Trump Meets Oil Execs on Venezuela Investment Plans

Will Venezuela's oil wealth lower US energy costs, or is it an expensive fantasy doomed to fail?

Published 12 hours ago

Trump Meets Oil Execs on Venezuela Investment Plans

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Above: Wael Sawan, CEO of Shell Plc, from left, Ross Perot Jr., chairman of Hillwood Development Co LLC, and Claudio Descalzi, CEO of Eni SpA, during a meeting with oil executives at the White House on Jan. 9. Image credit: Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

The Spin

Pro-Trump narrative

Maduro's arrest delivers on campaign promises by disrupting narco-trafficking that fuels America's opioid crisis, stabilizing Venezuela to reduce illegal immigration and empowering American oil companies to tap the world's largest reserves to lower energy costs for American families.

The Detroit News New York Post

Anti-Trump narrative

Venezuela's oil wealth is a fantasy built on extra-heavy crude that costs more to produce than current market prices justify, requiring tens of billions in investment with no guarantee of returns given the country's history of seizing American assets and its current state of complete disarray.

The Hill CNN

Cynical narrative

Trump's Venezuelan gambit strips bare the cynicism of American interventionism: seizing a nation's wealth under democracy's banner while sidelining its actual democratic victors. His promise of "total safety" to oil executives only prioritizes corporate plunder over Venezuelan liberation.

The New York Times Financial Times