On January 3, one of The White House’s multiple official social media accounts posted a video montage to commemorate that day’s historic military operation in Venezuela.
It begins with a clip of a defiant Nicolas Maduro shouting “Come and get me!” at a rally, then transitions to Marco Rubio’s smug remarks in Mar-a-Lago. “If you don’t know, now you know,” Rubio says, referring to the inherent peril of calling Donald Trump’s bluff.
Maybe America’s top diplomat wasn’t aware he’d channeled the late Notorious B.I.G, but the opportunity to set the whole thing to the celebrated lyricist’s final antemortem hit wasn’t lost on whoever’s in charge of the administration’s public propaganda channels.
As Maduro shouts and Rubio sneers, the iconic opening ad libs from “Hypnotize” — an “opulent stunner” that seemed to “transcend death itself,” to quote Rolling Stone and Stereogum — fade in. As Biggie sets about delivering one of hip hop’s most revered revelries, a low-angle shot of Trump striding down a gilded hall fills the frame.
Fast forward four days and the administration may want to consider another, darker, Biggie classic if The White House intends to set the latest Venezuela news to music: “Gimmie the loot, gimmie the loot!”
“I am pleased to announce that the Interim Authorities in Venezuela will be turning over between 30 and 50 MILLION Barrels of High Quality, Sanctioned Oil, to the United States of America,” Trump said, boasting of a de facto stick up.
Right off the bat, I’d note that his characterization of Venezuela’s oil as “high quality” is… let’s call it debatable. Malaysian Tapis it ain’t, although as former celebrity fund manager and current celebrity Substack blogger Michael Burry noted, Gulf Coast refineries in the US were “purpose-built for Venezuelan heavy crude.”
Trump offered few details of Venezuela’s oil surrender, but indicated the crude will be “sold at its Market Price.” The proceeds, he said immodestly, “will be controlled by me.” (Points for audacity, I guess?) He went to explain why it’s necessary that he be the sole, personal treasurer of Venezuelan oil revenue: “…to ensure it is used to benefit the people of Venezuela and the United States!”
On Tuesday, reports suggested Chevron booked “a small fleet” of nearly a dozen ships to transport crude from Venezuela. The 11 Chevron-chartered ships scheduled to dock this month count as the most since October, Bloomberg noted, adding that those vessels’ capacity is roughly 150,000 barrels a day, up 20% from December.
As discussed here on Tuesday, Trump has to let the oil flow. If not, PDVSA will have to extend the length of existing well shut-ins (and possibly close more), a highly undesirable outcome for pretty much everyone involved. As the linked Bloomberg article put it, citing Kpler, “Unless Chevron takes away more oil, [p]roduction could slump to 600,000 barrels a day by next month.”
There was no immediate word on how Trump’s oil sales will factor into that equation. He said only that the Energy Department was instructed to “execute this plan, immediately,” and that the crude “will be brought directly to unloading docks in the US.”
Simple math suggests the sales would clear about a month’s backlog for Venezuela and net close to $3 billion for… well, for somebody.
Is the world comfortable with this new rulebook?
Who can conceivably do anything about it? Even if he takes Greenland?
Trump can’t help himself because he’s really just a real estate guy. Maybe he can use his Venezuelan oil money as a downpayment on Greenland. Does Denmark have an agent or a broker we can reach-out to? All joking aside, I don’t know what the world looks like if the U.S. simply “annexes” Greenland. I now see this as a likely outcome, as it achieves two of Trump’s goals at once: taking Greenland, and dismantling NATO (as unthinkable as that may be).
Did Trump, Putin, and Xi reach some sort of agreement that each would allow the other one major incursion? (Yes, that would mean China eventually takes Taiwan vs. mere token resistance.) Look at history and that is how imperialism works: tacit agreements to carve-up the world. Are we now part of some new sort of Axis Powers? I did not have that on my bingo card.
“If you don’t know, now you know.”
Marco soooo wanted to say one more word there, but he knows he’s not notorious enough for that.
Wrote this comment as soon as I read the second paragraph. Then I read the third. It’s all good.
I’m wondering who will control Venezuela’s gold.
I’m not sure how the math works for the proposed plan, no surprise there I guess. Venezuela struggles to pump 900k barrels per day, in theory about a 1/3 is sanctioned production, the rest is basically what Chevron extracts pursuant to the special license that exempts them from OFAC sanctions. Even assuming international oil companies flow into Venezuela to restore capacity it will take at least a couple of years before the country can pump anything close to 2 million barrels per day under the most optimistic scenarios. Even if we assume the US gets all the oil extracted in Venezuela it will take at least six plus years to get to the 30 – 50 million range. I guess the Trump administration assumes they’ll be in control way longer than 2028 if they really plan to enjoy the loot. By the way, few people are aware how decimated the oil infrastructure currently is in Venezuela, PDVSA has zero ability to restore more than 10-15% of inactive wells without a significant influx of capital, personnel and technology, we’ll see. I guess the US may need that oil for the planned invasion of Greenland and the emperor can declare another national emergency.
My math is wrong, they can do it in time to enjoy the loot, oh well…