Donald Trump has asked for at least $100bn (£75bn) in oil industry spending for Venezuela, but received a lukewarm response at the White House as one executive warned the South American country was currently “uninvestable”.
Bosses of the biggest US oil firms who attended the meeting acknowledged that Venezuela, sitting on vast energy reserves, represented an enticing opportunity.
But they said significant changes would be needed to make the region an attractive investment. No major financial commitments were immediately forthcoming.
Why would they? It’s a win-win. They either get significant tax payer money invested on their behalf, or the oil stays off market keeping their prices high.
Prices aren’t even that high, crude oil’s price has been on a steady downward March since the high in 2022
But taking Venezuelan oil offline might help bring global prices up, which would help Russia, which doesn’t turn a profit unless prices are high.
This is exactly it, it’s a shakedown and Trump and the party of fiscal responsibility will see to it that yet more corporations get hundreds of billions in government largess. But boy, they sure extracted that 1 bil from PBS, so I guess they’re on point.