear when Donald J. Trump was recklessly reelected in 2024 by a slim majority of voters in a battered country that is split apart at the seams, and gasping for air.

Trump, of course, promised these people he’d fix 90 percent of our problems on Day One, and has instead doubled and tripled them, while officially becoming the most dangerous problem the United States has ever had to grapple with.

He is a madman with the most powerful military in the world under his fat little thumb, a blank check from a Republican Congress which has surrendered its powers, and a bought-off Conservative Supreme Court that has lost its honor.

To be clear, Trump’s continued attacks on Venezuela have been illegal from the start, violate our Constitution, and have been an affront to the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

We told the people who voted for Trump this was going to happen, and while I’d like to sit here and used 225 choice words to rub their faces in it, that will accomplish nothing except blowing an old, functioning fuse.

This morning is a time for resolve, and a clear-eyed vision of the scary road ahead. We are in uncharted territory, but not because we have unilaterally and illegally attacked a sovereign nation. Lord knows there’s been far too much of that in our checkered history.

No, we are in this new, terrible place, because this time a man who has made it clear how little respect he has for the United States and its institutions is behind this latest illegal attack.

I say again: A man who will attack his own, has long since proven he is incapable of defending us and our Democracy.

In fact, he is our enemy.

So now what?

The answer is simple, and the execution will be hard: America has a dangerous dictator entrenched in its White House, who must be removed.

Starting right now, I am suggesting Congress move immediately to assemble a coalition of the willing, and announce their intent to work feverishly toward Trump’s removal.

We simply will not survive three more years of this, or even three more weeks or months at this frenetic, bloody pace, and that must be clearly articulated. Trump’s “presidency” thus far has been chaotic, brutal, and has accomplished nothing but weakening our standing in the world, and making our day-to-day lives far more challenging, expensive, and stressful.

Building consensus for Trump’s removal will be key, and cannot be done politically unilaterally. I doubt highly many Independents who voted for Trump to drop their egg prices voted for illegal, murderous foreign attacks, or Marines in our streets. I am also dubious that many in MAGA are good with Trump’s fixation on everything but addressing our skyrocketing cost of living.

This case for his removal must be taken to the public, begin apace, and the stakes must be laid out clearly: Donald J. Trump is a morally busted, mentally unstable tyrant who won’t stop until he is stopped cold.

This is classic fascism.

He is clearly unfit for the job, and the most dangerous man on Earth.

I am also suggesting the Democratic leaders throughout the world condemn these attacks and lay out the necessary sanctions against us for our illegal acts. The majority of the people in this country would support this during this time of war.

What Trump has done to Venezuela is no different than what Vladimir Putin has done to Ukraine.

Listen to me, friends around the world: We need your damn help.

When another murdering fascist, Adolph Hitler, attacked Poland in 1939 in the run-up to World War II, he justified it with lies and propaganda, which is exactly what Trump has been doing during his drumbeat for war with Venezuela and attacks inside his own country.

Already Trump’s propaganda channels at places like Fox are working feverishly to support this illegal incursion into Venezuela. These must be immediately countered with facts and vigor, and you can count this piece as but a spark that will lead to the raging fire for truth that must be kindled right now.

The only significant difference between 1939 and 2026, is that Hitler was far more popular in Germany than Trump is in America. This is problematic for Trump, of course, but will only make him that much more dangerous as he lashes out, and listens to the unhinged voices in his head, while grotesque men like Stephen Miller and Pete Hegseth tug at his sleeves.

Trump’s illegal attack on Venezuela is only the beginning if we don’t put an end to it right now. It’s not a matter of if he’ll attack again, but simply when and where.

And if we won’t do everything we can to stop this now, he will have successfully conquered the United States of America, because we will have surrendered to a traitor.

D. Earl Stephens is the author of “Toxic Tales: A Caustic Collection of Donald J. Trump’s Very Important Letters” and finished up a 30-year career in journalism as the Managing Editor of Stars and Stripes. You can find all his work here.

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Trump humiliated as Big Oil picks Canada in brewing trade war

President Donald Trump's ongoing trade war with Canada just took a major turn — and it was not in the president's interests.

"In Texas and New York, big oil and big money are placing their bets on the future of the energy industry," reported The Globe and Mail's Andrew Willis on Monday. "Major American oil companies and asset managers are lining up to invest in Canadian infrastructure. They seem to have missed U.S. President Donald Trump’s weekend Truth Social post declaring 'I don’t want Canadian anything.'"

Describing the companies in question as ExxonMobil Holdings Corp., ConocoPhillips, KKR & Co. Inc. and Apollo Global Management Inc., The Globe and Mail added that they are also steering clear of Venezuela, which Trump set his sights on earlier this year.

"The American economy runs on Canadian energy," Willis pointed out. "Last year, the U.S. imported $160-billion of oil, gas and electricity from its northern neighbour. Mr. Trump’s attempt to position Venezuela as a counter to Canada’s strongest suits is a bad bluff."

He continued, "The President’s anti-Canada policies are undermined by the actions of the largest U.S. oil companies and biggest asset managers. They are all investing in a robust long-term Canadian relationship. The larger lesson from Mr. Trump’s recent Truth Social postings on Venezuela and Canada is what they say about the President’s declining relevance."

This is not the first report to indicate that Trump's attempt to bully Canada into winning a trade war against the United States has spectacularly failed.

“As Carney prepared to walk away — a rare example of a foreign leader telling the president ‘enough’ — Trump was retreating on another trade front,” reported The Washington Post's David J. Lynch earlier in August. “On Friday, after insisting for more than a year that tariffs do not affect consumer prices, he lifted tariffs on beef imports, saying the move would lead to lower grocery prices.”

Lynch added, “The two developments, coupled with legal challenges to Trump’s tariffs, leave the president’s signature economic policy in a state of flux.”

Wendy Cutler, a former U.S. trade negotiator and currently senior vice president at the Asia Society Policy Institute, also told the Post that Trump's Canada trade war has reached “a juncture where other countries may be very closely watching how this plays out as they also are becoming increasingly frustrated with the demands the U.S. is placing on them in these largely one-sided trade agreements.”

Trump is also failing on the PR front in his trade war against Canada, most recently in trying to retaliate against Canada by renaming Lake Ontario as Lake America.

"Throughout his political career, Trump’s signature skill has been to drive the conversation where he wanted it to go. He declares victory when things have not been won," wrote Slate's Ben Jacobs on Monday. "He ducks attribution with the rhetorical tic 'many people are saying,' frequently followed by things that people are decidedly not saying. He posts outrageous graphics on social media. And, of course, he renames things: Political opponents get nicknames, buildings get Trump’s name, and bodies of water get America’s name."

Yet that has not worked with the Lake Ontario gambit, indicating that Trump's "superpower" with PR may be waning.

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