TRUMP’S OIL GRAB IN VENEZUELA
Pres. Trump announced on 8/28/26 that the US had doubled its oil reserves by appropriating 65 billion barrels of oil as “a Gift from Venezuela to the People of the United States.” (Venezuela has the world’s largest proven petroleum reserves at 303 billion barrels, followed by Saudi Arabia’s 268 billion barrels and Iran’s 208 billion.) The “gift” is presumably payment for the US capture of the Venezuelan president Maduro in January of this year. Trump has said that some of the Venezuelan oil will be used to “fill up the Strategic National Reserves, which, because of Sleepy Joe Biden, has been virtually emptied.”
Venezuela’s interim president Delcy Rodriguez, installed by the United States, has been threatened by Trump with paying “a very big price, probably bigger than Maduro” if she doesn’t toe the US line. Meanwhile, in Venezuela (pop. 29 million), “millions of everyday Venezuelans remain mired in poverty, electricity blackouts continue to plague the nation, and no date has been set for an election.”
Sources: The Guardian, 8/30/26 and The New York Times, 8/29/26