Venezuela has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, larger than Saudi Arabia.
If you think largest warship ever built, and its strike group, sailed from the Mediterranean, and are parked off the Venezuelan coast in order to intercept drug runners in speedboats, I’ve got an aircraft carrier to sell you.
The world’s largest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford, joined other U.S. military in the Caribbean Sea on Sunday, as U.S. officials announced what’s believed to be the 21st strike on an alleged drug boat.
Why it matters: The increased activity in the region comes after President Trump told reporters Friday that he’d “sort of have made up my mind” on how to proceed with Venezuela, but “can’t tell you what it would be.”
- Trump told reporters on Sunday there was “no update on Venezuela,” but he added “we may be having some discussions” with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro “and we’ll see how that turns out — but they would like to talk.”
- The Trump administration is ratcheting up the diplomatic pressure on Maduro, with the State Department announcing Sunday night that it’s declaring the Cartel de los Soles — an alleged drug gang the Trump administration claims Maduro runs — a foreign terrorist organization.
Driving the news: U.S. Southern Command, which would oversee operations in Venezuela, is executing Trump’s strikes and is a leader of the newly launched Operation Southern Spear, which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said would target “narco-terrorists” and shield the U.S. from deadly drugs, per Axios’ Colin Demarest.
Here, at a county planning commission hearing in Isabella County, Michigan, local farmer John Fabian told the group, assembled to consider a wind farm permit, what the cost of wars for oil is.
In 2025, do US oil&gas companies even want that oil at the [non-military] cost to take over the fields? This is more 20th century thinking on Trump’s part, with no plan in place more coherent than a scribbled-on coloring book.