No. of Recommendations: 3
Then how is my discussing the prospects for future oil production in Venezuela missing the point?
Because of this:
What helps Trump is if he's the gatekeeper for people to make money pumping oil in the largest oil reserves on earth. So 100%, he wants to get oil companies to boost oil production out of Venezuela, because that's where the U.S. and/or Trump personally (depending on your level of cynicism) can gain.
Now, this is a dumb idea. It's internally inconsistent to believe that there will be a massive investment in Venezuelan oil production and that prices will stay low. It doesn't make any economic sense to invest many billions of dollars in Venezuela to extract the specific type of oil they have (which is more expensive to produce and refine) at low oil prices. So they're not going to do it. God knows we don't need another "Krugman nails it" thread, but that's pretty much his point - there's no riches to be had in Venezuelan oil, because global oil prices are at a five year low.
...missing the broader context of getting Venezuelan oil into more markets so that China gets less of it and Iran, Russia and China have vastly decreased influence in the western hemisphere.
Because that's what all this is about. I get that the left wing sees "Trump is just doing X for to line his own pockets". Trump is many things. But one thing he understands better than any President we've had in a long time is who the threat is. That's China.
